The truth is we imagined the world differently. Twenty-five years ago, as we approached the new millennium, there was a prevailing sense that we were entering an era where all the problems of the past would remain in the past.
Based on the experience humanity had gained in the 2,000 years AD, we would leap forward into a world without wars, without poverty, without misery. A utopian world, in other words.
Despite how utopian this notion was, there were elements that made us optimistic. Counting the steps taken since the end of the Second World War, we could naively believe in utopias.
Leaps were made, no one disputes that. In science, in technology… There are people among us, in the Western world, in Cyprus, who were born in times when houses had neither electricity nor running water.
And today they can speak to a device from miles away to turn on the oven and warm their food before they arrive home. In America, people can already call taxis, and soon a driverless car will park beside them, speak to them, and take them wherever they wish.
Many diseases are no longer incurable. News spreads simultaneously across the world in fractions of a second.
Despite all these advances, we haven’t moved much, perhaps not at all, from the era when the Achaeans set out to bring back Helen, fighting for ten whole years. For an empty tunic, as we later realised.
Of course, for the rulers, the tunic was neither empty then nor is it now. It’s wealth, it’s power, it’s minerals, it’s strategic passages, it’s dominance. It’s certainly not a woman. It probably wasn’t even back then.
Europe, which had said “never again shall there be ruins on our soil,” now announces a rearmament plan worth 800 billion euros (ReArm Europe).
These sums not only make one dizzy, but with whatever romanticism remains, European citizens can imagine what could be done with this amount if, instead of weapons, it were channelled elsewhere.
“We are living in the most important and dangerous times,” said the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announcing the plan. And one cannot easily disagree with her.
However, we wonder as she does: “Is Europe ready and capable of acting with the speed and ambition required?” And simultaneously: “Where are we heading? Are weapons the answer to the prevailing madness?”