Introduction: A World Aflame
2019 is on record as one of the most turbulent in recorded history with protests in 47 countries, with some news organisations calling it a record-breaking year of non-violent protests. While there are many explanations offered for why this happened — from technological to socio-economic — the real challenge, one might say, is in predicting what comes next. But, we cannot predict the future without understanding our present.
Into this admixture of fury and rage, enters the plague. With Covid-19, the economic systems of whole countries have ground to a halt. With it we are witnessing unemployment rates that has not existed since the Great Depression of 1929. Evictions in record numbers and historical loan default rates when world private debt is at an all time high.
People are demanding change, of course, for governments to step up and assist them. But politicians and economists, through years of ideological indoctrination and learned recalcitrance, have refused to entertain even the slightest of changes to the economic status quo. Whatever words we may use to describe this phenomenon, like neoliberalism, is utterly inadequate in capturing the callousness, the ingrained condescension and sociopathy of these politicians.
Meanwhile, at the prospect of turbulent times ahead, arms companies, security companies and technology companies, are giddy with the thought of selling more surveillance equipment and arms to the most repressive nations on the planet. In unrest they see profit.
We live in strange, uncertain times. It is the irony of history that three historical crises — the climate crisis, the economic crisis and the Covid-19 crisis — coincides with the neoliberal hegemony, which by design exists to prevent positive collective change.
In the years subsequent to the Great Recession of 2008, we witnessed the birth of historical social and political movements, and revolutions in multiple countries. If history is any indicator, this crisis — already far worse than 2008 — may also lead to more revolutions. Understanding how and why they might develop is the purpose of this blog.
