There's a rush these days to get back to the way things used to be. But we're not going back there. Bruce Anderson writes that the new world order is disorder:
This struck me as I was going through our latest Abacus Data polling, which highlights that Canadians don’t much like today’s leadership in China, Russia or the U.S. — the biggest economies and most militarized countries in the world. And they’re not so keen on the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, either.
Russia might be economically weak today, but still seems to be malevolent. The modern focus is on sowing division around the world, rather than building an empire, and hackers are the weapon of choice, rather than nukes. But it’s hard to imagine a Russian leader in decades as unpopular in Canada as President Vladimir Putin is today. Only seven per cent like Putin; 57 per cent don’t.
After the election of U.S. President Donald Trump and his “America First” agenda became dramatically clear, Canadians started to take a second look at China for a more globalist point of view about trade and climate and development issues. Briefly, Canadians felt China was a better example of global leadership and more committed to peace around the world compared to Trump’s America.
But today, China’s leadership is broadly mistrusted, with 10 times as many people registering a negative view of President Xi Jinping (52 per cent) as those registering a positive one (five per cent).
Gone are the days when Canadians thought that God was in heaven and all was right with the world:
Because of our cultural tendencies, Canada may be more deeply affected by the seemingly chronic disruption in the geopolitical landscape. Our democratic compass is set on “peace, order and good government,” and it’s no accident — it’s a reflection of what we prize. But from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to Johnson, Trump to Putin, Xi to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the world seems hell-bent on disorder, or sometimes just hell-bound.
The pressures building up in the pandemic-afflicted world, coupled with the growing climate crisis, might offer the best and most urgent argument for a collective approach the likes of which we’ve never seen.
But the leaders in many of the countries that are vital to such an approach are running in the opposite direction.
Navigating this disorder will not be easy. But there will be no going back to the way things used to be.
Image: The New Statesman
