Another very visible consequence is the proliferation of imperial wars of conquest waged to submit recalcitrant countries, called "rogue states" for that purpose, generally ending in the execution of their leaders, the destruction of their political and social systems and the resulting anarchy and mass migrations used to implement a semi-colonial system of exploitation and (remote) control. This facet of the current global regime was described from various angles in the plenary panel on "hybrid warfare" moderated by Austrian Professor Hans Koechler, president of the International Progress Organization.
Although many of those features are not new to our age and have existed more or less through human history (think of poverty, plunder, ecological devastation, prostitution, slavery, revolution and war as long-lived ancestors of the present plagues), they are expanding on a planetary scale and are invested with the ever growing power of finance, global trade, technology and industry now operating at the speed of thought. A mechanism has been put in place to impose globally ideas, opinions and concepts supportive of the ruling system through the media, judicial threats and procedures and overwhelming military force as international lawyer Christopher Black from Canada illustrated vividly from his personal experiences. A critical role is played by the new information technologies and their extension to the "Internet of Things" are other far-reaching developments that were also analysed in the Forum under the stewardship of Professor Jens Wendland from Germany.
Mankind and the world are increasingly ruled by "intelligent" machines that seem destined one day to escape human control but if the disintegration of states and governments predicted by Dr Rob van Kranenburg of the Netherlands may result from the invasion of digital systems and artificial intelligence, Dr Daya Thussu (India and the UK) was one of those who pointed out that the largest number of users of these new technologies are in the developing countries, especially China, India and Brazil, although the USA still controls most of the underlying structures and search engines. This situation is not viable in the long run and the emerging powers are taking steps to achieve autonomy in the cyber-sphere.
5-Against this lingering unipolar system we can see the beginnings of a reaction whose outline can be defined by the following features, if one again forgives the necessary simplification:
A-The resolve in certain countries to define and uphold national models and policies, rooted in their respective civilizations and independent of the global "imperial" system that is being pushed on them.
B-Those national models and policies are usually related to the spiritual and religious worldviews inherited by those countries from their respective past: Confucianism in China, Buddhism in Japan, the Sanathana Dharma in India, Orthodoxy in Russia, Shi'ite Islam influenced by Platonism in Iran (described by Dr Ghahram Soleimani Kahnouj as a "cultural cosmopolis"), the national monarchical and patriotic culture in France and in other European countries and so on.
The principles common to those diverse revival processes are rooted in the millennial experience of wisdom schools of many regions: respect for the laws of nature that are detected in physics and biology as in the social area, protection of the dignity and inner divinity of human beings (which does not however rule out severe punishment for the crimes that greviously violate those precepts -- charity is different from permissiveness), compassion for and acknowledgment of the sanctity of life (and not only human life), acceptance of ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, the practice and education of the population in the universal virtues such as truthfulness, altruism, benevolence, patience and humility and inculcation of the sense of beauty and harmony in the public mind.
That set of shared values must be imparted to all people, especially in the up and coming generations and one of the Forum's roundtables was dedicated to the ongoing project to set up "schools of dialogue" to fulfill that agenda.
Although such moral tenets appear obvious and almost cliche, it must be pointed that most of them are being actively denigrated or at least pushed into the background by the current globalised cult of limitless greed, opportunism and spiritual nihilism or subjectivism, often camouflaged under the label of newly found "universal values", solely defined by personal desires divorced from biological and moral realities. In the prevailing paradigm, the human being is still seen as the supreme master of his own destiny and owner of the universe in which all other things and creatures are resources to be exploited and harnessed in the service of his or her own desires.
While "beauty" is labeled "fascistic" or described as a matter of mere individual opinion and feeling, monetary reward is projected as the only measure of success and talent. In matters of faith the two extremes of radical militant atheism, which rejects the very notions of reverence and mystery, and of fanatical promotion of a particular literal creed, leave little room for open-minded and non-sectarian spiritual experience.
It is now frequently heard from positions of authority that art is no longer about beauty but rather about shocking and creating discomfort in the viewer or hearer, the usual justification being that the modern world's violence, pain and anger are reflected in the art it produces. However it is not often retorted that art, as a mirror and fount of beauty, has always been seen as a metaphor of the harmony that the universe expresses and a euphemism for a reality that makes no sense unless it is raised to the level of myth in the heaven of imagination. By reflecting and increasing the ugliness of present-day and perennial features of the human experience, contemporary art is only perpetuating and worsening the anguish and suffering of its creators and its public, and becomes a sickness instead of providing a salve. The spread of self-proclaimed satanic cults in certain societies of the Americas and Europe is another reflection of this "infernal" course.
C-The growing awareness of the environmental/climatic hazards related to unregulated and unsustainable human activity and consumption was highlighted notably by US Professor Steve Szeghi. Together with a new understanding of the nature of reality provided by current insights of science this realization is translating into a new ecological vision of the future of technology in particular and for civilization as a whole. The need to see mankind as a part and parcel of cosmic nature and no longer as the master race of a mechanical universe in which reason and mind are prerogatives of human beings, leads to a radical evolution in economic and political philosophies.
The current global hegemonic system is extremely ill-suited for the new paradigm, which contradicts many of its fundamental dogmas and "source code". The transformation may only be possible under the leadership of the emerging powers that oppose it for various reasons. Although those emerging powers have so far broadly functioned within the ruling paradigm, they are increasingly uncomfortable with it, as they are kept in relative subservience and cannot come into their own as long as they subscribe to its precepts and rules.
Russia has long been a fountainhead of alternative ideas for mankind and has resisted in various ways the hegemony of the liberal capitalist system since the late nineteenth century. China and India, like many other old nations have very rich and ancient civilizational legacies which contain many ideas for modifying and replacing the current system, while other, formerly colonized or dominated countries also seek to emerge from the era of Euro-American dominance that is ending amidst fast spreading chaos, as was pointed in a discussion moderated by Professor Fred Dallmayr, co-chairman of the Forum.
French member of the European Parliament Dr Aymeric Chauprade called for a union of countries around Russia in order to counteract the pervasive destructive influence of the current global hegemonic regime, through the invocation of transcendent values rooted in universal spirituality and biological realities.
The struggle for liberation now coming to a head, both in military and economic terms, may be regarded as a new phase in the process of decolonization which began with the second world war. It translates into the major international financial initiatives being taken by the BRICS nations to reform the global economic order through various major new institutions and programmes, described by Professor Peimin Ni as the New Silk Road world order. However, it also results in the expanding wars in West Asia and North Africa and in mounting military tensions in the Western Pacific. The emancipation of the majority of mankind from its hegemons may not happen without a new cycle of violent confrontations that may turn out to be fatal for mankind as a whole because it is rare for a ruler to give up power without a bitter fight, often to the end.
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