This archive report was first published on 29 September 2019.
George Orwell's 1984, published in 1949, eerily captures our present in his futuristic crystal ball. The dystopian novel warns of the dangers of an iron-fisted propagandistic state and the end of trust in institutions.
Orwell's vision of a world befallen by continuous war, propaganda, and intrusive state surveillance is strikingly similar to our current predicaments – distrust in institutions, official deception, and secret surveillance through illiberalism and authoritarianism.
One of the predicaments Orwell described is the end of trust in institutions. We live in dangerous times, with the Pax Americana, the period of post-war American dominance, clearly entering its sunset.
The election of Donald Trump in 2016 to the helm of the United States signalled the inner decay in the American Empire. His and the White House's congenital lying – the invention of alternative facts – is emblematic of an ideological fatigue, a failure to reimagine the so-called American ingenuity.
The end of the road for the post-war schema of ideas built on liberalism – markets, democracy, and internationalism – is a reality. It's the end of a certain global order built on liberalism, not the end of liberalism itself.
As the West's share of the global market shrinks, Asian countries and those in the Global South expand theirs. Workers in the West have been squeezed by low wages, unemployment, job insecurity, and the instability of pensions.
The Angry White Man, the voter who put Mr Trump in office and led to the slow torture of Brexit in Britain, has taken centre stage. He blames everyone, except himself, for the decline of the West.
Like the Roman Empire, which was collapsed by enemies within and without, the West's fate is no different. The Angry White Man has built a personality cult around Mr Trump, and American liberals, progressives, and the Left have been paralysed by this surge of naked racism and counter-factualism.
At the periphery of the Empire – and Kenya is a good example – the Age of the Distrust of Institutions has taken deep root. The failure of the democratic experiments in Kenya and elsewhere in Africa has deepened the public's despair.
Neither the East nor the West offers us any hope. We will perish if we don't save ourselves.
Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of KHRC. @makaumutua.
