The change in the new world order will have to go beyond economic, political and military issues. It is a deeper, broader and more decisive change. Since the Greeks, since Alexander.
By Edgar Chacón Morales
Some millenarists might say that we are facing a change of era.
In primary school we were taught that after prehistory, history is divided into four ages, the Ancient Age, the Middle Ages, the Modern Age and the Contemporary Age.
Prehistory goes from three million years ago, until the appearance of writing; the Ancient Age, from 3,500 BC, until the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century); the Middle Ages, from the 5th century, until the discovery of America (15th century); the Modern Age, from the 15th century, until the French Revolution (18th century); the Contemporary Age until the present day (Elia Tabuenca).
Seen in this way, the Ancient Age, which included the influences of other civilisations, closes in Europe, with the Roman Empire and the relative weight of history up to the present day, opens in Europe. So, the centre of history, until now, has been Europe and the United States, Western and Christian civilisation, with secondary points in Asia and Africa.
Now, that centre is shifting and, furthermore, there will no longer be a single centre or pole; we are on the verge of the end of European and American centrality in history.
There is a change in the relative weight of the world’s political capitals, and Beijing, Moscow and Washington are on the horizon. In the future, New Delhi may be present.
So too in the financial capitals, where the presence of Shanghai is unquestionable.
This entails a change in who makes history and who writes it, who records it. In other words, in the history that is known, in the history that is taught and disseminated, and in the history that exists and prevails.
Logically, this should also bring about a change in how historical knowledge is constructed, who participates in this task.
There are reasons for hope and optimism, so that History will no longer be the History of genocide, plundering, plunder, dispossession, slavery, discrimination that leads to injustice, opprobrium and other ancient, middle, modern and contemporary aberrations.
As for Our America, it is said: so-and-so from such-and-such a place was the conqueror of such-and-such a place, and the History of the people of that place is from there backwards. From then on it is the history of the country that subjugated, the country that was subjugated and the people that were subjugated.
And the metropolitan heroes are extolled and those who resisted are called bandits.
Of the defeated peoples, only tombs, pyramids, stelae, monoliths and legends are remembered. Temples are built upon temples; gods upon gods and myths upon myths, or at most, syncretisms are made.
Stories, anecdotes and facts about some of the characters of the vanquished will be remembered, but that is all they will be in the official history.
A change in legitimacy, law and ethics. Geo cooperation vs. geo-exploitation and plunder
Today, some actors on the international level justify their actions on the basis of principles and values, which they believe legitimise them, and are therefore ethical and give them the right to carry them out.
Accordingly, for example, the USA/G7/NATO carries out a political action in a country, justifying that it is to restore or preserve democracy or freedom, and therefore has the right to do so, in accordance with the “rules-based international order”, which gives legitimacy to the action and is therefore ethical.
But there are international rules and bodies, which can be called into question and therefore the actions that are legitimised on the basis of them, for example, the United Nations, the European Union.
Is it legitimate and ethical for the USA/G7/NATO to invade countries, threaten and destabilise world peace, as it sees fit, on the basis of what it claims and therefore has the right to do so?
Is it legitimate, just and ethical, and therefore a source of law, for the Western world and its institutions to be issuers and regulators of world conduct?
This is in question, and therefore changes in this order are on the horizon.
We are therefore also facing changes in the being, doing and thinking of groups and individuals and in the way we live together.
In order for this change to take place, we have to do our part. An enormous effort is the detachment from figures and icons. Everything that has to do with our effort to no longer be part of the area of influence of ideological colonialism, to believe that we can build our own ideology and to build it.
A hard battle is against everything that is inculcated in us by the “media”; everything that calls us to the deception of false fears and false realisations; all the material and ideological commodities that “put” us to consume.
The trap of consumerism is not only in consuming, but also in forgetting. For example, the trap of fashion is not only in the explicit: buy, discard, buy again and discard again, ad infinitum; but also, in the implicit: one fashion erases the previous one (which may come back later, but disarticulated).
Disarticulating our history, the continuity of our lives, thoughts and actions and the disarticulation between generations.
That there is no memory; that struggles and achievements are turned away; that one generation does not shake hands with the other; the compulsion is to make a cut, to erase; every day, a clean slate, no memory.
So, experience doesn’t count, it’s the new minds that count for alienation.
Moreover, let some peoples not shake hands with others. Then we will have no past and no future, only a consumerist and self-exhausting present.
As for the countries south of the Rio Bravo, we were born in the context of independence from European colonialism.
Contradicting the well-known saying, “Better the old known than the new unknown”, we may be facing a different situation:
Better ignorances and fears to be left behind and new and proper opportunity to be built, than old, safe and known tragedy to continue to suffer.