2025. What to expect?

Aleksandr Pushkin said “Ecstasy is a glass full of tea and a piece of sugar in the mouth”.

The glass, full, the external image visible to all. The sugar, hidden inside the mouth, the power within us to sweeten the tea, make our contribution, make a difference, shape the future.

As a commentator on geopolitical events over the last few decades, I bind myself to two self-imposed rules: firstly, not to write or speak before I have read and listened widely and feel secure that what I write or say is the truth. Curiously, Pravda, in Russian, means “truth”. And here I am again, trying to see all sides of a story.

Secondly, I believe in decency which means not attacking people when they are down or unable to defend themselves. So, no comment here on President Biden. 

So in this light, what do I have to say about 2025?

I am not going to concentrate solely on the United States of America and the change of President/Government because as far as I am concerned, Washington’s jurisdiction starts and ends where the borders of the United States of America start and end. This does not include Africa, Russia, Panama, Greenland or Canada.

Disturbing comments by President Trump and Elon Musk

That said, there are some disturbing comments and acts by the President-elect Donald Trump and the new boy on the block, Elon Musk, which need addressing. First off, both of them have the right to say what they want, however what they say, in their positions, frames the public perception of them.

Donald Trump may be excused for using the buzz-words “Leader of the Free World” because there are old Anglo-Saxonic chimeras about Lebensraum (Living room), Wandern (Wandering overseas) and in more modern times, Führer, (Leading the World). However, saying the USA needs Greenland to protect the free world needs a logic check. Anyway he is not my leader, I didn't vote for him. And what does "free world" mean for people unable to go out and buy a loaf of bread for fear of being attacked by a drug addict? How free is that?

Firstly, the status of Greenland under international law, is that of an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. As such, it is part of the European Union. Unfortunately, international law went by the wayside in Yugoslavia (Kosovo), in Iraq, in Libya and in Syria, where terrorists were supported by western powers and international law was flouted.

Under international law, the only legal justification for military action against a sovereign state is under the terms of Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence…”

Neither Greenland, nor Canada, nor Panama are shelling US citizens, none of these countries are importing weapons systems hostile to the USA, none of them are committing massacres against US citizens, or people of US origin living in these countries, none of these countries have battalions strutting around in swastikas chanting “Death to Americans and Jews” and so there is no possible argument to proffer as to the right to self defence.

Panama is an independent state and has the right to engage companies from wherever it chooses to manage all or parts of the Canal, and the Head of State of Canada is the King of the United Kingdom, Charles III.

It is difficult to imagine that Donald Trump, being an intelligent and experienced player on the world stage, and arguably a better candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than Barack “Obomber” Obama was, is serious in making such ridiculous claims. If he is, the notion arises that he is launching a reality-show style of leadership. But let us remember, for now, his speech was political and how many of a politician’s claims come to be is another matter.

As regards Elon Musk, again, it is difficult to imagine how a highly intelligent and successful businessman, pioneer and scientist can involve himself so brazenly with far-right political movements in Europe, a continent he is not from and from which he does not hold any rights of citizenship. In Europe, the pervading idea is “Mind your own business”. Or, What the…?

The world today does not need more violence. We have enough already, we have enough provocations, hypocrisy, enough of the military-industrial complex using NATO as the cutting edge of the policies of the BARFFED (Banking, Arms, Resources, Finance, Food, Energy, Drugs lobbies). These have given us the world we see around us, one in which natural resources are being used faster than they are replaced, one in which the human species is showing a total lack of respect for the animals and plants we are supposed to share our home with.

The world we live in is one in which companies make more out of war than out of peace and indeed, provoke wars to sell weapons to murder families to get rich. It is a world facing huge challenges created in part by human-induced climate change and one hundred percent by human-created pollution from the bottom of the seas up into space.

New approach to old challenges

The challenges we face demand a new approach, one called for time and time again in the Old Testament of the Bible, the Apocrypha, the New Testament, the Quran, the Vedic books…those of us who have sat down and read these books from cover to cover, as I have, understand that humankind moves forwards two steps, then backwards one, sometimes more, a repeated cycle of failure to come together and move forward as one.

The challenges we face today demand

a)     A peace conference

b)    Development and education over deployment of troops

c)     Respect for the environment

d)    Answers to questions posed by the digital age

Peace Conference

It is easy to take sides in a military conflict. All you have to do is arbitrarily draw a time line, view all events from that line forwards, ignore the root causes of the conflict and play the blame game. Those who are incapable of seeing the whole story, I do not engage with because I do not have the inclination or the time to waste. Those mature ones who have done the background reading, I am prepared to discuss with. The newspapers speak of two conflicts, Middle East (same old same old since 1500 BC or before) and nobody has found a solution. The other is of course Ukraine which has highlighted the fact that the West hates Russia and always has done. I have been saying this for decades, now finally the penny has dropped. Perhaps.

I have written much about the latter on here and continue to lament the loss of life on either side, understanding that nobody likes to be invaded and families do not like losing loved ones, quite obviously. But that goes for all sides, and people do not like being massacred, treated as sub-humans, derided as pigs, called under-men and suffer death threats and pogroms, which is what started this whole thing off. Perhaps if people had listened to Russia, perhaps if the USA had allowed Ukraine to implement the terms of the Minsk Agreements, which would have kept Ukraine intact…but as Moscow says, this was not of President Trump’s doing and now that President Biden has gone, I am going to say no more.

Bottom line: Sit down and listen and this goes for the Middle East also. How can allowing Israel to build colonies on lands which it has stolen be constructive to creating peace? And if Israel’s argument is that the Palestinian lands belong to it as war spoils, then they cannot complain if eventually someone takes their land, as war spoils. Today, Israel can rely on superior technology. Today. And tomorrow? So the day will come when the bully gets a bloody nose, and probably without any friends to run crying to. Solution? Peace conference, two-state solution. Confidence building, peace and reconciliation. It is not hard, if you try.

And the same goes for the many other conflicts around the world which do not reach the news because they are in far-off, hot and dark places. We need an international peace conference, these things have been happening and brokering the peace since Westphalia in the 1640s.

That said, we need the UNO to be respected, we need to remember that without weapons there are no wars, so who is selling weapons and why? And where are India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, Spain, Mexico in the Security Council? The UK has the veto but India does not? France has but Brazil has not?

Development and education over deployment of troops

Just the NATO countries’ collective military spending per annum is one point two trillion dollars, or one point two thousand billion dollars, enough to end poverty worldwide in one single year. Think about it. Develop the less developed countries and you solve the immigration crisis, you attack marginalisation which breeds extremism and terrorism and those who make money from it. Add to this a fight against corruption, remembering that you need a corruptor to get someone corrupted.

Respect for the environment

It is true that human activity is not the only cause of global warming and climate change, it is cyclical. However, human activity quickens up the process. Indeed, we are using resources faster than they can be replenished, we are cutting down forests and depriving the planet of clean air to breathe. Solution: Planting trees, adopting clean energy and remembering that drilling can cause earthquakes. Drill, baby, drill is followed by Quake, baby, quake. Watch this space.

Furthermore, we have polluted the planet from the bottom of the seas up to space. Either we fight a collective war against plastic and other pollution, or we suffocate by the year 2100.

Answers to questions posed by the digital age

And they are many. First, the destruction of chains of cognitive reasoning by wizzy, wunderbar one-touch solutions to problems, without reasoning. This means young people are not trained to think things through based on precepts of “if” and “then”. Notice how common sense has disappeared today and with it, respect for any form of authority. It is becoming a “take what you can” society and “the hell with everyone else”. But it is a society and people have to live in it together.

So digital world, yes (it cannot be stopped) but remembering cognitive skills have to be nurtured to become human nature. And with this, a return to problem solving based on common sense and a wider view which takes the future into account.

Every day, thousands of jobs are being lost. Jobs are families. Families are communities and communities are a society. Are our education systems coping with the new digital reality? Are the classrooms fundamentally different from what they were 50 years ago? Is the school program that different? Are our welfare systems geared to fewer workers living longer lives? Who pays into the kitty? How does the kitty distribute social welfare benefits and pensions?

These are the problems facing us in 2025, and here we are looking at one another down the barrel of a gun or through a green night-sight.

Kinda pathetic, isn’t it?

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” William Shakespeare

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey can be reached at [email protected]

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Author`s name Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
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