第二十五章
LOOKING BACK ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
—for Nelson Mandela
Standing on the riverbank of time
Standing on a vantage point belonging to spirit
I look back upon the Twentieth Century
Just now I have no tears
Joy and agony have grown alien to me
I seem to stand in an alternate space
As I scan an amazing segment of human history
For a fact, in these hundred years
War and peace were never far from us
And denunciations of violence never ceased
Some people sang of freedom
Some offered themselves up for democracy
But tyranny and mistreatment were the lot of all too many
For a fact, in these hundred years
Countless memorable fantasies took birth
Yet disasters followed on their heels
For a fact, in these hundred years
Multi-racial humanity reached a newly civilized peak
For which we all have wept tears of gratitude
In our respective corners of the globe
O Twentieth Century
You let some people cheer for peace
But darkened the eyes of others with hatred
You sent black people onto the streets, calling for human rights
Then you allowed slaughter and violence to erupt in their homelands
You let us make the acquaintance of Karl Marx
You also let us meet with Friedrich Nietzsche
You let us see Einstein propose the theory of relativity
Then let us watch him become a Christian in the end
You reduced the thought of giants to emptiness
While printing the pronouncements of a nobody as truth
You spread the fascist doctrines of Adolph Hitler
And you publicized the pacifism of the sage Gandhi
You allowed socialism to win success in certain countries
While letting the international workers’ movement ebb away
In an age that spawned Freud’s doctrine of pan-sexuality
You glorified Khomeini and the Islamic revolution