Opinion | From Ukraine and North Korea to Covid-19 and climate change, global crises leave us feeling helpless

In a world where high risk is the new normal, this week’s Munich Security Conference will look at how best to overcome the mood of ‘collective helplessness’, given that the resources, strategies and instruments to tackle the challenges are available

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People gather to celebrate a Day of Unity in Odessa, Ukraine, on February 16, as the threat of a Russian invasion remains a real and present danger. Photo: AP

Published: 10:30pm, 17 Feb 2022Updated: 1:54pm, 9 Mar 2022

“May you live in interesting times” is an English translation of a Chinese “curse” believed to have been said by statesmen Joseph Chamberlain, the father of British prime minister Neville Chamberlain who, in the 1930s, negotiated the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler.

Fast forward a century, and the expression still has currency. While seemingly a blessing, it is often used ironically; life is actually better in “uninteresting times” of peace and prosperity than in “interesting” ones of trouble and uncertainty.

The interesting times we live in today, not least due to the growing crisis in Ukraine, is the focus of this weekend’s landmark Munich Security Conference, the premier annual geopolitical event in Europe.

Attendees include 35 heads of state, plus some 100 government ministers and other key dignitaries, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres; German Chancellor Olaf Scholz; Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg; and US Vice-President Kamala Harris.

While the eyes of the world are currently on the Russian military build-up in eastern Europe, the key theme of the conference is how such security tensions are only the most prominent manifestations of a broader “poly-crisis” facing the globe, with an unprecedented number of overlapping challenges.

According to a statement by the summit organisers, we are living in an “era of successive and interconnected disruptions in which a permanent sense of crisis has become the new normal”.