Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a sanskrit phrase that means "the World is one family". It was a very popular phase in the 90's, right about the time Berlin wall was brought down and the Soviet Union disintegrated. The world was thawing, at the end of the cold war.
Apartheid ended, tying Africa to the rest of the world. Human rights and equality seems to be finally getting the focus it deserved. Most countries were independent from their colonizers and on path of building democracies with zest and idealism.
There were dreams and hopes of the world coming together to pool resources, to shake hands, to help and be helped .. and globalization promised to make the world a better place.
The world is a much worse place, today.
In my opinion the turning point was 9/11. Attack on America and its response highlighted the fallacy of the better world. Hatred, boundaries, violence, disregard for innocent lives, weapons, wars ...resurfaced!!
The instability in middle east, the Syrian war and refugee crisis, the rise of China as the "cheap commodity provider" of the world and its brazen violations of human rights, the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the absolutely audacious Ukraine war, the global pandemic that spread like wildfire killing millions, man-made Yemen famine, war in Tigray, takeover of Hong Kong, Climate Change .... today the miserable events of the world has directly or indirectly, through volatile stock market, inflation, food insecurities, energy crisis, famines, drugs, guns, wildfires, tornadoes, storms, disease and death..... impacted all of us
The Trump, Boris Johnson, Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, Scott Morrison, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping of a singular country ...impacted the world.
Today, there is no region of world that enjoys peace, stellar democracy, unblemished record on human rights and a foreign policy not driven by short-sighted, narrow-minded gains and appeasement of its citizens. Oh and continuous contribution to climate change...
So we are still "one family", now we are bonded in misery...shaped by human insecurities and disregard for nature. I really hope our journey as a family could have been different...
2 comments:
Your observation is completely correct. But the most tragic thing is that the only hope for humanity,the the new generation is also directionless at present.
Sad but true.
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