Unsafe

As 2017 draws to a close, we wonder if the world has become a safer place for humanity.

There are enough reasons to argue it has not: that the world has become more polarized, more terrorized and more vulnerable to calamities associated with global warming. The instruments modern civilization devised to protect the vulnerable, maintain standards of freedom and encourage cooperation across communities all seem to be under profound stress.

Genocide is being performed against the Rohingya community in Myanmar and the global community seems unwilling or unable to do anything about it. This is like Rwanda all over again. An ethnic group is being eradicated from the face of the earth and the rest of humanity treats the event with nonchalance.

In Yemen, millions are malnourished and threatened by epidemics in a civil war that has become a chessboard for the regional powers. The Yemenis, who have no oil and have little of everything else, do not seem important enough to care about.

In Iraq and Syria, whole cities that were once the hubs of trade between ancient civilizations, lie in ruins. Millions remain in refugee camps. As global interest in their plight wanes, so will the flow of assistance to them. There are not enough resources to rebuild the devastated cities and, because of that, the refugees will remain in that status for many years ahead.

In Europe, nationalist forces are on the rise, prompted by reaction to the influx of refugees from the Middle East. That will, in the near future, produce policies hostile to the displaced populations in the areas ravaged by radicalism.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, terrorist attacks continue in waves, directed against the most inaccessible communities. The attacks go largely underreported and that reflects in the mainly lackluster response of the global community.

The US, under the sway of Trumpism, has effectively withdrawn from playing the role of global policeman. That has left the settling of conflicts largely in the hands of medium-sized regional powers that are parties to the conflict themselves.

Trumpism is now running head-on against global sensibility.

Last week, in a remarkable vote, the UN General Assembly rejected Trump’s designation of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. This happened despite Washington’s crass threats to cut aid to countries that would support the resolution. The vast majority of the countries did and we now wait for the US to carry out it threat.

Last month, all the countries of the world with the exception of the US met to discuss more effective means to combat global warming. The US unilaterally withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord and officially denies climate change is happening.

Trump’s regressive worldview is leaving the US increasingly isolated. In that condition, it abdicates its traditional role as leader in diplomacy, defender of democracy and protector of the vulnerable. US foreign policy is weaker, not stronger, because of that.

Trump basically ceded management of the potentially explosive situation in the Korean peninsula to China. While deploying strategic military forces in the area, he publicly undercut his own Secretary of State’s efforts to reopen diplomatic channels with the Hermit Kingdom. Security analysts are now more fearful that this situation could quickly escalate into a war no one could possibly win.

Meanwhile, climate change continues to take a deadlier toll.

The St. Thomas fire in California is now officially the state’s largest wildfire, burning down thousands of acres of parched forest and hundreds of homes. It continues to burn. Unless rains begin pouring in, it could well become the largest wildfire ever.

This week, a mere tropical storm named Vinta wrought so much damage in Mindanao. The death toll has climbed to well over a hundred. Whole villages were swept away and vital infrastructure taken down.

The polar caps are melting faster than earlier estimated. The rising sea levels resulting from this could submerge the world’s most important cities.

This year, a train of hurricanes devastated the Caribbean and the US Gulf Coast. Since Yolanda struck Samar and Leyte, our definition for “severe weather” moved to the extreme. We will likely see more natural calamities in the coming years.

It is not just the weather that seems to have turned toward the inhospitable. The social climate seems to have turned toward the unkind.

Everywhere, it seems, governments are inclined to roll back on social protection and ramp up spending on armies. The atmosphere created by the proliferation of terrorist groups induces this trend. Societies become less nurturing.

Politics everywhere, it seems, have become more polarized. The more they become so, the less communal dialogue they foster. Political engagement will tend to be animated by hate. The sense of solidarity among members of political communities erodes in the process.

That sense of solidarity made it possible for modern nations to encourage the strong to protect the weak, the better off to care for the poor. In many cases, that was the only justification for establishing governments.

In its place, a new sense that the state exists to protect natives from immigrants, the prosperous from the bums, and the old identity from challenges posed by new ones. This is what contemporary political conservatism is all about.

How can this unhealthy trend toward an unsafe, unfriendly world be reversed?

Humanity needs more voices speaking on behalf of solidarity, on behalf of charity and on behalf of social protection. The political discourse has become deleterious. It needs reinvention.

We need social movements of a new type: those that speak not on behalf of entitlement but on behalf of nurturing communities.