It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears
It’s a world of hopes and a world of fears
There’s so much that we share
That it’s time we’re aware
It’s a small world after all …
– PEPSI-COLA presents WALT DISNEY’S “It’s a Small World”, A Salute to UNICEF and all the World’s Children.
1964
“It’s a Small World” is the song that will not leave you as you stand in the queues at Disneyland. It is the tinnitus of the Happiest Ride on Earth. A life soundtrack that won’t fade. It is a small world after all.
Even taken out of its natural habitat, ammonia stench, plastic seats and shuddering carts, “It’s a Small World” could be today’s soundtrack. The world does keeps getting smaller.
And we saw that it was good.
But then, we started to notice that us all getting tighter was an opportunity and a risk. It did not create homogeneity, or even familiarity. We are just getting more and more cooped up, in fits and starts.
To manage this smaller world, we would need a tight management of boundaries. We always knew that there was a possibility that setting boundaries would trigger social, cultural, political sparks. So, we put in place a management system based on generosity and humanitarianism. We thought we had it under control.
It seems that the boundaries are just melting though.
The 2020s will be remembered for wars and migration. We just lost control of the sparks and only wait for the next one. And naturally, logically, if control is lost, why bother and not try a new life elsewhere?
We scramble to keep the lid on wars, but fail to stop them. And we try and solve migration with charity and goodwill. To the point where we are left with two alternatives: either shrink in the small corner we are left with, or move on. Until the world blows up.
There is no fatality for the 2020s to be the 1930s. We do have unique opportunities and capabilities. The world has never been that close. We just need to change our institutional mentalities, reflexes and directions.
The world is our neighbour
The XXth threw a bridge across the world. Humanity was suddenly not tethered anymore by distance. Technologies and content united to make physical distances a mere obstacle. Radio, TV, the jet engine, education made sports, movies, tourism, global phenomena… physical distance is merely a delay, a time lag. Not the obstacle it had been for centuries.
The internet started off by linking the world, a global communication network.
Geography is curiosity, more than adventure. We see, hear, feel, experience anything and everywhere with minimum efforts. The entire world is at our door. Less than half a day, often a mere 12 hours on a plane, and we are in Africa, South East Asia, India, China, America North or South, Europe. From anywhere to anywhere.
This meant that we have to deal with the consequences of millennia of physical distances, i.e. the cultural, social, political, religious distances. These differences cannot be dismissed as strange, exotic, alien. They are divergences in a common human life experience. This is a world of neighbours.
And then the internet supercharged the experience.
Not only could we communicate with the world, we sidestepped entirely the physical distance. Central Perk café from Friends became a place instantly recognised around the world. It is there, around the corner, in Nairobi, Singapore or New York. Everyone was Friends. San Diego, Delhi, Gent had Comic-cons. Austin and Bangalore laughed at The Big Bang Theory.
But the divergences are still there.
Some of these neighbours are noisy. Some are rowdy. We disagree with some. And we sometimes just peep from behind our curtains.
For a long time, reality seemed to have blurred by itself into a global world of avocado toasts, coriander, and sushi. Shopping Malls and High Street anywhere had the exact same shops. In Lagos, London, New York or Moscow. To the point that we started regretting its blandness. Remember, The Global Village?
And then Covid, Ukraine, Armenia, Gaza, Calais, El Paso …
The varnish crackles. Distance still exist. A smaller world, but with very immediate problems.
Proximity alone does not create homogeneity
As with real life neighbours, it is nice to know them, but we appreciate if they keep their problems to themselves.
And so, if our curiosity and knowledge grew, so did suspicion and mistrust.
Creating a cultural compost creates crystallisation, not fermentation
The solution we came up with in the 1940s is the spirit of Disney’s Small World ride. If we get to know each other, then we will understand each other, and end up really liking each other. That is the basis of Multiculturalism. And with the physical distance falling, a higher degree of mutual exposition happens, and so a cultural fermentation that leads to a new benevolent, accepting, enlightened humanity. That is the mantra of the UN, the EU and other 1950s global organisations.
The intellectual background to this philosophy is 1920s socialism, scouts, churches and the missionaries. A novel physical proximity and intellectual exchanges, which were relayed by radio and newspapers, and then national TV channels. Culminating with CNN.
And this brings us to today: the heap did not ferment, it crystallised. The emerging global citizen is self-centred. Why would stacking people and ideas create a cultural compost? Why would it necessarily create benevolence and acceptance?
That is ideology. And we need to get away from it.
The Disney ride is itself a looping cultural cliché for 60 years
If proof of this is needed, just list the recurring riots in banlieues, and townships, and suburbs in the past decade. London, Portland, Paris, Johannesburg, Delhi… But we turned a blind eye, crossed our fingers and continued believing that it would all synthetise in a Small World. After all.
Disney’s ride is its own indictment. Our immediate reflex is to deal with differences by using cultural clichés. Who wears wooden clogs in Holland? A beret in France? We dealt the same way with a shrinking horizon by crystallising fantasies. And that is even with the best of intentions: Emily lives in the Paris everyone wants. But which never existed. How many disappointed cosplay tourists when they come visit? How many South Americans watch and dream of the US as in a Modern Family?
Our physical, including cultural, environment is more resilient, more persistent. And heterogeneous.
Physical proximity itself does not create homogeneity.
What do we all do when visiting a foreign place? We carry around our own cuisine, entertainment, tunes, as a fallback position. We deal with the world’s cognitive dissonance by piling up reality layers. But layering our world does not make it more homogeneous, we are just better informed.
2020 just showed that the world is still distant
And 2020 forced us to stop and stare. At the 100 meters around our homes. At our lives. Physical distance does still exist.
And then..
My country. Right or Wrong. Lock the doors, batten the hatches, close the borders. Make sure we get our masks. Our vaccines. The thought that knowing the other better makes us more generous is belief and/or ideology.
Our street. My neighbours. Our community. In a word, Me, Us.
Within a week, the system we had in place to deal with humanity’s emergencies just collapsed, bickering in self-justifications. And still so 4 years later.
We can’t manage this Smaller World. We can’t grab the opportunities we created. Globalisation did not create homogeneity, it just created global standards and expectations. But also the unique circumstances for us to change course.
So far, 2020 is not that far from 1920 as we thought. Similar virus, similar reactions.
The question is: is that it, do we just wait for the same outcome?
Cooped up with nowhere to go
We had solutions in place. They fail. The only thing original in this statement is the urgency we feel today. Saying so is neither original, nor new. As an OpEd in Bloomberg said quite accurately, we grow globally restless, because we know what comes next. It is urgent to douse the sparks flying everywhere and find durable solutions.
We set up systems not for charity or goodwill, but for solutions.
Laments and begging never created durable solutions. At best alms. Religions gave us nice cathedrals, temples and mosques, philanthropy museums, Communism the gulag, and NGOS spoke-people. “Effective altruism” just ran its PR course and is on its way to jail.
But our global institutions are stuck with prayer-wheels. How sad is the world, bullying, drowning, starving, burning, warming up. It is a world of tears, a world of fears, it is a small world… sorry, digressing, pass me the bowl.
“We brought you Peace”
The global institutions had 70 years of budgets, resources and attention. It is now urgent to see that they not only came up short in intent but also in delivery.
We could settle wars in 6 days in the 70s. We can’t do it anymore in 40 days, 2 years, or even 12 years as in Syria. We just hope it will solve itself, somehow as they did in Afghanistan. In 1961, the general Secretary of the UN flew into Congo to avert a war and died there. In 2023, the current UN head, Guterres, flew into Expo City Dubai. He probably spared a thought as he flew over Gaza. Clearly, his priority mission was hobnobbing at COP28, not trying to solve the conflict.
The first mission set to the UN in 1945 was Peace. That is what the UN, the UNHCR, the EU, the EC will wrap themselves into whenever their track record and practises come under scrutiny. We brought you Peace. And Justice. Not to you maybe, but in general. To Humanity. Peace is our Mission. Well.. just look out of the window, and see our neighbours burning.
All the while, our individual exposure grows. We hear, we see the neighbours live. It is not over there. It is here. Or it will come to us tomorrow.
Our individual stakes grow. And so does our weariness and wariness. Across the globe.
The world stopped listening to its failing International institutions several times in the course of human history. The last time was in 1931, the League of Nations. Japan invaded Manchuria “to punish terrorists”. The rest is known.
So it is time to grab the global audience back.
How to grab the audience back
Sparks will fly. The only real uncertainty is when, where, how and what the spark will be.
What to do?
The rational decisions we have today are to A) curl up and wait for the explosion, B) upend the system, or C) find another life elsewhere.
Else? Radical change in mentalities, expectations and accountability.
We need to start with the two obvious, immediate issues: wars and migrations. Both are clear and present danger, one immediately lethal, the other a deeper social shockwave, but as lethal in the long term to both departure and destination countries.
For both, we need refereeing. There was a system for wars, it has failed. For migrations, we simply have no system in place. Both seem to spiral out of control.
And citizen X – you, me – grows more and more perplexed, as we live in a unique period. Our ancestors could only dream of our capabilities, resources, technologies, ideals and ideas. Surely we should be able to build a sustainable and durable solution.
How to start? Reset the mission, recentre the institutions on their core audience, clarify the expectations of the audience and put together an accountable system.
1 – The core mission
The core target remains to allow humans to blossom. It starts with Peace, Stability. Then you can grow whatever you want on top.
We need a system in place able to stop the bombs, the tanks, the boats, the rapes and the mobs. That system is not an ideological construct. It is a practical one.
This is a mission that must be the alpha and omega of the institutions. No COP28 until Gaza and Calais are solved. What would be the point of having no pollution if there is no humans to taste it. Don’t answer.
2 – Put the human back at the centre
Which leads us to the underlying question, a system for whom?
A system to serve humans. Easy. Not a vision of humanity.
Humanity as it is, not as it should be. Who knows what humanity should be? There are 110 millions of refugees. Globally. This is including the 6 millions of asylum seekers. These are the UN figures. 10% of humanity is living below the poverty line of 2$ per day, according to the World Bank. Both of these groups seem to be 100% of the any single website of any global or regional instance. 90% of humanity does not live in shacks.
The world is our neighbours. Humanity must be “us” again. Not “us” and “them”.
3 – Real humans, not ideological saints or martyrs
We are a dynamic global population. We fluctuate.
But what will never change? Me. The one and only Me. What was the most popular novelty over the last decade? Selfies. Why? Don’t overthink the answer. Even the Taliban took selfies on captured American treadmills.
We like ourselves. And so we should. Mental health experts learned us that much.
Recorded persecuted populations are the 6 millions of asylum seekers. If it is representative of the persecuted part of humanity, it is 0.07%.
The remaining 99.93% of humanity is much less idealistic. Human.
4 – Basic expectations: Security and Safety
Or, do what you say, say what you do.
No big change needed here. The same as in 1945: peace and stability. Predictability of tomorrow.
In a word, property.
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets out the Right to Security. Article 17 and especially 17.2 cements the Right to Property, and the inalienability of it. These are fundamental human rights.
Both of our potential sparks, wars and migration, have the same root: mine – yours. You cross into my country with an army. That is my real estate you are trespassing. You cross my border without my permission. Same. As an individual as much as a collective, a country, by virtue of article 17.2, I define the rules within my real estate, my borders. Except that this is not what we see. Not in wars, nor in migration.
Forget any other argument, reason or ideology. That is the root of the current risks. The very same that makes us wave flags at the World Cup, or attend a demo against an invasion on the other side of the world. National territory is a legal norm as much as emotional, personal as much as collective property. If I see that the International community is unable or unwilling to defend my property, why should I listen?
Asylum is tightly defined in case of persecution. Not bullying, economic hardship or climate change. So, it should not be an issue. Except the jurisprudence made it so.
Migration is destabilising Johannesburg as much as London. It is not primarily racism, fear, greed or envy. It is the respect of the boundaries of any peaceful neighbourhood. This is my home, you do not enter uninvited. Even vampires know that.
Anything else is charity. Within the law.
A world going forward
Our world is continuously getting smaller. That has good and bad aspects.
That means greater interdependency, greater knowledge and exposure, but also a greater risk of feeling our boundaries overstepped.
We all watched The Crown. We all started missing Dijon mustard because of a drought in Canada. And a war in Ukraine.
We have opportunities and experiences like never before in the history of mankind.
To start with, we need to be listened to, attended, not lectured from pulpits by instances with an inexistent track record.
We cannot just be spectators to the bonfire.
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