The world politics in the last half a century was dominated by the ‘Black Liquid Gold’ or ‘Oil’. As our energy requirements went through the roof, the oil became ever so important, even to the extent that many of the world conflicts and wars had their roots in this black liquid. The countries with large oil reserves made a lot of money and saw their countries’ and their people’s fortunes change in a span of a few decades.
This was the same time when the ‘liberal’ world order was taking shape. In a nutshell, this world order was nothing but a misplaced belief that religious or regional identities are the root cause of all the conflicts and if the world has to move away from these violent conflicts, which cause mass killings without providing any solutions, then the regional and religious identities must diminish and class identities based on social stature and wealth should take precedence.
Some countries adopted capitalist models while others opted socialists one to bring this utopian idea to reality. As the world started becoming richer, the inherent fallacies of this idea began to surface.
The first real jolt came in the form of income inequality when people began to question the humongous wealth difference among people belonging to different trades. When a few of them were able to amass massive wealth owing to their connections and influence while most of them were unable to make their ends meet despite working more than half a day.
But did this happen the first time in the history of human civilization? Was this not always the case throughout history? Siddharth became Buddha to find an answer to this very problem, isn’t it? So why was it so intense now? Because wealth had been made the central point of existence and the only thing worth living for in the quest to erase regional and religious identities. Money started determining everything in terms of social statures, justice, equality, and all the other ‘liberal’ values that the ‘wise ones’ wanted to promote in the name of ‘liberalism’.
The humans by nature are curious and frightened creatures. They are frightened about death and are curious about the meaning of life. ‘Liberal’ values were useless when it came to answering these questions. Religions, Cultures, for all their follies, were much better equipped to address these basic questions about life and death. Wealth and worldly comforts can satisfy you only to an extent, they cannot erase these basic questions from the minds of the people.
This is where the second big jolt came to this ‘liberal’ world order. Religious and regional identities could never be erased completely but they were put in the background which meant that the vast knowledge pool of these ideologies was forgotten and was hijacked by the people and groups with vested interests. People across religions were being asked to follow rituals and practices which they did not understand and which made little sense in the present world but asking questions was made a ‘sin’.
It was a matter of time when someone with sufficient money and with a vast pool of resources would tap into this lack of intellectual bankruptcy and ‘herd mentality’ of the people. This is where Saudi Arabia and Islamists’ discovery of ‘Liquid Black Gold’ made things worse.
Every religion has different schools of thought among them, some extremist, some centrist and some more inclusive. However, Saudi Arabia and its partners represented the most abhorrent ideology among the Islamic schools of thought – the Wahabi ideology. Armed by Kuber-esque like wealth, Saudi Arabia started spreading this poisonous ideology all across the world.
The ‘liberal’ world order which had been largely successful in making religion a personal belief rather than a way to mobilize the masses, was taken aback by this aggressive propaganda to unite the Muslims all over the world based on their religion and that too which was based on the most regressive of the thoughts and practices. It simply could not counter this phenomenon.
On top of that, in its quest to appear ‘secular’ and ‘liberal’, the world establishments adopted an ‘apologist’ attitude when it came to this heinous and twisted form of Islamic teachings. The ‘liberals’ tried to portray the people asking relevant questions as racist, Islamophobic and bigots rather than addressing the very problem. This not only emboldened the dastardly forces but also made them grow in strength so much so that now across political ideologies most of the world countries agree that ‘Terrorism is the biggest threat to the world’ right now.
Now, when people are abandoning the ‘liberal’ political system all over the world, the ‘liberals’ are wondering what went wrong! They simply cannot see their own shortcomings in addressing the current world problems. They were silent and busy in victim-shaming when the world was burning around them and now they are questioning the people for opting for someone who is at least acknowledging their concerns.
On top of that, the ‘liberals’ are seen as a bunch of corrupt hypocrites who benefited the most because of this ‘greedy’ ‘liberal’ world order which put wealth as the epitome of human existence.
The establishments are being brought down, the world order is being changed, the course of world history is changing, but the privileged ones are crying foul because they simply cannot see the web of hypocrisy, lies, and moral bankruptcy that they have built around themselves in exchange for wealth and social stature which as the history suggest are as momentary as anything else. But those who are bound on erasing history cannot be expected to learn from it.
