The promise was freedom, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, of religion, and of the free movement of everything, ideas, people, goods and money; that is, all the hope that was pumped up at the end of the Cold War as the world entered the last decade of the 20th century.
A quarter of a century later, we have the Panama papers, millions and millions of documents leaked to a journalism organization, showing how dictators, elected politicians, businessmen, celebrities, world’s highest paid athletes have found illegal shelter for their money, probably a good part of it acquired through fraud and corruption, away from the eyes of the governments of their countries to ensure that they will not have to pay the taxes that were due from them.
That the disgraced (or even lynched) political figures like former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi or Russia’s Stalin-inspired dictator Vladimir Putin are among the culprits is no surprise. But when the family members of Britain’s Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron are also implicated alongside the personal involvement of the Prime Minister of Iceland Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson’s in the scandal, then one thinks it is probably time to stop and ponder for a while where we really are going as so called “civilized societies.”
In the hectic tempo of our daily lives, we hardly have the time and energy to focus on the broader issues of the globe, particularly in the peaceful rural communities of our peaceful country, away from the trouble spots of the world, separated from them by the oceans. (Despite that isolation, it seems some Canadian individuals and entities have managed to join the trend of sheltering money through shell companies as the Panama papers are reported to include up to 350 Canadian names that had yet to be revealed at the time of the writing.)
But if we were to take a few moments when the opportunity arises, such as one offered by the leaking of the Panama papers, it would be easy to see that the pumped up hopes didn’t really materialize as promised.
Take, for example, the free movement of people: Instead of what was promised, we have a massive refugee/immigrant crisis in our hands. Under a deal bargained between the European Union and Turkey, masses of people will be moved from one destination to another within the framework of decisions made by politicians of countries other than their own, not exactly free movement in any sense of the word.
As for free movement of the capital, that is the money, the point we reached is obvious as shown by the Panama papers: billions of dollars hidden in illegally created bank accounts of shell companies setup for the sole purpose of tax evasion.
It is probably because when capitalism triumphed over the communist ideology a quarter of a century ago, it was not only the borders of Soviet bloc countries that came down; what also collapsed was an undeclared system of checks and balances in the world order that kept both ideological blocs of the world on their toes, as governments on both sides had to legitimize their policies and ideologies before the court of their own public opinion. But that requirement was a much stronger factor in western societies as they had to go through elections while those ruling under one party systems had less of an obligation to justify themselves.
Paradoxically, the demise of the rival ideology seems to have led to the degeneration of some valuable qualities then prevalent in the West, a process that has brought us to a point where the defense of humanitarian values and qualities has been left to the pontiff of the Catholic church and the search for untainted political leadership has lifted a person like Donald Trump to the stage where he is within reach of nomination to become the most powerful man in the world.
Should we be happy with where we are?