I am not one to make definitive, unequivocal claims about any matter, even when I feel I have enough information to take a position. I will make an exception: I am confident that, this very day next year, the world will be in a very different place...
We will find ourselves in a precarious world in which anything could happen!
About two weeks ago, a well-informed source whom I respect told me that in a matter of months, not years, we will be using artificial intelligence in every aspect of our lives. Indeed, it is no coincidence that, among the 160 eminent figures invited to attend the royal banquet King Charles III hosted at Windsor Castle in honor of his guest President Donald Trump last week, were several owners of the business developing the cutting-edge technologies of the future.
This technology, foremost among them artificial intelligence, has become humanity’s ruler and the tool for ruling humanity.
The owners of this technology are the real rulers of our world, as they are the “real owners” of most governments around the globe, of ruling parties, of special-interest and media groups, and of the institutions that shape - and distort - public opinion: through digital and broadcast media, surveillance, monitoring, cyber, and “post-cyber” data collection.
These “ruling owners,” despite fiercely competing over billions of dollars in profits, are bound together by a political and factional shared interest to defeat rising competitors in every corner of the world, especially the Far East.
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia; Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; and Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News, the media of the far-right in the West and beyond, were among the most prominent of these owners to attend the event in Windsor. One of Trump’s closest friends, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the giant investment firm Blackstone, which reported revenues of $13.23 billion last year and net profits of $2.44 billion, was also there.
Yet, despite the vast gulf of wealth separating these magnates from other businessmen and wealthy individuals, they aspire to global dominance - indeed, to a worldwide monopoly over all means of control and influence. This is precisely what is revealed in the conduct of Washington’s “oligarchs,” backers of President Trump and funders of his political ambitions. This includes the provocation and unchecked excesses of Elon Musk, and the “media” empire of Rupert Murdoch, which for decades in Britain, America, Australia, and elsewhere has cultivated a culture of hatred, resentment, division, and even racial incitement.
This constellation of politics, influence, wealth, and technology crowned its gathering in Windsor with massive deals that will consolidate its control further, not only on people’s reactions and choices, but also on how people think, the values they hold, and the social norms that shape their relationships with others and with the state and broader society.
Accordingly, the understandings and deals that emerged from the meetings between the “ruling owners” and their political “subject” led to £150 billion worth of US investments into the British economy - £90 billion from Blackstone alone.
Meanwhile, far away from Windsor and its financial agreements, both Washington and London were grappling with the aftermath of two extremely grave developments:
The first is the assassination of the US far-right activist Charlie Kirk on the university campus in conservative, Mormon-majority Utah.
The second is the massive far-right protests against immigration and immigrants, and in defense of their country’s white Christian identity, on the streets of London.
Despite the arrest of the suspect, Tyler Robinson, the full details of Kirk’s assassination, especially the motives behind it, are still being investigated. Nonetheless, it has deepened the divide within American society between Trump’s camp - as Kirk was among its staunchest supporters - and his opponents. His rivals believe that Trump’s insistence on honoring Kirk as a “national hero” and his assault on unsympathetic journalists cross a line. They see the president’s positions as veiled hostility toward all the American communities that Kirk had openly antagonized and incited against.
Indeed, many political analysts dread the frightening level of polarization in the US. They are terrified that Trump could take his pursuit of critics and opponents - in the media, universities, and state institutions - further.
Another “Robinson” was at the center of events in London.
Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is a far-right British activist hostile to Muslims, immigrants, and Black people. He has co-founded several extremist groups, and he has been convicted of racially motivated violence. Yet, after Robinson and the organizations he worked with had long remained on the fringes of political life, his movement has become a force to be reckoned with; it can mobilize over 150,000 demonstrators and send them into the heart of London.
The peril of this new state of affairs cannot, of course, be reduced to a single individual or organization. Since Trump’s victory in the United States and the rise of Britain’s anti-European Brexit isolationists, the far-right has stopped being a marginal actor.
It has now, unfortunately, imposed itself electorally as it continues to rise in the polls across the West, blackmailing governments and imposing its agenda at times, even on competitors.
Thus, humanity and the human species are facing an existential threat amid the onslaught of racism, greed, and technology.
Here, it is not the tragedies of Gaza that I have in mind, nor any of the places currently suffering and bleeding out. I have in mind every country in the world where human emotions and values have vanished. In my view, no immigrant community in the West is safe anymore; none of them even has the right to feel safe.
