Deconstructing “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”: Part I

Recently I read Yuval Noah Harari’s recent blockbuster “21 Lessons for the 21^st Century” (21L21C henceforth) in the hardbound format. I had consumed other blockbusters of the same author in audiobook format while being driven around. One drawback of consuming books in audiobook format is it is difficult to go back and re-connect various sections of book in the way one may like. I am glad I consumed 21L21C in hardbound format, as I was able to pick very glaring gaps and biases in 21L21C.

This blogpost is the first of a series posts of that I plan write on 21C21L.

In his first chapter, Disillusionment, Harari makes sweeping statements such as “In the twentieth century, nationalist movements were an extremely important political player, but they lacked a coherent vision for the future of the world other than supporting the divisions of the globe into independent nation states.” He goes on to specifically state that Indonesian nationalists had no vision for humanity as a whole.

How far is from the truth? In this world of fake news, it is sad to see a celebrated author like Harari resorting to distorting of historical facts.

In 1945, Indonesian leader Sukarno proclaimed “Pancasila” for the future Indonesian state, which included principle of just and civilized humanity as its key component. Later Chinese premier Zhou Enlai expanded on these principles and alongwith Indian prime minister Nehru proclaimed “Panchsheel” in 1954 in New Delhi. Panchsheel was widely adopted by many Asian states, as Nehru became key evangelist for Panchsheel and later became the founding principles of Non-Aligned Movement and was also adopted by the UN General Assembly.

Yes, this beautiful vision of these leaders for a just and civilized humanity has not yet fully materialized. But to say that they lacked a vision for unified humanity is simply untrue and made me wonder what motivates Harari to make such statements. After this, I have read the book with critical eye and have found many such half-truths, fake news and lies by Harari, which I will be expounding in coming weeks and months.