CONVERSATIONS How Talk Can Change our Lives by Theodore Zeldin          In the beginning you need to know that the publication date for these words was A.D. 2000.          “Bringing people of different nations together for sport and music is useful and fun, but only long conversations can reveal the full meaning of the deep resentment felt by many civilizations toward the West.          "What we consider to be our triumphs – our freedoms, our empire or our technology—are viewed quite differently by them. Never has there been more need for conversation between civilizations, because never have they been able to inflict so much damage on each other."          “Our sensibilities are gradually changing, as more and more westerners visit India, for example, and discover what bitter memories the British Raj left, even among people who can quote British poets even better than we can remember them ourselves. The conversation between civilizations is being transformed by the new modesty which is entering our historical memories. We remember that India five hundred years ago was the richest country in the world. The more we meet different forms of gentleness and conviviality, even in misfortune, the less we can boast about our victories, the less we can be satisfied with the bitterness of so much of our own conversation. When we watch Indian dance, for example, which is a breathtakingly beautiful alternative to verbal conversation, we realize how much we still have to learn about the art of conversation.          “Our sensibilities also change when we visit the Islamic world, which at the beginning of the second millennium was the most splendid of all civilizations of the time, and when we converse with Islamic women, to discover the enormous variety of conditions they experience, in different countries, in different classes, to realize how their position has changed many times in the course of history, and how it is changing now, when we appreciate that Islam has been interpreted in ways as varied as Christianity or any other religion. God says in the Koran, “We have created you male and female and made you nations and tribes, that you may know one another.”          “Conversation puts you face to face with individuals, and all their human complexity. Our education cannot be complete until we have had conversations with every continent, and every civilization. It is a humbling experience, which makes one conscious of the enormous difficulty of living in peace when there is so much injustice, but which also gives one great hopes, every time one succeeds in having a conversation which establishes a sense of community. After such conversations, one can never be the same person again.” (pp. 91-94)          Wounded as America was, no time for talk seemed possible. The groundswell emotion was not for talk, but for retribution. There are, at least around the edges, the beginnings of conversation. Americans are slowly beginning to understand something about Islam. The Koran is beginning to be quoted. Some people are gradually beginning to understand that there are varieties of Muslim religion just as there are varieties of Christian religion. It is the starting point for conversation.          Bombs, of course, do not fix anything. They make conversation difficult, if not impossible. In the short term, at least, bombs harden the opposite sides. Rather than eliminate terrorist types, they tend to create more. The time when conversation is possible is extended rather than reduced.          To think that only 500 years ago India was the wealthiest nation in the world should cause us some pause. What would it take to assure America of more than a few centuries as “king of the mountain”? Certainly, the taking of an arrogant posture has little long-range impact. In fact, if history is a source for wisdom, the opposite is true. “Pride goes before the fall.”           Shouldn’t we be talking about these things? And shouldn’t America be seeking ways to talk “with” the people of the world rather than “to” them?          Again, it is impressive that the author should have been writing before September 11, 2001. His message is now all that more significant. I hope we may at least talk about “conversation.” Art Morgan, October 2001