【The Way Of Unification】 - 6. The Cycle of Civilization Zones and the Task

[대태양/김현수]

6. The Cycle of Civilization Zones and the Task Confronting Humanity

If we look back over the history of human civilization, we come to realize that the ancient civilizations all began as tropical civilizations. In other words, the birthplaces of the ancient civilizations were tropical regions.

The Mayan, Incan, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and China's Yellow River civilizations were all ancient civilizations whose birthplaces were the tropics or subtropics. Subsequently, these civilizations moved; but if we ask where they moved, we have to say that they moved into the region of cool-zone civilizations. Our present 20th century civilization undoubtedly belongs among the cool-zone civilizations.

If this is true, how did civilizations begin in the tropics and then move into the cool-zones? If we look at the providence of nature, we can see that spring, summer, autumn, and winter follow one another in order, and even if we look at a single day we can see that it is divided into morning, daytime, evening, and night. If human civilization, therefore, should also have begun as a morning civilization (spring civilization) and then become a daytime civilization (summer civilization), then an evening civilization (autumn civilization), and then a nighttime civilization (winter civilization), why did it begin as a tropical civilization of the summer and daytime and then move into the autumn season of the cool-zone civilizations?

This happened solely because of the fall of the first human ancestors. Because of the fall of the ancestors of humankind, we have suffered unspeakably complex difficulties. As a consequence humans could not help but fall down to the level of savages and primitives. For this reason the human ancestors had no option but to live a primitive way of life in the tropics. Although humankind should have originally begun in the spring climate of a warm zone civilization, it began in a tropical civilization and then moved into the autumn climate of the cool-zone civilizations.

If we ask which civilization will come after the cool-zone civilization of autumn (Western civilization), it is the frigid-zone civilization of winter. Therefore, the north wind from Siberia, the icy cold of the frigid-zone civilization, in other words the breath of Communism, has violently swept over the cool-zone civilization of the 20th century, which is now falling like swirling autumn leaves.

It would be fortunate, therefore, if one fruit of the original ideal being were brought forth in this cool-zone civilization and could create human culture anew and also present an opportunity from which a new history could begin.

Tragically, however, this cultural sphere has reached its end without bearing fruit. If one fruit had been brought forth from this 20th-century cool-zone civilization, it would have remained as one seed of life that could have gathered even stronger life force and energy, no matter how cold the winter. Once the winter had passed, it could have sprouted as a shoot of life and blossomed as a flower of the temperate-zone civilization.

But the cool-zone civilization of the free world of today has not come to the point of fruition and produced this one fruit, but rather it is lying utterly exhausted beneath the lash and cruel blast of the bitter north wind of Communism. It is imperative that we announce the coming of the end. Therefore, the most urgent task confronting all humankind in the 20th century today is clearly the overcoming of Communism.

If this is the case, as we face the crisis of the cool-zone civilization, where must we search for the true civilization of spring, namely the temperate-zone civilization, which humanity has sought since ancient times? Originally the spring civilization was to have started from the seed of the original ideal being desired by humankind. In other words, where can we find the ideal spring civilization which God and humankind originally desired, God's ideal garden of nature out of which spring's new shoots would sprout, then blossom in the summer season's luxuriant adolescence, and finally bring forth fruit in the autumn season's age of completion? This is quite simply the most important problem facing us today. (1980.11.2)