Let's start with the worst. Anything else
nasty
that we are likely to meet in the future can be filed away under
"challenge," but the what provides us with a real threat is
nothing more or less than ourselves. One thing that man excelled
at in the 20th century was in devising ways of oppressing
his fellow man. Half of Asia and nearly the whole of Europe at
one time became nothing but gigantic prison camps for their people,
ruled by dictators who wished to share the blessings of their iron
boot with the rest of the world. Even in the democracies freedom
was not always practiced as it should have been with races living
under unjust laws, terrible confrontations between Capital and Labour,
and the danger of "tolerance" becoming an easy excuse for imposing
conformity of thought.
Small wonder that one of the
great fears of the future was of tyranny getting a solid hold on the
world and small wonder that we all breathed a quiet sigh of relief as
predictions of Thought Police and Soma faded quietly.
Unfortunately, we've learned the hard way that just because one
nightmare is killed another one can always take its place. We
may not face a technocratic dictatorship bent on ruling us with
elaborate surveillance systems and mind control techniques, but we are
threatened by throwbacks to the 13th century who want to
bring back the Caliphate and are itching to re-fight the battle of
Tours with second-hand nuclear weapons.
