Oftentimes we are informed about a meeting of G7, G8, G20, IMF, Davos Economic Forum etc., but, do we really know why they were formed and what their mission is? What have they achieved? Are the common citizens benefiting from their existence?
One more of such meeting was concluded in the Netherlands, and despite media’s efforts to magnify the event, it didn’t surpass the parameters of a lacklustre performance. Except for some politically related sanctions against a few individuals including some unspecified trade and economic threats against Russia for annexing Crimea, they didn’t achieve anything which will improve the lives of the citizens who ultimately pay the bills of such summits.
Ironically, the same group of nations that took this punitive action against Russia has its own long list of meddling in several conflicts, such as Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria to name few, making this situation similar to a lion punishing a wolf for killing and eating a sheep.
To the common people these groups appear to be a selected elite of industrialised and righteous democratic nations, with strong economies and powerful militaries united together to promote peace, democracy, free-trade and equal application of the rule of law in the world.
Obviously with so much accumulated political, industrial, economic and military power, accompanied with the best media organisations at their disposal, it is natural to expect from these groups guaranteed success not only within their nations but also tangible benefits to the nations under their sphere of influence. However, taking a close look at their performance, disappointingly we can conclude that the opposite is happening.
Peace: With several active conflicts in the world, peace is going from bad to worse. Terrorism is omnipresent everywhere and it keeps rising and weak nations are struggling to find the elusive fair justice.
Free trade and economy: In the cut-throat competition for global trade dominance, free trade today resembles a trade war, while economic prosperity cannot be distinguished from economic nightmare.
At the rate our national debts keep piling up, soon we will have difficulty seeing the last digit of the accumulated debts and we might need to develop special devices, capable of reading the total amount of our national debts.
This dismal result by the most formidable powerhouses on earth defeats even our courage to ask how the global unemployment problem will be tackled and how the deteriorating condition of our environment will be stopped. Equally, there is no mention on how to make the scary future of our children look better and brighter.
Given the fact that all these problems are man-made and can be fixed by humans, it is time to ask these exclusive groups: how do they define success and accountability?
Economy: Are their economies indeed the strongest and best managed in the world? If the answer is yes then why are they reporting huge debts and the economies of the nations in their sphere of influence on the brink of bankruptcy?
Politics: Do they truly practice fair and genuine functioning democracies? If that’s true, why do we see so much influence in politics by powerful oligarchic industrialists, lobbyists and other vested interests? Why do their model democracies fail to function in states under their influence?
Fairness and equality: Is there real fairness and equal opportunities within their nations? If the answer is yes, why are there so many poor and unemployed people struggling to stay alive? If indeed they are so concerned about fairness, why do they fail to deliver equality to societies under their influence?
Military superiority: Undoubtedly they have the best financed and equipped armed forces in the world yet, why is there so much insecurity, violence and illegal immigration within their societies? Why do these strong militaries fail to prevent conflicts even within regions of their influence?
In the absence of solutions and lack of answers to the vital questions of what is going wrong with our governing systems, citizens in social media, blogs and other online interconnecting tools are abuzz with derogatory comments about the honesty, credibility and capabilities of the leaders of these groups.
Undoubtedly the leaders of these groups are well-educated individuals with problem-solving qualifications and leadership capabilities, therefore making the depressing status quo of affairs unacceptable. If this mess is not created intentionally then we must start asking the following type of questions:
Are these leaders genuinely highly-qualified to lead or did they undergo image and behavioural modification by hired public relations experts that became a standard practice in modern politics?
Since they are graduates of prominent universities, why do they recite speeches of empty rhetoric prepared by hired speech writers?
Despite so many problems faced by their nations, mysteriously they get scandalously high approval poll ratings, raising questions whether such polls are honest or manipulative tricks of the PR experts to overshadow the under-performances of these leaders.
In my view, which I believe is shared by many, either our educational institutions are not as good and prestigious as they are advertised to be, resulting in graduates who lack problem-solving capabilities, or these graduates use their knowledge for different agendas.
In some instances these exclusive groups give the impression they are composed by heartless profit-seeking nations who unite their powers to impose their political and military dominance on the global economies by using as tools their monopolistic currencies. World financing, economy and trade today are controlled by less than 10 major currencies.
As the leaders of these groups are non-reachable by the common people, the responsibility of obtaining the answers to our burning questions was left on the mighty media which, despite the fact that it obtained its power by invoking the freedom of information for the public, it has failed miserably.
Therefore, it is imperative for the media organisations during future summits to stop treating these leaders as celebrities and demand from them answers on why, despite the unlimited human and material resources in their disposal, they keep failing to solve man-made problems?
* Ilias Sourdis is a freelance Greek expatriate and businessman. He has lived outside Greece since 1976, with most of his experience in Asia.