Tweeting while the world burns!

Remember the Roman emperor chap, Nero, who in 64 AD had indulged in ‘fiddling’ while Rome was burning. He has, quite understandably, been held accountable for this callous act by historians since. One was reminded of this historical bit by what appears to be recurring in contemporary history; and with a vengeance! The sole difference is that ‘fiddling’ has apparently evolved into a process bearing the contemporary process of ‘tweeting’. Fiddling is out; tweeting is in! The net outcome and emphasis, however, remains unchanged!

Several world leaders, including the president of the sole superpower, are prone to issuing tweets at the least provocation. International situation being what it is, it does appear a tad insensitive for the makers of public opinion to fly off the handle every time they have a go at their laptop! President Trump is a habitual ‘tweeter’; he boasts of issuing most ‘tweets’ from his bed! One is at a loss as to what to make of this state of affairs and, more importantly, where it can lead an accident-prone political environment to!

What has the world leadership evolved into? One was always led to believe that world leaders went through a nerve-wracking process when formulating policy, especially the ‘foreign’ aspect of it. Meetings were held, attended by the best available brains, midnight oil was burnt, feasible options drawn up and painstakingly evaluated. It was when the best options had been narrowed down to a couple or so that the head honcho (and his inner circle) went through the final process of selecting the one most feasible for implementation. If anyone thinks that this is how it works today; perish the thought.

Now the ‘boss-man’ appears to get a sudden inspiration (when in bed?); pulls out his ‘laptop’ and shoots off a tweet to an awestruck world. It is only after this is done that the ‘implementers’ sit down to decide how this tweet is to be fleshed up and in due course of time implemented. This is not to say that all such tweets will see ‘the light of the day’. The only snag is that once the tweet is public property, it is not always possible to wriggle out of it.

As things are progressing, the day may not be far off when statesmen and global leaders may well consider it expedient to start hostilities, even world wars, using the medium of texting. The only snag is that, while it may well be within the realm of possibility to start hostilities through a ‘tweet’, it may not be all that easy to bring them to a timely end!

Technology is apparently holding mankind to ransom. Happenings that once were the end result of discussions, deliberations and brain-storming are today the mere result of the touch on the button of a beastly contraption. If this were restricted to students, players or idle souls, it would be excusable, even understandable. But when the protagonists are leaders, opinion-makers and influence peddlers, the common person may be excused for breaking out into goose-pimples and worse at the mere thought of the ominous consequences of such things as ‘irresponsible tweets’!

There was a time (remember?) when much was made of such phenomenon as ‘finger on the nuclear button’ of the chosen few. What was not made public at that epoch was the fact that there was a wide chasm between theoretically having the ‘finger on the button’ and precipitate act of actually ‘pressing’ it. In actual fact, many a leader was not even fully conversant with the many steps to be surmounted prior to the decision leading to the ‘pressing’ of the said button. An already jittery world would welcome assurances that the ‘tweeting’ of leaders today too has similar safeguards.

Time may be at hand for elders and thinkers of the present era to give deeper thought to the ‘equation’ between the human mind and technology. Technology is important, even vital, to future development. But the key to future destiny of the human race may well lie in the bottom line as to who (or what) controls the fateful decision-making process!

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.