It started with a war of religions, Islam versus the crusaders: September 11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Islamic State and Bataclan. Then we had the epidemics, SARS, MERS, Zika, H1N1 and Covid-19. Now we have the barbarians invading Ukraine and soon we will have famines because of the lack of raw materials. What a mess. When I think that we were freaking out about the Y2K bug when we changed centuries... All that seems so far away today, and so futile. Who would have believed at the time that the human race would fall so low later, showing all its most vile and stupid features.
After so much technical, social and human progress accomplished during the second half of the 20th century, how is it possible to return to such dark times, worthy of the darkest hours of our civilizations? It's as if we have learned nothing.
I don't usually like looking back. However, it must be said that the 90s seem to us today like a distant paradise, regretted and inaccessible. Nations were pacified, the stock market was booming, the Internet was still a tool of knowledge, and not a globalized neighborhood gossip, stars knew how to sing without auto-tune and natural disasters were still quite rare.
But you have to believe that something went wrong in 2000. Because right after that we had Bin Laden, G. Bush, B. Madoff, Kadhafi, S. Hussein, Al-Zarqaoui, el-Assad, Xi Jinping, Trump and... Putin. So let's say it's a coincidence that this generation of "leaders" came to power more or less at the same time, but it still looks bad. Because we still want to tell them: "OK Boomer". Shut up and let us live in peace. Stop your selfish, old-fashioned fights. We don't want any more of your megalomaniac delusions, your Covid hypochondria and your dangerous paranoia.
The time of empires and central power belongs to the past. Nowadays, true power is not static, but dynamic, it is exchanged through networks, in countless nodes of knowledge. Wanting to restore a Manichean and pyramidal vision of our societies is a fight from another time.
In the meantime, I can only wish peace to our Ukrainian friends, innocent victims of this murderous madness. I also think of the Russian people, too often victims of racism in our countries and repression in their own country. We must more than ever behave as intelligent and civilized people, otherwise we will leave only sinister memories to our descendants.
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Yet another pathetic article by a Western bobo incapable of thinking about the world other than through his Europe-centric prism. Stick to financial issues if you don't understand anything about geopolitics, that will keep you from looking ridiculous.
My son is a competitive chess player and for years we have spent a lot of time in tournaments and because of this I have many Russian friends. An admirable people, educated, cultured and having progressed so much in the last 30 years on the economic and social level.
This war is pushed by the Americans who are piloting NATO. Poor Europe, divided again, digging an ideological border between Catholic Slavs and Orthodox Slavs. French people involved in all these idiotic conflicts for 20 years, I want to go get a passport from a country outside NATO: Switzerland or an Asian country. Will Switzerland remain neutral as I would like? It joined the UN in 2002 and in 2022 joined international sanctions (blocking SWIFT to the Russians). Swiss friends, stay strong, stay neutral, we need you!! Do not follow the pressures of the EU and NATO.
@Yves and Vlad: it's not the Americans or the Europeans who are destroying schools, churches and hospitals, while killing thousands of civilians in Ukraine. It's the RUSSIANS! Putin deserves only one thing: a bullet in his idiot head!
"and having progressed so much over the last 30 years on an economic and social level" ha yeah anyway... the standard of living of the Russians has not stopped falling for 30 years, they have had a mafia dictator as "president" for 20 years, they produce nothing except oil and gas (they are lucky to have that under their feet...), Russia is the largest country in the world but has the GDP of Spain, and apart from waging war on their neighbors (even worse) they do not do much on a global level
In short, that’s progress in 30 years indeed!