5 STEPS INTO
THE ASIAN MILENNIUM
The 1997 currency crisis forces East Asia to step even more quickly toward becoming the global economic center of gravity.
by H Y Nahm
PAGE 1 OF 7

No matter what kind of polite noises some may make, 2.5 billion Asians don't really accept being marginalized by1 billion Whites.

owadays talk about an Asian Milennium makes people nervous, Asians for one reason, non-Asians for another. "Look around you!" skeptics sneer. "Asian economies are in shambles. The dollars is better than gold, the Dow is defying gravity, there's no inflation, no unemployment. Who dominates in the military sphere, aerospace, and most importantly, global media, culture and the internet? The U.S. is soaring as far as the eye can see -- and the U.S. isn't an Asian nation, is it? How can you even breathe the words 'Asian Milennium'?"
     Less than a generation from now, when satellite-based PC/TV appliances will have mesmerized even the most isolated villagers of the Amazon, East Africa and the Indian subcontinent, more and more people will forego child-rearing to surrender themselves to the mind-numbing array of entertainment and educational options that will be available at little or no cost. Global population levels will freeze, then settle into irreversible decline as they have already done in Japan, northern Europe and white America. The U.S. population would be dropping 1% a year if not for the steady influx of youthful immigrants and robust birthrates among African American and Hispanic families. Within a decade, maybe two, global population ratios will freeze. No more demographic shift will occur to overturn the educational, cultural, population and educational forces that are ushering in the age of Asian economic dominance. We might as well call it the Asian Milennium.
     Consider the forces that led to the fall of South Africa's Apartheid government, forced England to return Hong Kong, emboldened the thirteen colonies to declare their independence from England. Marginalized majorities always reclaim their central place. No matter what kind of polite noises some may make, 2.5 billion Asians don't really accept being marginalized by1 billion Whites. You don't have to be Asian to grasp the truth of this statement.
     Yes, we can all get along -- once the majority has reclaimed the center. In a globalized world, that means the global majority. You've seen those corporate image ads in which U.S. corporations pay token homage to their supposedly global vision. But notice how the Asian face is invariably female while the White and Black faces are male? That lays it all out with crystal clarity. The white males who conceive and approve the ads want to project racial tolerance but avoid giving equal time to Asian males whom they perceive as an economic threat. So they think to have their cake and eat it too by including a black man and an Asian woman -- universal yet compatible with cherished notion of white-male centrality. Do I understand the impulse? Sure. Do I like putting up with it? The answer is obvious to any realist.
     A pyramid set securely on its base will stand for countless milennia. But contrive to balance it on one of its faces and it will soon crumble and topple. At the moment the global power structure is akin to a pyramid balanced on one of its faces. Gravity and other natural laws being what they are -- human nature being what it is -- stability, peace and equanimity endure only when anchored by the broad base, not by one narrow face. The American Constitution and the Magna Carta are long-lived documents because they heed and implement that fundamental law albeit within their limited spheres. Now their principles are being implemented on a global level. As currently balanced, the pyramid must topple and find its true base.
     But a world driven by a decent minority is preferable to the tyranny of a corrupt majority. That's why I see such compelling poetry in the so-called Asian crisis. It's the darkness before the dawn, the gasping mile before that blessed Gatorade break. The financial turmoil struck Asia at precisely the right moment. As long as Asian leaders were deluding themselves into believing that modern societies could be contained within rigid, centrally-imposed structures, an Asian Milennium would have been miserable, violent and short-lived. I'd much rather put up with offensive movies and Anglo-centric media coverage than be forced to conform to arcane notions of social norms and compelling social goals. PAGE 2

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