Strangely enough, it seems that the newly emergent world war is one fought against statues. As most urban dwellers these days know nothing about those whose statues they pass by daily, or little of the characters their street names are based on, they identify statues that ought to be under attack from the alleged offenses highlighted by various instigators and leaders of the movement, who summon their troops on the Internet.
This is a proxy war, where statues are a pretext, standing in for the higher status group. It is this superior status and its social legitimacy that protesters are attacking. This is a global war, because it has been universalized, and because there is no society without an ongoing conflict for social status between groups. Recent events have just provided ammunition to those who perceive themselves as inferior in status. Furthermore, one may call this a revolutionary war, as contesters seek no less than the replacement by themselves of the established elite, which defends these statues.
This is a proxy war, where statues are a pretext, standing in for the higher status group.
Revolutions have not amounted to much in the last 20 years, but the long recession and uncertainty that follows the Corona crisis offers fertile ground, promising a deep shakedown of social and national hierarchies. Some of these hierarchies are fundamental to the identity of the West as we know it, and it is not clear what will replace them. Contesters frame current Western establishments as the descendants of colonizing, undemocratic and racist powers, forgetting that they also inherit the progressives who were against tyranny, slavery or colonization, who eventually had the upper hand.
