The eminent historian, 87, reflects on the reasons for the "murderous barbarism of the twentieth century", and on what the 21st might hold for humanity, if its leaders do not find a way to make a break with the past.
History's greatest living star, Eric Hobsbawm, best known for his study of the rise of capitalism, the nation-state and the age of empires, was in Delhi last week for the Nikhil Chakravarty memorial lecture. In an interview with Prem Shankar Jha, the eminent historian, 87, reflects on the reasons for the "murderous barbarism of the twentieth century", and on what the 21st might hold for humanity, if its leaders do not find a way to make a break with the past:
Prem Shankar Jha: In your memoirs, Interesting Times, whiledescribing how you became a communist you asked the question "In the 1930s,seeing what was happening around us in the world, where else was one to turn?Where could one discern any hope?" I would like, in a sense, to turn thatquestion around and ask you, what happened to the world, then, that made peopleforget their humanity? What dehumanised human beings to the point where theywere able to systematically plan and carry out the extermination of millions oftheir fellow humans?
Eric Hobsbawm: I think it can be traced back to the effect of thefirst world war. That was the first time that war was fought on an industrialscale. It was the first war in which the productive power of industry washarnessed to the task of killing one's enemies. The Germans called the battlesthat took place 'battles of mass destruction'. But at the same time, the use ofmodern technology for warfare implied the beginning of a degree of barbarisation.This was particularly a result of the war in Europe.
For example, poison gas was developed by a loyal German scientist, Haber (whowas, incidentally, a Jew) as a way of 'solving the problem of the western front'(where both sides threw hundreds of thousands of troops into suicidal attacksbut essentially remained where they were). The First world war thus introducedthe element of unlimited destruction into war and society. This concept becameso deeply rooted that it passed into language as 'Total War'. This conceptbecame central even to Lenin's thinking.
The second element was ethnic nationalism. By the time of the war the beliefthat the standard political goal was to form a 'nation state' based upon a'people' with a more or less homogenous ethnic composition was deeply embedded.This too was reinforced by developments after the first world war. WoodrowWilson's championship of freedom amounted to this for he envisaged freedom forethnic nationalities. Ethnic nationalism in a sense emptied the older concept ofthe state. The Old Powers were used to living with a multiplicity of differentcultures. They were inclusive in nature. But the ethnic state believed that somebelonged in it, while others were outside it.
A very good example was the transformation of the Ottoman Empire into aseries of nation states. The Ottoman empire was inherently tolerant and drew fewdistinctions between Muslims, Jews, Kurds and Christians. But the moment it cameto an end and the Turkish nation state was born, it adopted the policy ofassimilate or eliminate. It eliminated the Armenians. It also arranged for theen masse expulsion of the Greeks in a population exchange of Greeks for Turks,living in, what became, Greece, in 1922. Nation state formation thereforenecessarily implied the concept of ethnic cleansing. In its most extreme form itlegitimised genocide.
The third element that contributed to the catastrophe of the thirties andforties also had its roots in World war I. This was the breakdown of the 19thcentury liberal belief in unlimited, all-purpose progress. In the 19th centuryit was believed that there was a way forward towards more civilised behaviour.In politics, it meant growing constitutionality, and in international relations,greater civility in arrangements between states. A good example of the formerwas the gradual disarming of the civilian population and the limitation ofcoercive power to the state and its agents. Another is the aversion to tortureto extract information. All states, even imperialist powers, believed that therehad to be a different, and a better way to obtain information. Trial andpunishment had to be operated in a different way. Let me remember how strongthis tradition was. There was a time when the US did not want to have a secretservice. It was born of the now quaint sounding belief that gentlemen did notread each other's letters. In the 20th century these traditions, born of theenlightenment, have gone into decline.
The rules of behaviour were based on the common laws of civilisation and werecodified in the Hague Convention of 1907. But the 20th century has seen agradual but constantly losing battle between these conventions and the actualpractice of states towards their own and others' subjects. Every war has seenthese conventions flouted, and after each war there has been an attempt toreinstate these norms of behaviour. Thus, after the First World war we had theGeneva Convention. We had more Geneva conventions after the second. But theactual force of these conventions has been steadily weakened, because of theirnon-observance, often by the strongest states.
If you add these three things together - all born out of the experience ofthe First World war, you will understand why the 20th century became the mostmurderous century in human history. Winning at all costs became its centralpreoccupation, and the cost has been horrifying.
There was a brief moment, between the sixties and the eighties, when it hadlooked as if we might be gradually finding our way back towards more civilisedbehaviour. In the Soviet Union, the excesses of Stalin had been left behind andthere was very little actual persecution. Similarly in the west, while at thepeak of the cold war there had been a rash of military regimes, democracy hadgradually been restored and strengthened. But the moment was all too brief. Now,at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st there has been amassive revival of barbarism. Torture has been legitimised. The GenevaConvention is being ignored. And genocide has reappeared.
PJ. In the closing pages of of your The Age of Extremes youmade a prophetic observation: "The twentieth century ended in a globaldisorder whose nature was unclear, and without an obvious mechanism for eitherending it or keeping it under control.... The future cannot be a continuation ofthe past, and there are signs, both externally and, as it were, internally, thatwe have reached a point of historical crisis. How do you feel about the futureof the world now, 12 years later?
E.H. There are at least three forms the crisis is taking. First, thereis now the lack of any system of international relations between states. Tillthe end of the Cold War, international relations were based more or less uponthe principles enunciated in the Congress of Vienna. There was a system of greatpowers that did their best to limit the potential for conflict. This was notunsuccessful except for the period between 1914 and 1945. This has nowdisappeared. We know that for a single country to take over the management ofthe world is impractical. It cannot be done.. In any case the balance of poweris bound to shift over time.
The second crisis is the most profound and it is arising out of globalisation.Globalisation is weakening the territorial nation state, the essential frameworkwithin which the public life of citizens is lived. For various reasons, of whichglobalisation is only one, this particular form of the state is in trouble.Globalisation and free market capitalism are limiting the capacity of the stateto act. States can no longer control.. So they also cannot remedy. The citizenhas been replaced by the customer. In a discussion with (Francis) Fukuyama I hadat a recent conference, he asked me, 'But surely, there is no harm if a citizendecides to vote by what he buys'. But there is a vast difference. Forcitizenship confers not only rights but also obligations. The customer has onlythe former. For various reasons states no longer control their subjects. This istrue even of very strong states. Britain, for example could not control theinsurgency in Northern Ireland for thirty years. This is a novelty. It had neverhappened before. You have had similar experiences, and the Americans are seeinghow difficult it is, in Iraq. There has been a proliferation of lethal smallarms and explosives, and more and more of it is finding its way into privatehands. Today the state has a monopoly only of very big, super arms.
The state is equally powerless to prevent the development of enormous privatewealth and the resulting inequality in society. Individuals and small groupshave accumulated degrees of economic power that were simply unimaginable before.Today George Soros, of whom I approve, spends money on political and economicprojects he believes in at a rate that equals that of many governments. The USgovernment's statement that there has to be a state behind every terrorist groupis no longer true.
The decline in the power of the state to control the actions of individualsis not always apparent because technology has given us enormous power toaccumulate information. But this does not translate into the power to control.In terms of the effective conformation, I think that the British Raj knew moreabout 19th century UP than the British government knows about its own affairstoday.
The kind of loss of control I have described means that a large andincreasing number of problems cannot be confronted by individual states, butmust be treated globally. But no global means exists. Globalisation has affectedall things, but one is totally resistant to it. That is politics. The Kyotoprotocol is an excellent example. It can only work if everyone abides by theircommitments. But there is no global authority that can enforce compliance.
The final element of the crisis is more long term. This is the enormousgrowth of social inequality. In the past the main divide was between those whostarved and those who didn't. But today the degrees of inequality are so greatthat they are multiplying the instability of the international economy. Themajor economic crises of 1997 and 1998 and the subsequent ones are a case inpoint. In Latin America, especially in Argentina, they have created socialcatastrophe. Virtually the whole of Latin America is shifting to the Leftbecause the conviction has settled in among the majority of the people thatglobalisation is benefiting only the very rich and outsiders.
Finally, the speed of social transition is now so rapid that it is rapidlyundermining human conventions. Till a generation ago, there were rules ofrelationship. Now there are no guidelines on how to behave. Social change ishaving often bizarre results. For example, the emancipation of women, which isthe most important positive gain of the twentieth century: in Italy, within 15to 20 years, it has resulted in a situation in which women are refusing to havebabies.
PJ: Is this why you said in Age of Extremes that people havelost contact with history and live in a constant present?
EH: There is a disconnection with history. The speed of change is suchthat traditional links between past and present have disappeared. But moderntechnology is also responsible. In the 20th century, it has operated in aproblem solving mode to which history was irrelevant. We have been schooled intobelieving that there is a technical solution to every problem, from building abridge to building democracy. So History is no longer necessary.