La Belle Époque
That's right. Going to university allows me to write my post titles in French.
Anyways... I'm taking a fourth-year course right now, on the History of Modern France... and the professor was referring to a period in French history known as the "beautiful era" or essentially the "good times", to which the French continuously look back upon with nostalgia as an era that developed French culture, saw peace between France and its neighbours (a peace that they knew was bound to be broken), and was just overall, a good time.
I think in every life, there has to be something similar to that. Many people think that western civilization will never beat the "good times" of the 1990s. It obviously will, but probably not anytime soon.
The 1990s were a pretty good time. I personally think that it actually was the west's La Belle Époque. Sure, some of us here in BC got screwed over by a political situation that resulted in two successive, 5-year-long NDP governments, but on the whole, things were pretty good.
- Fears over nuclear war were essentially over. The Cold War was finished... And the west (the USA) had won.
- Relative freedom was spreading in Eastern Europe.
- The economy boomed around 1994.
- The thing that dominated US presidential politics focused around an affair, not a war. (even though, I optimistically believe that Iraq will lead to peace in the long term.)
- Even though there was rampant corruption in many quarters of the Canadian federal government, there was an unquestionable rightward tilt among the federal liberals which resulted in Canada's first balanced budget in a quarter century. Paul Martin probably delivered a more conservative budget in 1995 than most people remember.
- The west was relatively ignorant of Islamic extremists. (Ignorance is bliss, right?)
- Because of the ignorance, security and travelling issues were a lot more laid back. Travelling to the USA or anywhere else was much less of a hassle.
- For my Sikh youth friends in the USA, slurs such as "paki" and "turbanator" were slowly but surely being replaced with a sense of tolerance, until that new slur (Osama), pushed back the level of cooperation and friendship ten years between "brownish" students and white students in thousands of high schools.
And as with all nostalgic periods, we overlook the fact that there were many problems as well. Bosnia and Rwanda among dozens of other conflicts resulted in the deaths of millions. Japan's economy collapsed. America's own economy was being built on investment into the potential of dot coms that never truly materialized. However, things in the west were generally pretty good.
I think the main problem George W. Bush had in the past election was in communicating his vision that his foreign policy was one that would ultimately lead to peace. I think he did a pretty decent job of conveying that vision, but even so, its still pretty scary to watch history unfold infront of us. None of us knows whether long-term peace in the middle east, or in many other places will take hold over the next decade or so. If it does, then maybe we'll witness a period better than the 1990s sometime soon... if not, we might yet have to wait a few decades. It'll come though... eventually.
Anyways... I'm taking a fourth-year course right now, on the History of Modern France... and the professor was referring to a period in French history known as the "beautiful era" or essentially the "good times", to which the French continuously look back upon with nostalgia as an era that developed French culture, saw peace between France and its neighbours (a peace that they knew was bound to be broken), and was just overall, a good time.
I think in every life, there has to be something similar to that. Many people think that western civilization will never beat the "good times" of the 1990s. It obviously will, but probably not anytime soon.
The 1990s were a pretty good time. I personally think that it actually was the west's La Belle Époque. Sure, some of us here in BC got screwed over by a political situation that resulted in two successive, 5-year-long NDP governments, but on the whole, things were pretty good.
- Fears over nuclear war were essentially over. The Cold War was finished... And the west (the USA) had won.
- Relative freedom was spreading in Eastern Europe.
- The economy boomed around 1994.
- The thing that dominated US presidential politics focused around an affair, not a war. (even though, I optimistically believe that Iraq will lead to peace in the long term.)
- Even though there was rampant corruption in many quarters of the Canadian federal government, there was an unquestionable rightward tilt among the federal liberals which resulted in Canada's first balanced budget in a quarter century. Paul Martin probably delivered a more conservative budget in 1995 than most people remember.
- The west was relatively ignorant of Islamic extremists. (Ignorance is bliss, right?)
- Because of the ignorance, security and travelling issues were a lot more laid back. Travelling to the USA or anywhere else was much less of a hassle.
- For my Sikh youth friends in the USA, slurs such as "paki" and "turbanator" were slowly but surely being replaced with a sense of tolerance, until that new slur (Osama), pushed back the level of cooperation and friendship ten years between "brownish" students and white students in thousands of high schools.
And as with all nostalgic periods, we overlook the fact that there were many problems as well. Bosnia and Rwanda among dozens of other conflicts resulted in the deaths of millions. Japan's economy collapsed. America's own economy was being built on investment into the potential of dot coms that never truly materialized. However, things in the west were generally pretty good.
I think the main problem George W. Bush had in the past election was in communicating his vision that his foreign policy was one that would ultimately lead to peace. I think he did a pretty decent job of conveying that vision, but even so, its still pretty scary to watch history unfold infront of us. None of us knows whether long-term peace in the middle east, or in many other places will take hold over the next decade or so. If it does, then maybe we'll witness a period better than the 1990s sometime soon... if not, we might yet have to wait a few decades. It'll come though... eventually.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
1:44 PM
2 Comments:
The starting of the 90's was when KPS Gill came onto the scene i believe and killed many Sikh youth and men. Also resulted in the end of 'militant' campaign for Khalistan.
There was never any coherent campaign for Khalistan. It was an uncoordinated movement resulting as a consequence from the utter devastation and shocking actions committed by the Indian government.
Most true Sikh leaders were killed in the mid 1980s.
Its true that KP Gill killed many Sikhs between 1991 - 1993, but that's when the "movement" (if you want to call it that) was already basically dead.
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