New millenniun, new beginnings?

As we turn the page and enter a new Millennium editorial writers everywhere will be expressing thoughts, visions of both gloom and utopia, exhortations and lamentations. What else is there to be said?

Some of the most appropriate utterances for the new century are not new at all. To take just one example, `Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' if applied on a wide enough scale, would make the future unrecognizable from the past.

In our Guest Column, Abdul-Nabi Isstaif calls for `partnership at all levels' rather than the clash between peoples, nations and civilizations that some are predicting. One barrier to partnership is the failure to look beyond our own interests. Certainly some in the developing world feel that our western news media give undue prominence to events here whilst largely ignoring the bigger `fires' of the poor world--the endemic poverty, the cancer of corruption, poor commodity prices, and the exploitation of cheap labour.

If we in the West showed the same concern for the prosperity and wellbeing of the rest of the world as we do for our own, these `fires' could gradually be put out.

Despite all the hype about the roll-over of the century, Christmas 1999 is no less cause for celebration than any previous Christmas. Those of us who call ourselves Christians have a particular responsibility to live out the `Golden rule'. The parable of the Good Samaritan makes it clear that anyone who is in trouble, whatever their culture or religion, is our `neighbour', and must be cared for according to their needs.

If we can commit ourselves to this simple yet demanding task--and apply it to other nations as well as individuals--the world will certainly notice the difference in the new century.

Whatever the new Millennium brings--and the one thing we can be sure of is that it will not have been predicted--we take our human nature with us; and the tendencies towards self-interest, prejudice and indifference will remain. There will always be an urgent need to seek God's help in overcoming such weaknesses. In doing so we can address the root causes of division between nations and cultures.