When I was a kid, we were in the middle of the Cold War. Michael Jackson was still black, every school wall in Finland proudly displayed a black-and-white portrait of president Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, the infamous Tiitinen list of Finnish politicians was still in Stasi’s hands, Berlin was divided by a wall, Nelson Mandela was in prison — and yet, despite all of this, you never had to start a phone call by asking, “Are you in a bad spot?”
By the time I was a teenager, history had decided to go into overdrive. The Berlin Wall crumbled, apartheid ended in South Africa, and the Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War was officially over, and for a brief, naive moment, it actually seemed like humanity was coming to its senses. Sure, in Finland, the collapse of Eastern trade threw the economy into an unprecedented recession, but we bounced back—thanks to Nokia, of all things—and this new thing called the internet started turning the world upside down in a whole different way.
That should have been enough historical upheaval for one generation. And yet, here I am, still breathing, watching another global shift unfold before my eyes. First, we got hit by a pandemic. Then Putin’s Russia decided to go full 20th century and launched a full-scale war in Europe by invading Ukraine. And now, in just over a month, Trump—having made his “landslide” return to the White House—has not only pulled the rug out from under the very idea of Western democracy but also flushed American democracy straight down the toilet. In the process, he’s been hard at work dismantling the very rules-based global order on which Western democracy was built.
Meanwhile, the U.S.—formerly known as the land of the free and the home of the brave—has been spitting out headlines at such a breakneck pace that even major news agencies can’t keep up. (To be fair, some of them are also struggling because they’ve been kicked out of the White House.) History is being rewritten at unprecedented speed—and unfortunately, not just in the metaphorical sense. The Trump administration is also making sure that the history being taught in American schools conveniently aligns with its own version of reality.
European leaders are scrambling to make sense of the situation, let alone adapt to it. Even most political analysts and experts have been caught with their pants down, unsure of how to react. Confusing and downright terrifying things are happening all around us, yet few seem willing—or able—to do anything about it, even those who actually have the power to intervene.
Alarming things are happening, and yet, most people—including those with the power to change the course of history—are just watching from the sidelines.
Hindsight is always 20/20. People have spent decades analyzing 1930s Germany, asking how the rise of the Nazis was allowed to happen. Why didn’t anyone react to the warning signs? Why did the world just stand by as disaster unfolded? Why didn’t someone stop it before it was too late? And yet, here we are, staring at the same questions all over again. Lots of alarming things are happening, and yet, most people—including those with the power to change the course of history—are just watching from the sidelines. Even former U.S. presidents remain eerily silent, despite the fact that speaking up might still make a difference.
I truly hope I’m wrong, but from where I’m standing, the U.S. is rapidly transforming into an oligarchy ruled by a single strongman—one that, instead of bringing stability, is actively spreading uncertainty across the world. And somehow, people are still struggling to believe that this is actually happening. The U.S. president, formerly referred as the leader of the free world, is cozying up to infamous dictators—historical adversaries of the West—and embracing a worldview where the strong take what they want, and the weak can only cry about it.
I fear we’re heading toward a world where money dictates everything, and power and wealth are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select few. The speed of this transformation is absolutely mind-blowing, and sometimes, I have to pinch myself just to make sure I’m reading the daily news and not some dystopian political satire.
These days, it’s hard to trust in anything permanent. The world is changing, and it will never go back to the way it was. One major historical upheaval would have been plenty for a single lifetime. I think when answering phone calls now, we’re all in a bad spot at the moment no matter where we are.