Beyond ten years of chaos – how our world has changed

The world has changed there is no doubt that our world has changed so much. Ten years ago the global economy plunged into its biggest recession since the 1930’s, then in late 2010 a Tunisian man set his self on fire sparking a series of civil wars and uprisings across the Middle East. Then, of course, president Trump and Brexit.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember how this all began, as the US geared up for the 2008 election race the housing market crashed. This left many people unable to pay there mortgages and debts mounted. I remember watching the collapse of Northern Rock, I was young but was unable to imagine what was about to happen.

Gordon Brown, the British PM, had only come to power just before the chaos of the collapse of the banking system. We know that the countries debt needed reducing, as we saw the government was in fear of a collapse of a bigger debt crisis.

The crisis highlighted a weakness in the Euro, while most EU countries adopted the euro, they didn’t adopt a single fiscal policy. That left Greece and other southern countries exposed, the collapse could of lead to Grexit from the single currency.

The uncertainty manifested during the election resulting in a coalition in the UK, between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. The mandate they were to govern on really failed, by the 2015 election they had planned to have wiped out the deficit.

David Cameron would later gamble the countries future on Europe the following year, which spectacularly backfired resulting in Brexit. You have to wonder if Cameron was confidence following his victory in the Scottish independence referendum, where remain won.

As the UK grappled with Europe, the far right had made dramatic gains and are in control of the Italian government. Italy’s chaos it undermined by the rise of the Five Star Movement in local elections. The theme remains the same, anti-austerity.

Like in Italy, Greeks voted for the anti-austerity party, but they were forced to make more cuts and for an EU bailout, however, the government was forced to take cuts to keep the finances afloat.

Meanwhile, the common theme across Europe and the US has been the forgotten and the white working class. They have brought into the theme by saying the far right, as well as Trump and the Brexiteers of the establishment not being for the people.

Once more, reforms have left people poorer as cuts bite. We know that what every country wants is growth and stability.

Race relations across the world are deteriorating, we have seen since 2016 more attacks on minority groups, this has been rising. I think that it’s a number of factors, including fuel by politicians, the far right, fake news and misunderstanding.

Fake news has been created by Trump, well it’s getting harder to understand what is real fake news and what is news he doesn’t like. The internet has played a part because you are likely to only follow the media you are interested in. But personally I try to follow a wide range of voices, and I don’t necessarily agree with them.

The last ten years have shown that, regardless of the EU, Trump or Brexit, events around the world have an impact.

The unrest in the Middle East created the largest migrant crisis in modern times, we saw the death of Alan Kurdi in 2015 highlight the problem of mass migration into the EU. The underlying cause I believe is the regimes in the region.

His death was seized on by the brexiteers as a reason to leave the EU. But this also demonstrates the power of the alternative and the people who want change to use this tradey to blame people and create fear.

There are conflicts, crisis and tragedies in other parts of the world to. We forget about the Asian Migrant Crisis, the famine and conflicts in Yemen, South Sudan, Libya and Somalia. The politicians and the press are so focused at the moment on Brexit and Trump.

A key factor has been blaming groups of people for actions, but as ever you can’t say every Muslim is a terrorist, all migrants want to come to claim benefits.

Maybe as we grapple with Brexit, Trump and other crisis we tend to forget how we got here.

Since the start of the year, the crisis in Venezuela has been on the agenda, I don’t know the ins and outs in detail. But it appears from what I’ve read and heard that the route of the crisis stems from the collapse in oil prices, rising inflation and bad economic management. Venezuela could be one of the worlds richest economies, but hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine have hit the population hard, causing millions of Venezuelans to flee.

You can see with the #Metoo movement women have begun to speak out about harassment and genderfication. These have I think been fuelled by the things we can talk about now, sexual harassment which I believe is partly to with the 90’s generation believing in equality and that no issues are off limits.

The chaos we have experienced over the last decade doesn’t stem from just one event, it’s a series of events in which people have realised that the establishment hasn’t been working for them. This not only includes governments but parties as well both Jeremy Corbyn and Trump came from the outside of their parties.

We need to remember that these far right and populist leaders believe they were elected for the forgotten. So their rise has come from the forgotten mainly white working class, we know that these leaders largely believe they speak for what they believe, and what the base wants to hear.

Change I feel has been driven by the young, though we said there no hard data exists from speaking to friends I believe that we are more politically engaged, but we may be the minority.

The question facing the world is how do we reunite as a community of people to solve the big issues of our time, like climate change, avoiding another financial crisis and bringing equality to all. In conclusion, I believe that there is no easy answers or single cause to the events over the last decade. But I believe that the world will never be the same again.

One question that I think we will be asking going forwards and one we won’t get answers to in the short term will be can it lead to long term political change?