Recently I saw the film Black Book, a World War II film which became the most-watched movie in Dutch history a few years back.

It's about Rachel Stein, a young, beautiful Jewish woman in the Netherlands who becomes a spy for the resistance, then falls in love with the Nazi officer she is double-crossing. A Matahari-type spy movie, it has a spectacular mix of glamor ("courtesans" and oh-so-dashing uniforms), intrigue, debauchery, resilience, corruption, opportunism, deceit, wanton wickedness and -- because Nazis are involved -- a wide selection of the astonishingly cruel and barbaric things humans do to each other.

In one chilling scene, an SS officer -- part of the elite force committing to upholding the regime's racist policies -- orders his men to massacre a boatful of fleeing Jews betrayed by their "friends", so their corpses can be looted for hidden gold and jewelry. Later, the Nazis sadistically torture captured Dutch resistance fighters.

But they aren't the only villains in the film. After the Allies arrive, the "liberated" Dutch turn their wrath upon suspected collaborators: People pour a gigantic tub of human excrement on the innocent Rachel, whom they've stripped to the waist.

Yep, Black Book is a powerful argument that humans are, in fact, inherently inhumane and violent, capable of committing the most atrocious acts, so it seems the director Paul Verhoeven -- who lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands -- has learned the lessons of history well.

After all, history tells us that World War II was hardly unique -- in fact, it was typical of long-established patterns of human inhumanity. Just look at the past decade alone, saturated as it has been with terrorism. separatism, criminality and violence along ethnic, racial, gender and religious lines. Violence continues across the post-9/11 world: War slowly destroys Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli conflict drags on and al-Qaeda and Co. remain on the prowl. Even before all this, humankind somehow survived the blood-soaked century of Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

Yes, it's hard not to believe that violence in all forms is escalating and things are steadily getting worse. It's enough to make anyone throw their hands up in despair.

Except, that is, for the experts who wrote the Human Security Report. (Find it at www.humansecurityreport.info.)

Shocked? Surely it seems hallucinatory to even suggest things are getting better. Isn't this the era of global terrorism, with the world going to hell in a handbasket? Maybe so, but the Report documents a dramatic decline in wars, genocides and human rights abuses over the past decade. The 2007 Human Security Brief even claims a sharp net decline in the incidence of global terrorism: "Fatalities from terrorism have declined by some 40 percent, while the loose-knit terror network associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda has suffered a dramatic collapse in popular support throughout the Muslim world".

Superpower "proxy wars", fueled by the Cold War, no longer plague the Third World. Armed conflicts have fallen by 40 percent. Likewise, "extremely violent conflicts" (involving 1,000-plus deaths in battle) are down 80 percent, as are military coups, deadly violence against civilians, international arms transfers, defense budgets, armed forces personnel and refugee numbers.

And if that's not enough, brace yourselves for this: we're also getting gentler and kinder! Yep, we no longer throw humans to the lions as in Roman times, meaning cruelty as entertainment just ain't on anymore (apart from Paul Verhoeven movies, that is!).

Though human sacrifice as religion, genocide to get real estate, assassination as politics, and homicide and communal wars as conflict resolution were part of life in the past, they no longer happen in the West and are far less common elsewhere. And, when they do happen, the UN, international law and transnational human rights frameworks kick in, so they are usually condemned and, in many cases, halted.

But Indonesia must be an exception, right? What about the Christmas Eve church bombings of 2000, the bombings in Bali and in Jakarta at the Marriot, the Stock Exchange and the Australian and Philippine embassies? Don't these, along with continuing ethnic, religious and separatist conflicts across the archipelago, demonstrate things are getting worse in Indonesia, justifying all those grim travel warnings (as if London and New York were bomb-free)?

It's obvious that Islamic radicalism is on the rise, isn't it, what with all those oppressive, religious-based perda (local regulations), and hardline thugs bashing anyone they don't agree with? Parliament is a mess, political horse-trading is business as usual, and corruption is still rife, weaseling its way even into the Anti-Corruption Commission.

Poverty and unemployment are widespread and human trafficking is on the rise. What about Munir, one of Indonesia's most famous human rights and anti-corruption activists, assassinated while on a Garuda flight, our national carrier, for heaven's sake?

Hah! Doesn't all that prove that Indonesia's still a dangerous, backward banana republic?

Wrong. While Indonesia faces tremendous problems and horrendous things do still happen, it is better off than it was. Over the 10 years since Soeharto fell, Indonesia has become a stable democracy and now grapples with many of the same challenges that confront other large, middle-income developing democracies like India, Mexico or Brazil.

The Jakarta think-tank Demos published a survey this month which interviewed more than 900 Indonesian "experts" on the state of democracy in the country. The survey concluded democracy here is now as entrenched as it is in India and the openness and honesty of state institutions is -- incredibly -- improving.

Indonesia's even able to play a constructive role in world affairs now, thanks partly to the diplomatic skills of our recently deceased former Foreign Minister, Ali Alatas, and his equally suave successor, Hassan Wirajuda. And -- believe it or not -- domestic and foreign investment has actually gone up this year: Between January and November it reached US$14.2 billion, well above the 12-month target of $9.92 billion. Wow! Maybe the rest of the world is finally starting to believe in us again!

Sure, there's still a zillion problems (I'd run out of work as a columnist if Indonesia suddenly became "perfect"!), but let's not lose sight of the broader historical perspective. We have a long way to go, but we shouldn't forget that the world is actually safer than it has been and we are actually starting to get somewhere at last, after six often-painful decades of nationhood.

So Paul Verhoeven, if you want a dose of optimism to counter the Black Book blues, come and visit Indonesia in 2009!

The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation.

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