No problem looks too large or too difficult for Chris Patten to tackle. His new book, What Next? Surviving the 21st Century (2008, Allen Lane, 491 pages), contemplates the world's troubles, including war, crime, poverty, global warming, food and water shortages, diseases, globalization and human-rights abuses.
Being more thoughtful and intelligent than most earthlings, Patten, once Hong Kong's governor, easily fills the pages with valid theories, hints on the best way forward and suggestions for world leaders. Sadly, he fails to give a full blueprint to solve any of the problems.
“As ever in human affairs, there are better and there are worse ways of going about coping with the predicament of living together on this planet. So do not expect this book to provide a manifesto or manual for survival. What it aims to do is to suggest ways in which realistic liberal internationalists should try to answer today's and tomorrow's principal problems and shape a better future.”
Eleven years have passed since Patten sailed away after a “handover” ceremony to switch Hong Kong sovereignty to the Chinese mainland. Previously, he was a leading British Tory politician. After leaving Hong Kong, Patten became the European Commissioner for External Relations. Now he's co-chairman of the International Crisis Group and of the Anglo-Indian Round Table. He's also the chancellor for Oxford and Newcastle universities.
For much of the past decade, Patten, the politician turned governor turned author, has hunkered down at a desk, always writing. His previous titles include: Not Quite the Diplomat and East and West.
Patten writes candidly and eloquently, often with wit. For example, he asks, “So what is it – blind but blogging – that slouches (onto the international stage)?”
People and nations never achieve perfection: “Whether European empires, for example, were enlightened or not is rather beside the point. Proud as I am of many of the things achieved abroad in my own country's name, the truth is that European empires were enlightened when it suited them and utterly murderous when it did not.”
Despite the burden of the planet's problems, Patten remains optimistic. He refuses to scribble “a few blithe prescriptions with the strained cheerfulness of a doctor who knows a goner when he sees one”. Instead, he “offers a little hopeful context, warns against blind alleys and culs-de-sac, indicates some priorities and offers a few thoughts on how we can behave as citizens.”
Such a diverse, all-encompassing book needs an unusual assortment of poignant photos. On one side of a page, a child treks for water in Uttar Pradesh, India. On the other side, people spray and splash to achieve ‘the cleanest sports utility vehicle on the block”. Other images show smoking, gun-toting children, baton-waving police chasing Tibetan monks, Pakistani posters glorifying suicide bombers and the misery of a Rwandan refugee camp.
Ultimately, “given our ability down the millennia to muddle through, I find that mildly reassuring,” the author writes.
Many readers may wish for Patten to delay any plans for more writing in favor of returning to politics. The British people might do better with a swashbuckling Prime Minister Patten, not the drab Gordon Brown.
Then Patten really could tackle world problems. What better way to answer the question: What Next?
Approval rating: 79 per cent.
For more information: www.penguin.com
(November 13, 2007)
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