Insights and Perspectives
To examine our world and our position as individual citizens, communities, and nations within it.
To speaks words wisely in our scramble to bring order to an increasingly fragmented world.
The Russo-Ukrainian War has thrust the global order into three camps - the global West led by the United States and Europe, the global East aligned with China and Russia, and the global South comprised by a grouping of non-western ascending nations. This new reality raises crucial questions about the West’s commitment to values-based policies and rule-based order and the legitimacy of the prevailing system for global governance.
The international rules based order, as we have know it, is at an end. America's new emphasis on strong-man self-interest will become increasingly reminiscent of Russia. The rest of the world must develop ways of navigating an uncertain future.
As early as 2017, a PEW Research Centre survey found alarming support for unconstrained executive power across the globe. In 20 countries, a quarter or more of those polled believed a system in which a strong leader could make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts would be a good form of government. Roughly a quarter of people (median of 23 per cent) across 38 countries surveyed were committed democrats. About twice as many (median of 47 per cent) were less-committed democrats. Australia was the only country outside of North America and Europe where at least four-in-ten were categorized as committed democrats.
“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” John F. Kennedy
Societies today are in a state of flux influenced by myriad factors—globalization versus nationalism, liberalization versus traditional values, and immigration versus closed borders. There are countless other fissures along which conflicts, injuries, and partisan angst affect individuals and communities today. Nothing new!
Social change invariably threatens those who perceive that their sense of community, values, and customs will be eroded or altered by the inclusion of new views or by those who will diversify and alter the culture to which they are accustomed. All major social movements, including anti-slavery, anti-racism, and anti-discrimination, women’s rights, and LGBTQ, have progressed along the conflict spectrum from unperceived injurious experiences and claiming.
Protests represent the tensions between those who previously held a certain social view and those whose growing influence now presents an increasing challenge to traditional values—the civil rights movement, laws dealing with abortion, and women’s suffrage, for example.
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