The times of the planetary tribes

A magnificent painting by Rubens, Cain killing Abel (detail) appears on the cover of the book. Another allusion to confrontation and violence between brothers.

«For me, religion will never be relegated to the oblivion of history, neither by science, nor by any doctrine, nor by any political regime. The more science progresses, the more the man will have to consider its purpose. The God of "how?" Will one day end, but the God of "why?" Will never die.»

Mistrust is the key word for Maalouf in these times. Mistrust with regard to politics, science, modernity... The 20th century has been a century of great achievements but also of unforgivable crimes... Mistrust of everything that appears as global or planetary.

Mister Maalouf hopes that all of us will be part of a kind of planetary tribe, where capitalism will gradually become more social and communism less and less dirigisme, to converge on the same thing. And the same expectation of religions, that they would join in a vast comforting syncretism.

Can be. In this third stage of History —according to Toynbee— where knowledge is progressing more and more rapidly and the spread of this knowledge is still faster, it could well happen that in a few future generations everything will be an amalgam of ideas from the right and from the left, although I do not believe it.

If you, reader, has been following me since my first Borstals, you will have already noticed what´s my opinion about politics, economics and football! We are all forced to belong to a Club if we want to enjoy some minimum advantages and there´s never going to be a single club, because it´s substantial that there must be another club that disputes the power.

All the more I believe that what we will build will be a planetary English language, result of a vaste syncrétisme réconfortant; but religion and especially money, will be closed preserves.

The writer ends the second section of the third chapter with a universal desire in which identity would be perceived as the sum of all our affiliations until ending up in a belonging to the human community.

Commendable wish.

From my Borstal.

LDR

Les Identités meurtrières. Amin Maalouf. Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, 1998. Edition 13-mai 2009 Paris