A world divided

Call it post-post-September 11. The world8217;s attention has wandered away from international terrorism and everybody is once again on a different page

Late last week you could have been forgiven for thinking that the Star Wars era had begun. Space-age computer graphics dominated the news: Satellites orbited the globe, target sites throbbed on interactive maps of Europe and the Middle East. The talk was of Russia and Iran and of whether high-tech missile defence equipment might endanger human health. The pictures, in the wake of the Group of Eight summit, were of statesmen: George Bush8217;s helicopter landing at a Polish beach resort, Vladimir Putin giving interviews 8220;I am a true democrat8221;. At any rate, that was the news and the talk, and those were the pictures, if you happened to be living in Central Europe.

If you happened to be living in Britain late last week, you saw something different. On the BBC, the same day8217;s coverage, following the same summit, focused almost entirely on news of 8230; Africa. The talk was of AIDS drugs, malaria cures and poverty, not of missile defence. The pictures were of ageing pop stars: Bono and Bob Geldof, bitterly attacking the world8217;s statesmen 8220;creeps8221; for failing, again, to offer enough aid.

On the other hand, if you were living in Germany, the news was different again. Judging from their media, the Germans appear to believe that the leaders of the world met, above all, to discuss 8230; climate change. The German press crowned Chancellor Angela Merkel 8220;Miss World8221; because she apparently persuaded George Bush to 8220;seriously consider8221; halving global carbon emissions by 2050 8212; a statement that, by the low standards of G-8 summits, counts as an enormous triumph. And of course the pictures, in Germany, were of melting ice.

I am exaggerating here to make a point: In fact, the Germans did mention Africa a few times, as sort of an afterthought. But it8217;s not exaggerating at all to say that the events of the past week 8212; and the wildly divergent international news coverage that accompanied them 8212; illustrate a profound transformation that has taken place, slowly and quietly, over the past several years. Call it post-post-September 11, or maybe just a return to status quo ante: Either way, it8217;s pretty clear that that brief moment of consensus 8212; those very few years when the world8217;s most powerful governments all believed that the world8217;s worst problem was international terrorism 8212; has now passed. Once again, everybody is on a different page: Some think the worst problem facing the world is climate change, some think it8217;s poverty in Africa and some think it8217;s the need for a missile defence shield, while others think that all are irrelevant by comparison with Iraq. And once again, Americans are more interested in their own problems than those everywhere else. As far as I could discern, in the United States the main news coming out of last week8217;s summit was that President Bush had a stomachache and missed some of the morning meetings. The world8217;s attention has wandered away from international terrorism 8212; and so has ours.

Time has passed 8212; more than five years now. The Iraq war has distracted the American administration while failing to provoke sympathy or solidarity anywhere else. The Bush administration itself appears to be on its last legs, which means its agenda isn8217;t taken seriously anywhere, not even in the US. Most of all, though, the world8217;s divided attention proves once again that global Internet access and global television have not created anything resembling a global conversation. On the contrary, the BBC fights hard for its viewers, so it tells them what will interest them; the German press fights for its readers, who care most about climate change; and so on. It8217;s not just that different readerships hear different opinions; the actual news events covered differ as well. For all the cant about globalisation, the world is as provincial as it ever was, maybe even more so. Despite the terrorist attacks in Britain and Spain, the absence of another attack on the scale of the WTC has meant that the world8217;s attention is no longer singularly focused and that the perceived need for international unity has diminished.