The sunset years

So this will be news to nobody, but it is something that has become increasingly apparent to me in the last few weeks.

‘The West’ is losing at its own game. People have been saying for years that ‘The East’ will run the future. America’s days as the unchallenged world power are over.

Take a look at what is going on. We in Europe, with all our fancy Art History degrees and cappuccinos are sitting back and watching the initiative slip away from us. Indian engineers are developing the $1000 car and politicians in oil rich Dhabi are beginning the worlds largest alternative energy program and thereby ensuring their economic success stretches beyond the oil age. Malaysia is putting satellites up in orbit almost as quickly as China is practicing shooting them down. New Delhi has built itself an air condition subway system while London falls over its own red tape and labour unions when it tries to even tinker with the edges of its. India churns out engineering and science graduates like Ford used to produce Model T’s. Young students in Paris go on the warpath when a mildly reformist president suggests that perhaps it shouldn’t be a birth right for rich white kids to receive rich white kid jobs upon graduation.

Having fought fascism in Europe and communism in Asia the West (or America more accurately) has done more than anyone to gift ‘The East’ its opportunity.

Now they are not just playing our game, they are beating us at it.

How we respond will be the most important question of the next century. Will we be like the kid who having invited his neighbour round to play, knocks the table over when he begins to lose? Or will we take it on the chin, shake hands and gracefully admit defeat and promise to try much harder next time?