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We live in a remarkable period, unparalleled in modern times. Its extraordinary nature is difficult to overstate, but few recognise its potential.
The West has no leaders.
The West is, let's remind ourselves, not only our home but our civilisation. It is larger and far greater than our country (whatever our country is). It has been the dominant civilisation on this little planet for more than 400 years. Its name is utterly meaningless, as a sphere can have no "West", but it is better than any other - certainly better than the term "Free World", which combines irrelevancy with error, complacency and patronisation. The West is, crudely, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Western and Central Europe. It is - used to be - a loose global alliance of nations. A better definition is "Journalistic shorthand".
Previously, the West relied on leaders. One of its few common defining characteristics was that it shared a background in personal, European-style, monarchy, and that lived on in its political culture. As ruler of the richest and most powerful country on the Earth (and in the West), the American President naturally assumed the title of "leader of the free world". That title now resembles the old post of "Holy Roman Emperor" - as the Emperor was neither holy, nor Roman, nor in charge of an empire, the President as "leader of the free world" does not lead, and we are not free.
Instead, the United States has become a global slum landlord for a globe that is increasingly becoming a slum. (The average human, incidentally, lives in a slum - other than climate change, this is the single biggest impact of Western economics on the planet.)
But the leadership crisis goes deeper than that. President Bush's administration is not so much stalled as stagnating, and thanks to the 22nd amendment he will not only not be in power in 2009, he is not in power now - he is merely in office.
But leadership of the West has always been carried by more than one pair of shoulders - it used to be a club occupied by the most extraordinary political animals of our generation, big beasts like Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Francois Mitterand. Say what you like about their politics, these people were leaders.
Now, we have Blair - a fatally wounded UK prime minister who has been floating face down in the political water all year. He's had so many close shaves he has cut his own throat.
The leaders of France and Germany will be out within the next couple of years. Berlusconi's travails have returned Italy to its usual state of political deadlock. Elsewhere on the European stage, only Spain's prime minister Aznar is securely in place for a major country; beyond him, you're looking at Vladimir Putin, certainly not a "Westerner". Australia's John Howard squandered what brief moment in the global limelight he had and is now invisible.
In other words, our civilisation is at a threshold; this is a genuine watershed moment. And this is where the opportunity comes in. Another generation of leaders is waiting to happen, and some of them might not even now they're part of that. Everywhere, the Right is tired and discredited; as stated, the most vibrant PM in Europe is Spain's leftist Aznar. The grind of rightist and neoliberal market economics has got to us. A fresh, and perhaps even radical, voice from outside the tired triangulations of our present political matrices could, and I believe will, sweep the board.
Position vacant: Leader of the West. Leader of the NEW FREE WORLD.
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