A few years from now, the cataclysmic events gripping everyone’s imagination will have paled.
Sri Lanka’s bankruptcy will have had bandaid applied and her freedoms in stilts. The United Kingdom will have digested a hiccup within the ruling party and still be wallowing in indecision whether to go for diplomatic fisticuffs with the European Union.
And Jens Stoltenberg’s prophecy of the war in Europe to continue for a few years most likely could come true. One doubts whether his eight-year tenure due to have ended in June will be allowed to come to pass. His view is slowly finding echoes in the proxy war combatants, judging by the massive dose of military and financial aid being made available to Ukraine.
Taking 10,000 troops out of battle and training them on sophisticated techniques and weaponry doesn’t point towards peace.
In a saner, better-educated world, awareness should have led to social upheaval that would force politicians’ hands in tackling climate change, impending disaster of food availability, and sustainable energy.
They have, except in different forms. Crass bad governance has taken Sri Lanka to where it is today, so much so that a change of government hasn’t appeased anyone. When want enters the door, the best intentions leave through windows.
Patience and sympathy wear thin for leadership that is ostentatious in grim economic times. The UK will have a deeper resolve. They will bide their time for inevitable elections, whatever transpires in the Tory party leadership fray. Unlike the developing world where leadership faux pas aren’t within the reach of electorates to deal with, matured democracies cannot but bow to furrowed brows.
If Boris Johnson’s denials of events that happened is a cause for him having to go, not many will be enamoured by Rishi Sunek’s attempt at hiding his wife’s taxes behind technicalities.
Of more immediate concern is obviously trying to second guess Russia’s not-so-limited military incursions. From an obvious fast-forwarding of increasing Nato and EU membership, the Russian excursion has at one go taken the world order by the scruff of its neck as we were sending the world grain and energy balance on a toss.
The UK and the developed world will be hard put to honour their commitments under favourable trade conditions to nations that need it most.
That’s before the plight of the starving, malnourished unfortunates are taken into consideration. For them, the machinations of power politics and world orders mean little. They’re looking for little straws, just to survive. Straws that those that can give are zealously guarding, as the tentacles of inflation grasp in stranglehold.
Ukraine will be propped up for as long as it is expedient. It was Mr Johnson that warned against “fatigue.” Europe is listening for now. How long that continues can only be conjectured.
Those that have left Ukraine have found embracing homes. Those that can flee are making their way out of Sri Lanka. They will buy their embraces. Those staying behind or unable to leave are the ones in frontal danger.
The three cataclysms have taken the focus off a whole host of mini-battles, each as important as the other. Decades of work in lifting people out of poverty and creating new lifestyles have been reversed. Redoing requires addressing not one but multi-dimensional facets encapsulating poverty, education, reinventing lifestyles, and thereby social discontent.
The added conundrum of nature’s vagaries and pre-all food shortages will pose challenges that the best of leadership may not have answers to. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has offered a broadside at the sanctions that are penalizing the world more than Russia. If there’s anything to be learned from Iran and North Korea, sanctions don’t hurt the privileged leadership.
They emaciate the populace.
Mahmudur Rahman is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and communications specialist
