“O mundo en 2023: Anatomía dunha policrise” by Ignacio Ramonet

The Covid-19 pandemic, almost three years ago (2020 to 2022), shook the planet. With a staggering human toll of nine million dead, more than a billion sick people, when a way out of the tunnel of the pandemic was beginning to appear, in February 2022, war broke out in Ukraine… A conflict of global dimensions due to its economic consequences, its planetary geopolitical effects, its unprecedented military dimensions… And that is not the end. No one can rule out an escalation. Or that the belligerents will finally resort to nuclear weapons… In addition to these two central earthquakes, there are five other impetuous clashes that are no less worrying:

1) Those that bring about, in the economic sphere, the end of globalisation, without capitalism having a substitute proposal….

2) Those that provoke the deliquescence and decomposition of the international system, starting with the United Nations Organisation (UN) and the Security Council… A system created in 1945, after the Second World War, which does not work. But nothing can replace it…

3) Those which, at all latitudes of the planet, are causing the accelerated effects of climate change: droughts, fires, floods, frosts, cyclones, storms…

4) Those causing massive human migrations of biblical proportions which, for the first time, affect all regions of the Earth…

5) Those generated, in all societies, by the unforeseen impacts of rapid technological innovations in the field of mass communication, social networks, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and generalised surveillance…

All these crises occur simultaneously. They are intertwined. They intersect. They support each other. And, between them all, they paint a complex picture of wonder and shock. No one can understand what is happening. No one is sure. In the behaviour of citizens, this polycrisis is producing impacts and traumas that confuse, paralyse and depress. The rulers themselves – in any country – are disoriented. Unable to understand the new challenges and the new challenges that are happening on a global scale. Worse, most governments are inept and incompetent in setting perspectives and proposing solutions. This Seminar aims to explain and clarify the current global geopolitical equation in its various aspects. And it will set out a documented reading grid of current affairs. So that every citizen can clearly understand what is happening in the world.

Dr. Ignacio Ramonet

PhD in Social Sciences from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociais, Paris (France). Director of Le Monde diplomatique in Spanish. Professor of Communication Theory at the University of Paris VII. Doctor Honoris Causa from five international universities. Specialist in Geopolitics and International Strategy. UN consultant. Founder of the World Social Forum and creator of its slogan “Another World is Possible”. Founder of the NGO Media Watch Global. Founder and Honorary President of Attac. Recipient of countless awards, distinctions and recognitions, including several in Journalism (the Rodolfo Walsh, Argentina; the Antonio Asensio, Spain; the Feliz Elmuza, Cuba); the Gold Medal of the French Senate; and the recognition (Proclamation) of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States “for his extraordinary contributions as a writer, teacher, journalist and critic”. He has lectured and conducted seminars at distinguished universities around the world. He is the author of thirty books, all translated into several languages. Among them: How They Sell Us the Motorcycle (with Noam Chomsky); A World Without Direction; The Tyranny of Communication; Silent Ads; 21st Century Wars; The Crisis of the Century; The Explosion of Journalism; The Surveillance Empire; The Age of Conspiracy, and two worldwide best-sellers: Fidel Castro, A Biography in Two Voices and More Hugo Chávez: My First Life.