It would appear that the great apolitical apathetic hordes are rising, and with eyes wide open they are enraged at what they see. Across the planet they are exploding onto the streets, attacking the system that favours the rich and corrupt. They are enraged at their poverty midst mountains of wealth, at the wars for profit and domination, at the destruction of their planet. Their humanity demands that we destroy the system before it destroys us. We must be part of them, swelling these numbers of enraged people and join with them on the streets whenever we can, if not now, when, if not us, who? We can see the door of the new world, all we have to do is go forward and open that door, for our kids and grandkids, by whatever means possible.
Historic wildfires ravage an entire continent, scorching the land in a preview of what’s to come. Trigger-happy politicians prove eager to kickstart another war, just in time for election season. Scandals pile up, indifference mounts. The global economy churns on, stupidly and without remorse. With its latest products, Silicon Valley upgrades the emptiness. Meanwhile, each new scientific report draws the scheduled date of collapse closer.
While the architects of disaster hope to preside over the future, people everywhere have already begun charting their own course. 2019 saw the explosion of a new revolutionary sequence, with massive protests around the world demonstrating our collective ability to decide for ourselves what life could be, beyond the familiar catastrophe. Fiery nights lit by the rebuke of indignities, the refusal of the economy’s hold over our lives, utter contempt for the elites and the police, all suffused by generalized rage at the oblivion to which they consign us.
But if the present ruptures remind us that the future remains open, so too do they attest to the challenges before us. They are a lesson in what we’re up against, how far we still have to go. Power must be overthrown, and ecological destruction must be halted and healed. Technology must be freed from the grip of governance, and we must learn to live on a forever-altered earth. Old beliefs must be painfully shed, and new myths invented for a damaged epoch.
What happens in the next decade will be decisive. We are at the end of one world, and the beginning of the next.
