Wheel Of History Moves Forth

Karl Marx has said history repeats itself first as tragedy and second as farce. Similarly, Mark Twin is believed to have said that history does not repeat but it only rhymes. Indeed, history does not repeat in the same manner as it happened in the past. Some events may seem to be identical to the events of the past but history never occurs in the same manner. People may be nostalgic for certain events of the past and they have every right to daydream. But the wheel of history can never roll back and has not been so since the human civilisation began. 

Politics is a game of possibilities and different kinds of narratives are created in politics. Narratives shape the course of politics. Political ideologies are also narratives that have moulded the minds of the people in the world. At times, feudalism had its heyday everywhere in the world. Capitalism replaced feudalism at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The invention of the steam engine marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and changed the course of production, economic nature, social behaviour, demographic pattern and political discourse. 

Digital age 

The invention of electricity marked the beginning of the second Industrial Revolution whereas the computer heralded the third stage of Industrial Revolution. Now we are in the fourth phase of the Industrial revolution or digital age with the invention of the internet. The world is soon enter the fifth stage of the age of artificial intelligence. Society is constantly moving forward and it can in no way look back politically, economically, technologically or socially. 

However, some newer twists and turns at home and abroad have sparked debate in the national political spectrum as well as in international politics. Donald Trump’s victory in the United States of America and his policy announcements are likely to polarise the international arena while creating newer alignment and realignment in international politics. In the present global power architecture, the US, China, Russia and India are the major powers. The United States designates China as the acute global threat, Russia as a threat in the European theatre and India as a potential ally.  The Trump administration, thus, seems to be working on weakening China, for which it has focussed on alienating Beijing.

 Although China is way behind the United States in terms of economic power, military and technological strength, the US wants to make sure that it may not pose a threat to Washington’s global dominance and hegemony. For this, Washington has adopted multiple strategies and alliance systems across the world particularly in the Indo-Pacific Region. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation of NATO is a US-led transatlantic security alliance that is directed to ensure security in Europe from Russia. However, the Trump administration is focussing on Russia-China decoupling and alienating China from the rest of the global powers. Trump administration’s formula for ending the war in Ukraine aims at appeasing Putin’s Russia and distancing Moscow from Beijing. If this formula at all works out, Trump may succeed in alienating China.

 At the same time, there has been growing hobnobbing between Trump and India’s Narendra Modi which was visible in Modi’s visit to Washington in February this year. In the joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Modi, Trump indicated the US’ policy shift in South Asia as Washington may look at South Asia through New Delhi’s prism. In a question asked by a journalist about the US position on Bangladesh’s recent political developments, Trump said ‘I leave Bangladesh to the Prime Minister (Modi)’ indicating Washington’s policy of hobnobbing with India in South Asia. Its impact is also likely to be on other countries in the region including Nepal. 

The world is witnessing change both in politics and geopolitics. Once there had been sharp polarisation in the world on an ideological basis. The world was divided into two camps —the liberal democratic camp and the socialist/communist camp. However, the ideological divide ceased to exist with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in eastern European countries, which American political scientist Francis Fukuyama called the ‘end of history’ stating that the ideological rivalry came to an end in the world.

Similarly, Samuel Huntington, another American political scientist, called the international political trend in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union as the ‘Third Wave’ of global democratic resurgence. Huntington went one step further and came up with the ‘Clash of Civilisation’ thesis. Huntington’s new thesis states that the main source of conflict in the world would not be political but cultural and religious identities meaning now the conflict will be not between countries but between cultures or civilizations. 

However, this was neither the end of history nor was it the beginning of a clash of civilisations. History is the continuous process and evolution of human civilisation. In the political process, political narratives continue to have dominant roles which are called ideologies. So ideologies always have a greater role in politics. Since the early 1990s, the liberal democratic order or capitalist democracy has a dominant role whereas the socialist model went into defensive mode. But the liberal democracy, too, is slowly coming under assault with far-right trend rearing its head worldwide. Even in democratic countries, elected authoritarianism is on the rise, which scholar Larry Diamond calls the ‘democratic recession’. As a result rightist populism has been the newer political phenomenon in the world. 

The end of history connotation, too, is an academic fallacy. History never ends as long as human civilization continues to exist. History ends only when the human civilisation ceases to exist. In modern times, the political process is part of human civilisation. In the political process, the existence and role of ideologies always remain valid. So the ideological conflict may have been latent, but it continues to exist. Similarly, the Cold War, too, has not come to an end but it has remained dormant for some years and is now on the cusp of resurfacing. 

The Cold War remains in place as long as international power politics continues.  Now the new Cold War is re-emerging in different forms and with different actors. With newer power politics in the different international theatres including Asia, Nepal is likely to face a fresh challenge in its handling of foreign policy and diplomacy for its survival, development and stability. But the wheel of history will always move forward. 

(The author is former chief editor of this daily and former ambassador. lamsalyubanath@gmail.com)