Disrupting How it Was

Unusually I have settled down to watch the evening news on television. I am astonished (and yet not) by the way the Gaddafi regime has simply crumpled under the force of people power. It sets my imagination racing as to what might be next in this unpredictable and rapid escalation of social unrest.

I am also fascinated by some of the more conservative reactions we are witnessing to what are essentially peaceful civic protests. Evidently some powerful interests, including once-venerated institutions and current power brokers, feel sufficiently threatened to suppress outbreaks of pure democracy such as these, particularly when they occur outside the established norms. We will return to this idea shortly.

In a recent speech Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), advanced what he called five global imperatives for the future of humanity. In brief they were:

1. Sustainable development (including lifting people out of poverty and advancing economic growth)
2. Prevention of conflict as a framework for international cooperation
3. Building a safer and more secure world by standing up for democracy, human rights and peace
4. Supporting countries in transition
5. Working with and for women and young people.

He also intimated, probably justifiably from his perspective given the hubris and empirical habits of some Western nations, that this was an opportunity for all countries to set aside their differences and narrow, short-term interests, in order to cooperate in addressing humanity’s long-term needs.

Anyone who knows the man would immediately appreciate the sincerity behind Ban Ki-Moon’s proposed forging of a common agenda aimed at ensuring peace, prosperity, freedom and justice. On the surface these five imperatives appear to be a consistent, well-intentioned vision, possessing all the gravitas one expects from a person in his position.

However behind the integrity of one individual there skulks a lumbering behemoth, an international agency in utter disarray and diminishing relevance. Looking closely at the language used in Ban Ki-Moon's statement I am inclined to challenge whether such imperatives are a genuine plea for a coherent societal metamorphosis - or just another of those ill-fated public-relations exercises that appear and evaporate so frequently from within our various political and diplomatic theatres.

Personally I doubt such grandiose aims can achieve anything much, at least within the framework of global officialdom; certainly no more nor less than has already been tried with other initiatives like the Millennium Goals, for example. But on what basis can I possibly make such a claim?

I am puzzled and constantly irked by five recursive issues:

1. Is sustainable development really possible if it includes both conventional approaches to economic growth as well as saving the natural environment? If not should we be designing new systems with new intentions, new priorities and a new language?
2. Is democracy as it is currently conceived and practised the only philosophy capable of building a safer and more secure world? Or are we at risk of using democracy as a virtuous substitute for something far more viable?
3. If these imperatives genuinely offer the opportunity to shape the world of tomorrow by the decisions we take today, what is it about the decisions we are currently taking that have failed to create the world we most desire?
4. If one necessity really is to liberate women and young people why is that demographic not already sufficiently represented in the forums convened for making the decisions that will create the future?
5. Are those individuals and institutions currently in positions of influence the right people and institutions to instigate and lead change? In that context is the UN the most appropriate agency to be tackling societal transformation? If not what alternatives should we be crafting?

Naturally all of these questions demand comprehensive consideration and plausible answers. There are undoubtedly numerous, equally valid, strategic questions one could pose. But for me the crux of the issue is to be found in my fifth and final question. Those responsible for making today’s decisions are the same people in the same institutions who designed the world-system to function as it does. They populate NATO, the UN and the G20. Imagining these same individuals and institutions can design a system capable of achieving such different outcomes is tantamount to believing in the tooth fairy.

But let us review the situation, keeping in mind reality and truth have become mutant hybrids in this continuously morphing world. In order to contemplate the contextual implications of my question, we must set modern society, in all its various dimensions, against the broader sweep of our civilisation’s past 2,000 years. That is not an easy thing to do. Individual and collective realities are determined and shaped by our “window” (weltenschaung) on a world that is so dynamically complex it is almost impossible to hit the “pause” button on any aspect of it long enough for it to become clearer to oneself, let alone others. To make matters even more complicated every discrete “window on the world” comprises implicit yet unique sets of filters driven by instinct, volition and transitory emotions.

For example, if you are the kind of person that trusts the boundaries drawn unerringly on maps, if you believe political ideologies endure in abstract purity, if you imagine that national agencies still shape international diplomacy and that elected representatives control a nation’s destiny, then you may find this question offensive or simply crazy. What “was” factual in the past, you might argue, remains intact today.

If however, you believe like me, that no two nations are alike (some prosperous and in decline, others impoverished yet making astonishing advances; some vulnerable to the forces of change, others inexplicably resilient; a few (such as the US) posing as empires alongside empires (China) posing as nations; city states such as the Vatican and Singapore; countries in name only like England, Scotland and Puerto Rico; and even a territory such as Palestine that has no universally-agreed state mandate as yet) and that, as a consequence, it is all but impossible to propose an all-encompassing definition of the nation state, then you could be forgiven for perceiving current globalised conditions as being closer to those that existed during the Middle Ages. Albeit on acid or cocaine! In that context my question would be entirely relevant.

But let us play with this notion and bring these two contrasting weltenschaung together. Viewed through a polyocular lens contemporary society is incredibly messy, yet also astonishingly abundant and diverse. Power functions asymmetrically in different ways via multipolar interactions that constantly wax and wane. A few transnational corporations are wealtheir than many nations, their entangled relationships an unseen manifestation of contemporary power. Even pluralistic social networks and online activists can wield considerably more political influence than national governments these days, which find themselves trapped in unending antiphonic modes of reaction and readjustment. Unlikely conjunctions of public and private interests generate novel yet potent forms of innovation. Entrepreneurial billionaires influence the agendas of social enterprise and fund others directly… This topsy-turvy world exists like a thinly-disguised membrane over the more Matrix-like world of competitive global trade and international policy making with which we are more familiar. But that is not to imply that it does not exist.

In this extraordinary multifaceted global milieu conventional borders and standard taxonomies have become almost meaningless in some contexts - yet remain immutable frameworks in others. Multinational organisations and universal governance structures such as exist within the UN can appear neutered in such chaos. What have been proven to work in situations of dynamic complexity are: (i) coherent whole-of-system designs with intimate alignment between the various components within the system (ii) greater levels of connectivity and collaboration at a local level (ii) more fluid, temporary and adaptive policies and activities, (iii) much less formality so as to increase the speed of learning and change. And these factors, of course, are precisely why I question whether the UN (or any equivalent agency) is responsive and adaptive enough to elicit rapid universal cooperation at scale.

Having described the incredibly convoluted nature of the context in which we find ourselves (that is the contemporary human condition) we can now bring greater degrees of granularity to my question as it concerns the nation state.

Actually an agreed definition of the term nation state remains elusive. Let us suppose the state is the government and its institutions, while the nation is the summation of the relationships we have with others who live in close cultural, ethnic, linguistic or geographical proximity to us and with whom we choose to identify. The nation state is the marriage of these two (partly discrete yet intimately braided) ideas.

Now let us consider how, over the course of the past 65 years at least, national devices for homogeneity (via partisan ceremonies and rites) versus statist mechanisms for coordination (via civic and political engagement) plus control (via protectionist legislation and administration) have often subverted the potential for these two ideas to harmonise in ways that would enable continuing relevance for the nation state as a mechanism of viable governance.

Over the past two decades there has been an explosion of social activism aimed at overturning one or more aspects of the status quo. We have witnessed extremes of nationalistic fervour (US patriotism after 9/11) and brutal oppression (Libya under the Gaddafi regime). We have watched the Burmese generals edge towards openness as their activities came under critical scrutiny, while other militaristic regimes have entrenched their hold on power still further in a myopic yet ultimately futile resistance. Online protest websites such as GetUp! have become commonplace. Meanwhile a growing tide of civic upheaval in mainland China is balanced by the emergence of extreme right-wing fundamentalism in the US.

Where there is oppression of any kind people will eventually rebel. The unprecedented social and financial interconnectedness of our times (facilitated in large part by new digital media) allows humanity as a whole to express outrage at the many blatant inequities and injustices perpetuated within our current economic and political systems. At its source, the universal cry for renewal as expressed through movements like Occupy Wall Street or contrarian online information sources such as Alternet (for example) can be compared to the widespread civic disruption spreading like a bush fire across the Arab world. There are at least four pertinent system-wide characteristics to note:

1. Civic disruption, wherever it has occurred, has generally been greeted by jubilation from a surprisingly broad range of citizens - irrespective of education, conventional allegiances or supposed embedded differences (such as ethnicity, religion and gender)
2. Traditional rules of organisation, intervention, diplomacy and negotiation (including making concrete demands and statements of objectives for example) are being avoided, wisely I believe as instruments such as these would merely accord further legitimacy to the ruling elites
3. In each case, sooner or later, the predictable response of the state has been to repress further civil disobedience by deploying police or military force to "end" the protest
4. Civic unrest (the overt strategy of a universal movement resisting categorization or a fixed identity but demanding whole-system change) is escalating. It is not going away!

In these acts of subversion or solidarity (depending upon one's point of view) the supposed raison d’etre of the nation state is being shaken to the core.

The UN currently comprises 193 member states. The invention of the modern sovereign nation in or around the 19^th century was designed (and further refined within the framework of globalisation) as a mechanism for protecting discrete interests and furthering explicit agendas - most often those of the elite within each nation. Because of this history it should come as no surprise that the inclination of the nation state apparatus is to compete with other nations (in ideas, politics, trade, commerce, crime, religion etc.) rather than to cooperate. We have seen precisely this predisposition play out during COP15 meeting in Denmark where the overwhelming scale of the task to overcome nation state and sectoral interests dashed any hope that we could craft a simple, universally-binding, consensus to lower carbon-dioxide emissions and thus combat climate change. The schemes some governments are pushing are still grounded in obsolete notions of scarcity, competition and economic growth.

While one could argue that this competitive inclination of the state served society well enough during the industrial age, contributing enormously to productive efficiencies and the creation of individual wealth, it is hardly an energising idea for our times. Recent events and new technologies have exposed its inability to adjust to contemporary realities fast enough. It has grown corrupt, stale and lethargic.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II the state’s interests started to align more with the motives of wealthy industrialists and corporations than with the needs of ordinary citizens. The promise of protecting and nurturing civic life and human rights (through the provision of education, employment, health and security) started to unravel and, as that occurred, the gap between the rich and the poor widened exponentially. Now the state found itself liable for a range of escalating inequities that became even more glaringly obvious with the advent of new information and communications technologies. Today, for example, it is commonplace for CEOs of major corporations to earn salaries many times that of their employees. Investment bankers who do not directly contribute to the productive economy take home millions of dollars each year in bonuses. Yet (until recently at least) we have quiescently accepted that non-sensical, obscene reality as a necessary evil. It is not!

Against the broader background of societal change, old institutions, their stewards and recipients, will whither and die - much more rapidly if they cannot shift course to reinvent inbred assumptions and transcend past habits. While the UN has had some limited success with cooperative ventures in certain diplomatic theatres, (peacekeeping for example) the degree of collaboration required to create a worldwide common agenda of the form Ban Ki-Moon envisages is simply unprecedented. The assumptions and habits of this massive organisation are gravitational in their inability to adapt quickly. Different or more aspirational goals are probably out of reach for the organisation at this juncture.

But while I harbour serious misgivings that the UN is an appropriate forum for whole-system change, the fact is no other formally-instituted forum currently exists that has sufficient credibility (and thence buy-in) from the world’s citizens. That is also the reason we are going to see an increasing number and intensity of insurgencies and demonstrations around the world. In that regard all eyes must now be on Syria, Yemen, Bahrain... In the future it might well be the US or China - for nothing and nobody is immune when revolutions take hold.

The exciting prospect such revolutions open up is for the emergence of new kinds of imagined communities that are at once more strategically appropriate and systemically viable for the issues humanity is needing to confront. The greatest danger is that we will avoid our destiny, repeating history and failing to learn from vital lessons regarding human nature under stress.

The UN was originally conceived and established to help sovereign states deal with distinct problems for which it had conspicuous (indeed obvious) solutions. It now finds itself increasingly out-of-touch in a world-system experiencing cascading organisational collapse. Indeed even the notion of a coherent international community seems more and more antiquated in a multi-polar universe where a variety of influential hubs, private corporations, fluid networks and gated communities coexist in a hyper-complex ecosystem. The world map of circumscribed geographies no longer accurately represents this fragmented reality. In this environment the very concept of the nation state is under threat – unless it can revitalise its penchant for competition in a manner that targets global issues (especially those identified by Ban Ki-Moon) rather than traditional national rivalries.

Meanwhile, weighed down by bureaucratic inertia, home to technocratic hordes more intent on setting targets and establishing new agencies than resolving complex issues or transforming society's relationship with itself, the UN exists because it does - not because it actually does anything transformational. Faced with wickedly complex issues in an increasingly borderless world (and largely incapable of perceiving the links in this world-system) the latest tendency has been to proclaim every issue - including food, energy, climate, population, health, terrorism and poverty - a matter of international security. This is a great ploy for fund-raising but not very useful for resolving complex, multidisciplinary dilemmas.

At a time when the UN is struggling to find its role in this messy, fracturing world, where no two states are the same and more diverse modes of governance (and indeed democracy) are emerging across all levels of society, Ban Ki-Moon’s task is not an enviable one. Of course it is always easy to find fault with a list such as his. However I suspect not much thought has been given to the implicit assumptions behind these imperatives nor, indeed, what it will take that is contrary to what is already being done – by the UN and similar bodies.

The greatest danger always is that the usual suspects will continue to do what they have always done, perhaps with more enthusiasm or resources than before, expecting that the results will be different. Or, if I was more cynical, that they will appear to be trying to change things when their actual motivation is to maintain the status quo. This concern applies equally to aurocrats and dicatators as it does to democratically-elected representatives. Indeed the leaders of the so-called "free" world are as culpable as those anywhere. That is the more disturbing concern.