This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 30, 2024 - January 12, 2025

AS we complete the first quarter of the 21st century, conflicts, crises and collapses are cascading into our lives, seemingly in relentless waves. Although adversity breeds resilience, we cannot ignore the reality that we are sowing the seeds for our own destruction if we do not change how we act in the world.

Two things are clear about these scenarios: one, global challenges are increasingly reverberating at the local level, and two, entrenched systems are failing spectacularly, at great cost to people’s wellbeing. Today, we must ask deep questions and make difficult choices.

Multiple times in 2024, the Middle Eastern conflict looked dangerously close to igniting an all-out war in the region, with global consequences, including the unthinkable possibility of nuclear war. But, in times of crisis, it is human nature to respond by summoning our hidden resourcefulness. And so it did in this arena. Unable to bear the scale of the humanitarian tragedy that has befallen the Palestinians, people in Malaysia, Indonesia and in other Muslim-majority communities found their voice in a targeted boycott of American products to express opposition to US foreign policy, which continues to enable Israeli impunity.

Taking a leaf from the protesters, can we see ourselves rising in solidarity with disenfranchised peoples in our midst? Many of our brothers and sisters are crippled by disadvantage or alienated because of their circumstances. Although we share spaces with them, they mostly remain out of our sight because of invisible walls such as poverty, age, identity, gender and the effects of othering. The spark that lights our compassion for fellow beings dwells in a feeling of empathy, just as we have demonstrated for the dispossessed people of Palestine. In the new year, may we take the time to tend the flame of fellowship so that all of us can find comfort in its glow.

With each passing day, it is becoming clearer that artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing sweeping changes to the way we live, work and spend our leisure time. Experts are telling us to embrace the technology in order to make the most of its superhuman capabilities. In December, the National AI Office was launched to guide the adoption of this technology in all its dimensions, reflecting the pervasive impacts that it will have on the economy, society and our institutions.

Lifelong learning will be our default operating mode in these times. Alongside the unlearning and relearning that this entails, we have to unleash our creativity to interface optimally with the software-driven world. Adapting to change, and that too in relentless cycles as the pace of innovation accelerates, will bring its own challenges, including the mental stress of coping with the digital transformation.

Old modes of thinking and behaving are becoming ineffective or irrelevant and will fall away. It can be disconcerting to change the way we do things, but if we choose to be flexible, the experience can be liberating. For example, AI assistants are proving to be great fun besides having their practical uses, such as providing real-time translations for travellers in foreign destinations and happily functioning as a research assistant on steroids.

While retraining and upskilling programmes and instruments like guaranteed universal income are vital for a just transition to the fourth industrial revolution, they can only go so far towards stabilising the future of our societies. On a personal level, each of us must connect with our unique gifts as individuals and be comfortable in our skin in the brave new world we are entering. Perhaps most importantly, only by giving our best human qualities to our relationship with superintelligent machines can we prevent a dystopian outcome for ourselves.

Among the most disturbing aspects of our self-destructive trajectory as a species is the paralysis of the global community on the climate crisis. With narrow self-interest dictating the behaviour of nations, it is no surprise that the latest United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November failed to achieve meaningful progress on the urgent measures needed to avert catastrophic climate change. In a nutshell, we must have a change of heart in order to be convinced that the common good is equal to our own good, and is not just some nice rhetoric.

That axiom applies not just to the climate crisis, but to all the catastrophes that we have collectively created for ourselves — be it the inequities of international financing, tragic effects of maldevelopment, crises in healthcare, education and housing, or the next imminent global epidemic.

Each of these challenges may test our institutions, systems and mode of resource distribution in the new year and beyond, but at every turn, we can make a crucial difference if we apply to them the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi’s words, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” 

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play.