Radical Change
The earth, we are told, evolved over millennia, gradually
forming its mountains and rivers, its deserts and lush jungles, within which
its flora, fauna and human societies evolved. This process took 4.5 billion
years. We are lulled into the stretched
out unfolding of time and our daily concerns seem a speck on a speck of a vast
universe.
As the seasons turn, we are reminded of Nature’s process of
gradual change. It has inspired personal life lessons as well as the philosophy
of social evolution. Yet the earth has also seen dramatic single events that have
generated radical change.
A mass extinction event 65 million years ago, wiped out
three quarters of life on earth including all dinosaurs, but created conditions
for the sudden surge in diverse mammal species and birds that populate the
planet today. On a smaller scale, earthquakes, tsunamis, and pandemics
throughout history have altered landscapes and societies.
Human society has also recorded sudden events. Invasions by
the mysteriously named Sea Peoples between 1250 -1150 BCE, brought about the collapse
of three civilizations - the Mycenaean Civilization in Greece, the Hittites in
Asia Minor, and the New Kingdom in Egypt, the great powers of the time. The
Elite were wiped out, while nomadic pastoral communities gained power, creating
new economic and political structures. Most
significantly people lost the knowledge of writing for hundreds of years.
Rapidly growing religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and
Islam brought about major change by creating belief systems, moral codes and
cultural boundaries that instantly transformed its adherents.
The atomic bomb attack on Japan initiated the Cold War
between USSR and USA, a tussle for power that still affects world politics, economies
and warfare, almost 80 years on.
Sometimes individuals trigger a sequence of events that
generate enormous changes. The explorer Zhang Qian returned to Han China from
his travels in 138 BC, with a proposal for trade with the west leading to the
establishment of the ‘Silk Road’.
New ideas and inventions have opened up new directions. When
al-Fazari developed the astrolabe in the 8th century, he paved the
way for navigational exploration which eventually led to centuries of European
colonization.
George Braque and Pablo Picasso inventing Cubism in Picasso’s
Bateau Lavoir studio in Paris, made a radical break with traditional European
art that opened the floodgates of experimentation.
Two Chinese soldiers captured during the Battle of Talas in
751 AD are said to have revealed the secret of papermaking to the Arab
conquerors, who soon established papermaking centres across their Empire.
Papermaking spread to Europe in the 12th Century inspiring the
invention of the printing press in the 15th Century. A total of about 130 million books are
estimated to have been published since then.
Al-Khwarizmi’s monumental work on mathematics in the 9th
century led to his name being used to denote algorithms, which today power
Google, social media platforms, marketing strategies and numerous artificial intelligence
(AI) applications.
The latest fast spreading invention is the Bitcoin
introduced in 2009 as peer-to peer transactions, bypassing banks and state
control and quietly creating a truly international currency.
At a personal level people may also create radical change in
their own lives, such as taking vows to become a nun, migrating to another
country, acknowledging a transgender identity, or committing all one’s time to
a cause.
People are both nervous of, and yet long for, radical change,
feeling trapped by age old manipulative politics, social and economic inequality,
and a world of judgements rather than justice.
The revolutionary singer Bob Dylan
believed in the 60s “The times they are a changin’”, but reflects doubts in
2000 : “People are crazy and times are strange/ I used to care, but things have
changed”.
Durriya Kazi
February 10, 2023
Karachi
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