A crossroads for humanity: Unity or survival of the fittest

Editor's note: Stephen Brawer is the chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden and a distinguished research fellow of the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The increasing turbulence in world affairs leaves not a shadow of doubt that humanity is facing unprecedented challenges in our time. U.S. military action of forcibly taking Venezuela's president to the U.S. soil, the proposed American takeover of Greenland, and a new threatened American-led military intervention against Iran are all driving humanity into a rapid descent into barbarism and "the law of the jungle."

Policy decisions are increasingly made not upon recognized international agreements, such as those founded in the UN Charter or the Peace of Westphalia, but rather upon the basis of raw power, or being prepared to use – or threatening to use – brute force, to carry out and execute self-defined policy interests. In this context, humanity is looking down into the abyss of self-destruction.

This rapidly evolving reality of dividing nations and governments into geopolitical blocks will not solve the increasing tension, nor will it avoid the danger of world conflict or world war. 

Self-destruction is a distinct possibility, yet thankfully not inevitable.  Solutions to this extremely dangerous crisis exist, yet they are neither simple nor self-evident. The recent Global Governance Initiative (GGI) proposed by China lays the basis for a different direction in international affairs. It emerges out of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), whereby "a community with a shared future for humanity" would replace the most blatant abuses of brute force and self-interest that are leading the world directly into the "law of the jungle."

The question of whether the exercise of power should be shaped by underlying principles of sovereignty and respect for "natural law," or solely determined by the ability to wield whatever force that is available to achieve the sought-after goal, has long defined the struggles of peoples, nations and empires throughout the recorded history of humanity. 

Yet, human history is now entering a period of unprecedented change in which all the parameters of human civilization are being tested. This includes issues of economic development, of science and technology, of security and military defense, as well as issues involving music, poetry, dance, art and virtually all forms of so-called culture or entertainment.

These issues will not simply be resolved within the everyday activities of daily life. They require a new assessment of thought processes within the more profound framework of reflecting on deeper philosophical and theological questions. This means a rejection of the commonly accepted ideas of history as a series of mechanical events passing from one moment to the next. In fact, historical processes are curved in space and time and can impact future developments.

Human beings are the only creatures in all of earth-based creation which we know of, which have this unique ability to reflect, understand and act on the universe. We can draw on highly relevant past universal concepts and apply them to solve the difficulties we are encountering in this most challenging turbulent time. 

Precisely because history is not mechanical and the human mind is not confined to simple sensory input, human beings can reach back in history through creative minds and in harmony with a universe that is shaped, not randomly, but harmonically with musical and mathematical truths. These principles have enabled human civilization to advance relatively yet absolutely beyond the primitive, predatorial and bestial behavior of earlier times. This is how humanity can effectively rise above and defeat the uncivilized behavior and thinking of the followers of the "law of the jungle."

The GGI as well as the Global Civilization Initiative, the Global Development Initiative and the Global Security Initiative all have the potential to direct humanity in a much-needed new direction. The cultural matrix of China for more than 5000 years has been based on a more deeply embedded idea of the common good. The whole of society in general is guided by ethical principles of cooperation and friendship. Therefore, the essence of the BRI and a "community with a shared future for humanity" already had substance in the thinking of Chinese people.

However, Western European civilization has had a very different cultural matrix.  Fundamentally, since the rise of colonialism more than 500 years ago, there has been a dominant, yet not exclusive cultural matrix based not on the common good but rather "the survival of the fittest." The idea maintains that the strong survive and rule, and the weak are exploited, abused or enslaved.

This cultural matrix has deeply impacted the thinking of Europeans. They are generally cynical and very pessimistic about even the possibility of achieving a general international policy where the rights, freedom and sovereignty of all peoples and nations can be established and respected. This paradox in thinking between China and Europe has divided the world into the two camps: one for "a community with a shared future for humanity" and the other for "the law of the jungle." 

The present policy and behavior of the Trump administration of "America First" is a clear reflection of radical chauvinism at work, as is his Israeli ally Benjamin Netanyahu's "greater Israel." Embedded within this mindset is a growing dependence on militarism and use of force to reach their so-called objectives.

How to address this paradox is challenging. The problem will not be solved superficially or even by pure empirical diplomacy. It requires a return to the thinking from a historical period where the search for bridging and building that deeper understanding between Europe and China was alive and vitally active. The writings of the Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (known in China as Li Madou) "On Friendship" and Gotfried Wilhelm Leibniz's "Writings on China" are characteristic of an age which had all the makings of a successful cross-cultural understanding and friendship between Europe and China. 

However, what that period of history failed to fully, successfully achieve, remains for our present civilizations of China, the West and the wider world to devote ourselves to accomplish now within the tasks at hand.

The hope for true global governance lies in recognizing that humanity's unique character is to discover the guiding principles of a harmonically ordered universe where power is connected to those principles of goodness. That is the unseen yet at the same time true nature of how the universe works.

The so-called realists and pragmatists who define "the law of nature" as the unrestricted power to impose their will on anyone who questions their authority is a strategy that only leads to predatory behavior and the law of the jungle. Acting upon that characteristic will bring the fate of humanity closer to the dinosaurs, whose fate was extinction.

When we remember and promote the distinguishing characteristics of human beings, our fate can be very different. Let the voice and spirit of human creativity and beauty guide us in optimism. As one Chinese professor and friend recently stated, perhaps there will soon come a new global trust initiative. That could well be necessary, but for it to succeed, it will mean that humanity as a whole abandons simple self-serving interests as primary, and instead, joins hands for a community with a shared future.

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