The End of History… Delayed

Thirty years ago was an historically monumental time.  In 1989:

- The Soviet Union was disintegrating,

- The Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing seemingly had the Chinese communists regime on its last legs,

- The Cold War was ending in victory for the West.

The end of history, prominent historian Francis Fukuyana claimed, was at hand.  In his widely-heralded book of that year, entitled The End of History, he announced that progress had achieved its zenith.  The ideas of the West – democracy, respect for liberty, human rights and the rule of law - had vanquished their foes around the world forever more.  Henceforth, history’s tale would be anti-climactic to the sea-change that occurred in 1989.

The enemies’ demise was called prematurely.    

In fact, many in the West are today subsumed by pessimism when viewing what has happened since then.  

          - Russia is run by a dictator who has dreams of returning his nation to imperial glory apparently with broad support from his countrymen.

          - China did not expand the rights of its people

          - America fought in the Middle East against terrorism with considerable success; its efforts to plant the seeds of  “liberal”      democracy were decidedly less successful.

          What happened?  What went wrong?

          We Americans remain largely a naïve and arrogant lot.

          Of course, we know (or should) the virtues of liberal Democracy, freedom, both political and economic, respect for human rights and the rule of law.

          After all, objective reality, reason and history as well, establish that adhering to these values is in mankind’s best interest.

That is true, but so what?  Humans do indeed have reason but human nature places a higher premium on emotional needs -  feelings of security, tradition and habits.

The liberal West, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, is prone to forget that what we consider our values did not exactly bloom all at once with such force that their immediate adoption was a foregone conclusion.

Remember the Magna Carta which was the first successful effort in England to rein in the power of the monarchy?  That was in 1215, eight hundred and three years ago.  The aftermath – and general Western recognition of liberal Democratic values – evolved over the centuries that followed and did not fully blossom until the 20^th century.

So why are so many surprised by the failure of Western values to take root in the arid and infertile grounds of other nations, including Iraq and Russia?  Their heritage is not of evolutionary change stemming from the Magna Carta.  No, their antecedents are all-powerful despots, tyrannical Tsars and totalitarian dictators.

Familiarity with the writings of British statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke would have disabused American policy makers of such foolish hopes.

The enemies of the West are re-arming themselves in all sorts of ways.  The hubris of thirty years ago is now clearly out of date.  (Burkean conservatives such as The Sensible Conservative never shared the illusions of the idealists so prominent in President Bush II’s administration.The fight for our values – for the West -- is accelerating.  Will we prevail?