It is not true that humanity cannot learn from history. It can and, in the case of the lessons of the dark period between 1914 and 1945, the west did. But it seems to have forgotten those lessons. We are living, once again, in an era of strident nationalism and xenophobia. The hopes of a brave new world of progress, harmony and democracy, raised by the market opening of the 1980s and the collapse of Soviet communism between 1989 and 1991, have turned into ashes.
有人說人類不能從歷史中吸取教訓,其實不然。人類可以從歷史中吸取教訓,並且西方曾成功地吸取了1914至1945年那段黑暗時期的教訓。但如今,這些教訓似乎已被拋諸腦後。我們再次發現自己生活在一個充斥著刺耳民族主義和排外主義的時代。上世紀80年代的市場開放和1989至1991年蘇聯共產主義的崩潰,點燃了人們對一個進步、和諧、民主的「美好新世界」的希望,如今,這些希望已化爲泡影。