FUTURE HISTORY: THE PAST THROUGH TOMORROW

The concept of future history means that you look ahead X years and define what you want that future to be. You then determine what steps would be required to get you from now to then. Of course predicting the future is not that easy. But we can look back to the past and see what we could have done in the past to make the present what we would have liked. If we define today as D day, we can look forward to future history or back to past history. D-2000 years: In Europe the Roman Empire was in full swing. Only the First Nations people were here, living a semi-nomadic life in harmony with nature (Mother Earth) including the animals and plants on the land and in the waters. The Europeans arrived around 1500. Both France and England laid claim to this New World and began to divide it up and push the original inhabitants aside. Gradually the new arrivals outnumbered the indigenous peoples and began efforts at assimilation. D- 200 years: A good overview of this historical period is covered in the books Rise Again! The Story of Cape Breton Island, Books 0ne and Two, by the late Dr Bob Morgan. In 1817 Cape Breton Island was a colony with its own Governor. In 1820 Nova Scotia annexed Cape Breton without the consent of the inhabitants. By 1867 Cape Breton was dragged into confederation as an appendage to Nova Scotia. The trade routes shifted from North/South to East/West and prosperity fled westward. D - 50 years: In 1967 the population of Cape Breton Island was about 50,000 more than it is today. And the economy was stronger. The population decline was just beginning. The coal and steel industries had declined and would eventually disappear. D+ 2000 years and D+200 years: With the new developments in technology and the large population shifts elsewhere in the world, any predictions for these time frames would be highly speculative. As Yogi Berra said: “the future ain’t what it used to be “ D+50 years: If nothing is done and the trend of the past 50 years is allowed to continue, Cape Breton Island will die the death of 1,000 cuts or 1,000 departures per year. The overall population will be around 80,000 and many of these people will be elderly. The indigenous population will have grown much faster than the non-indigenous population with the result that the First Nations will be a larger percentage of the overall population than they are today. The economy will be smaller and weaker. So what can be done? How can we save our beautiful island from sliding into decay and insignificance? Before we can agree on specific prescriptions for the future we must agree on a description of our future history; that is, we must agree on our vision for the future. To be continued….

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