I’m not sure this Easter brings with it the sense of renewal, optimism and uplift we have come to expect.
The reason is simple, even if it remains unvoiced.
Another, different world has loomed into view in recent years. A world that represents the practical and direct negation of the society we have lived in for decades. Which hems us in and offers little grounds for optimism.
Global flashpoints have multiplied. And today’s conflicts are being prosecuted without restraint or rules. Even negotiations and mediations rarely yield results.
The global economy (and by extension ordinary people…) is being pushed to its limits. The framework of values and givens that took shape in the decades after World War II is now literally hanging by a thread.
While another world—one marked by uncertainty and instability—waits in the wings.
To be fair, the destabilization didn’t start with the Trump administration. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine came first, then the Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Only then did the Trump presidency throw still more petrol on the fire with the attack on Iran (and other things…).
And not before the White House had repudiated every rule and challenged every international practice or legal principle that fails to align with the American President and his ambitions.
Which he put to the test first in Venezuela, Canada and Greenland.
The latest blow? Having struck a fragile truce with Iran, Trump has gone straight back to threatening NATO for failing to support the U.S. in his Iranian operations.
I can only suppose he views the Alliance like a band of mercenaries or Praetorians in his service.
None of this bodes well. The international order which, despite its weaknesses, ensured decades of peace, normality and economic growth is either already gone or being chipped away at day by day.
While the other world looming into view promises nothing good, attractive or desirable. Just a “gunfight”, as the current occupant of the White House threatened the other day.
All of this would be of only academic interest, were that “other world” not the one in which we—and our children and our children’s children—are being called upon (or, rather, forced…) to live.
So I don’t know what this year’s Easter will bring with it and what message we can take from the Resurrection.
I can only wish the readers of To Vima health and personal happiness, moments of joy and enjoyment, and peace for themselves and their families.
