I have not really known what to say or write lately, as the good people around me commiserate the fast-as-a-Tesla Trumpian unravelling of the US state architecture – and with it our collectively held norms of decency, the multilateral system and international solidarity, as first round victims.
Even a dyed-in-the-red-wool leftie like me can only watch aghast as the corporate plunderers of our collective pantry rip up their diversity policies to fit in with the new Nazi saluting zeitgeist. Even the most misanthropic cynic must have read with some revulsion the instruction to the besieged people of Gaza that they find new homes abroad, while their homeland is redeveloped into a Middle Eastern Riviera under US ownership. Whoever took the official photo of the inauguration of the new Belgian government has an artist’s eye for the sombreness of these times.
I have sympathy with those who look to our remaining system levers for countering this wave of harm – yet this is akin to pleading with the Romanian Communist Party hierarchy in the autumn of 1989. Our own apparatchiks are busy dining out on the scriptures of the last four decades, offering up a smorgasbord of regurgitated delusions of growth and deregulation for competitive advantage.
The way forward from here is closer to faith than it is to town planning. It’s no bureaucratic challenge, but a test of our essential character. If we are better than this, we ought to congregate and be counted. Name what we are and should be and do the hard work to make it happen. It’s a return to integrity.
Join us for a fiercely hopeful conversation
In the Deep Thought series, Andreea offers opportunities to interrogate our ideas of what is normal and desirable in society. Together we walk towards the mindset shifts that are needed to protect our planet, make the world safe and ensure lives and dignity and meaning for all. Deep Thought is a space for courage and authenticity, with no stone left unturned. We build trust, encourage each other and take action together.
