World of Barricades

We are rushing headlong into a world of barricades. And it’s a dead-end street inhabited by cold hearts and lost souls – a parched new world of indifference.

In the nineties, the Royal Dutch Shell Group saw a world of barricades as a distinct possibility for the future. The leader of their study, Joseph Jaworski described the scenario in his 1996 book titled Synchronicity. I’ve adapted his description in the paragraphs below.

Predicted twenty years ago

In this world of barricades there is a rift between the rich and the poor countries of the world. The rich fear the violent turbulence of poor countries. They want to insulate themselves from the poor, including their refugees.

Western Christendom is repelled by perceived alien values such as Islamic fundamentalism. And Islamic fundamentalism rises in response to the West. Rich countries focus inwardly and take inhumane steps to isolate themselves from impoverished and war-torn foreigners.

Poor countries are suspicious of the motives of the rich, remembering their history of colonial exploitation, gunboat diplomacy and political destabilisation. The endless portrayal of rich as selfless and racist creates a deep alienation.

Fear and suspicion rule on both sides

Technology connects the poor. But it helps the rich to keep the poor out. Automation in the context of globalisation makes cheap labour less important. Advanced telecommunications bind the rich of the world closer together in data-heavy platforms that exclude those who cannot afford access.

The process is traumatic and disillusioning for all. Outward-oriented liberalism is not seen to bring the benefits that were expected of it. Policy makers in rich countries turn to the experience of “national capitalism”. Free trade applies to exports, but not to imports.

Many poor countries revive old “indigenous solutions”. Middle East Islamic countries, and Africa and India in general, reject Western ideas and values as cultural pollution. Globalism is associated with Western intrusion and dominance. There’s a pulling back from Western-lead global trade and legal coalitions like the International Criminal Court.

In many countries the hopes of those wanting to make a decisive break with the past – to modernise, to see big improvements in living standards, to catch up with the rich – are sadly disappointed.

Criminal anarchy

The tensions of perpetual frustration boil over in organised and petty crime, political instability and sporadic violence. Big cities of the poor world suffer most. The overall environment in many African, Latin American and Asian countries is such that few multi-national countries are interested in investing.

In trade, as with migration, the rich erect barricades against the poor. The hostility of Western electorates to aid programs, “cheap imports” and economic migrants and refugees is palpable.

The distinction between war and crime becomes increasingly blurred. Criminal anarchy emerges as a significant strategic danger to rich countries.

Rich indifference

Underlying this new international order is the ability of the rich world to sustain indifference to the poor world’s problems. The problems of poverty and instability in the poor world seem beyond solution.

Pressing problems that require long-term solutions are met by indifference from the rich and the hasty throwing up of barricades.

By the beginning of the third decade of the twenty first century, the scale of problems in the world of barricades is overwhelming. There is serious doubt whether the barricades can hold as neglected problem areas deteriorate rapidly and tensions escalate.

But there is no turning back once indifference takes hold. The world of barricades is a parched place of cold hearts and lost souls. The poor die by the billions as resources are depleted by the twin effects of collapsed industrialisation and commercial agriculture, on the one hand, and increasing global warming, on the other.

The rich survive longer behind their barricades. But not for long. Only long enough for their souls to whither and perish.

Is it too late for compassion?

The opposite of indifference is compassion. To avert the disastrous world of barricades the tide of indifference that is rising amongst richer populations of Europe and America must be stemmed. There have to be compassionate long-term solutions to the economic divide between rich and poor, and to ideological divides between religions. Rich countries must find fair solutions to refugee flows that accommodate those in need yet still keep out criminals and terrorists.

Collaboration of all good-willed people against fear-mongers – against those who seek barricades, whether rich or poor – must replace fear and suspicion.

Perhaps it is not too late, if a new liberal compassion can still rise.

What can we do?

The most important thing for us average citizens of the world is to sow compassion. Let us not be scared to err on the side of love and charity. Let us turn the other cheek in peace rather than take up the words and implements of hate.

It is hard to love our so-called enemies, when we are surrounded by hate and violence in the news and in our lives. We see the effects of criminal anarchy and indifference in the world. Our western contemporaries are hostile to the plights of the poor, of migrants and refugees.

We even face ridicule and hostility ourselves if we suggest compassion. It is not the way of capitalism, materialism and the quest for riches. Compassion is foolish in a world where the rich want to isolate themselves from the poor. They want none of it.

We must continuously fill a reservoir of love inside us to stay committed to compassion. We have to draw on that reservoir every day as we face the forces of anti-love. And we have to keep filling it every day, or compassion will run dry and the rising tide of indifference will wash us away.

The way to keep filling the reservoir of compassion is meditation. In the silence, love rises up from our centres. That love moves between us, a matrix of billions of connected beings across the globe, and effects the path of humanity. Compassion rises and indifference wanes.

All of us who choose the spiritual joy of compassion over the parched dead-end of cold hearts and lost souls should make this our simple yet profound mission: to love those around us every day.

Perhaps then indifference and the world of barricades will recede.