It is now 25 years since openDemocracy was conceived: time for me to leave its board of directors to become its honorary president. How has the world changed across the quarter-century and how has openDemocracy responded? It is a double narrative that may have lessons for the coming decade.
For we are in immediate danger in a way that is new. The climate, our democracies for those who enjoy them, peoples’ economic well-being everywhere: all are at risk in these cruel, fraudulent and bitter times. Terrible wars in Africa, the Middle East and the Black Sea also threaten to destabilise the nuclear confrontation of the great powers. Making it even worse, the web, which could be an honest, shared arena of communication, is being corrupted.
To take just one aspect of the ‘polycrisis’: if Donald Trump wins the US presidency in 2024, as opinion polls predict he will, it could be our 1933 – a violent, lawless leader committed to ensuring power for his white minority in command of the greatest surveillance and military system the world has known.
