Gobal crisis, then and now

“Perceptions of a global crisis have been rampant for over a decade. Third world nations fear their development prospects are being undermined by a series of devastating external shocks… In the developed countries as well there has been a contraction of trade and investment activities, and slow growth has produced new sentiment for protectionism and other retaliatory measures.”

If not for the dated term “third-world nations”, one could easily mistake the passage above for a description of today’s crisis-ridden world. But it is actually an excerpt from Gary Gereffi’s article, published in the International Journal of Comparative Sociology in 1984. The same article states that a common Achilles’ heel of East Asian nations is their lack of natural resources, especially oil.

Here in Southeast Asia, where the Philippines belongs, we are not lacking in natural resources but, like our East Asian neighbors, remain heavily dependent on oil from the Middle East. Around 50% to 60% of the region’s oil imports come from the Middle East, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The Philippines is even more highly dependent on Middle Eastern oil. A recent report by the Philippine Information Agency, citing Department of Energy data, states that 98% of the Philippines’ crude oil imports come from the Middle East. The same source also says that 97% of liquid petroleum products and 91% of LPG are imported from Asian refineries that are themselves dependent on the Persian Gulf.

The prospects for reducing this dependence on Middle Eastern oil are bleak. Some parts of the region, including the Philippines, produce oil in small amounts, but production has been declining for years. Consumption, meanwhile, continues to rise. According to the IEA, this poses a serious energy security problem, especially in light of conflicts in the Middle East and other global disruptions.

But as the passage at the beginning of this article illustrates, today’s crisis is not unprecedented. That could mean we are still capable of weathering the storm and avoiding catastrophic, even dystopian, consequences. We just have to tighten our belts further and maintain calm and sobriety in the midst of uncertainty. We can also use this opportunity to get real and serious about planning for a less fossil fuel-dependent future.

Or so that is what I would like to soothe myself with. There are, in fact, factors today that were not present in 1984 and are hard to gloss over. One is the weakening credibility of the United States itself, brought about not only by strategic overreach but by the erratic and self-defeating habits of Trumpism, including tariff threats and contempt for allies. Leaders in Europe and Canada have begun speaking of a profound rupture in transatlantic relations and of the need to reduce dependence on the U.S.

 Another factor, as demonstrated in the current Middle East crisis, is how the language of security has become a convenient excuse for the U.S.-Israel spree of high-profile assassinations and mass bombardment against their enemies. These do not merely produce deaths by the thousands, which the U.S.-Israel alliance defends as preemptive strikes meant to prevent greater destruction. The greater danger lies in how this adventurism corrodes the moral authority of states that still claim to lead the world.

Then there is climate change, persistent and recurring in its effects, no longer a looming threat but a lived reality. Add to that the lingering trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, whose scarring effects seem to follow a historical pattern. The 1918 influenza pandemic was followed by the severe recession of 1920 to 1921, and less than two decades later, the world descended into World War II.

So yes, humanity has weathered crises before. But this current crisis feels different in that the traditional institutions once expected to be stabilizing factors now appear weaker and more vulnerable, exhausted by assaults from a digital information ecosystem where disinformation thrives.

Communities are polarized as people no longer merely disagree about solutions. Many are now living in different versions of their own truth bubbles. Kin and neighbors may be geographically close, but they inhabit far different realities. A personally-pleasant cousin is a DDS, prone to spreading fake news and disinformation, while a good friend hates the DDS, as shown in her angry and condescending posts online.

Calm alone in a crisis will not save us. We must be willing to rebuild our communities, and that begins with a shared respect for truth, science, and human dignity, all of which disinformation steadily erodes.