Extraordinary times

We live in extraordinary times: on the one hand, technologies of all sorts – biological, robotic, digital – are being invented and perfected by the minute, and many feats that would once have been considered impossible or magical are being performed. On the other hand, we are destroying our biological home at breathtaking speed. On the third hand (for there’s always a hidden hand), the democratic form of government we have extolled and promoted in the West for centuries is being undermined from within by super-surveillance technologies and the power of corporate money. When 1 per cent of the population controls over 80 per cent of the wealth, you have a top-heavy social pyramid that’s inherently unstable.

The above words of Margaret Atwood in her latest book Burning Questions (2022) reflect the fact that we are indeed living in ‘interesting times’. Without socio-economic justice, the present world order is collapsing.

Tariq Khosa
Director
07 July 2022.