Nothing more than a fable

According to a Professor of History from Columbia University, Adam Tooze, if you are waking up today to the realisation that the weight of the world is on your shoulders, it may not be your imagination, but the fact that we are experiencing what he calls 'a collective experience,' and has tagged this experience as a ‘polycrisis,’ which has now become a catchphrase for economists, politicians, and wealth managers, all around the world.

Funnily enough, I grew up in an age when riddles and nursery rhymes were part of our growing up, communication, and learning, and I have never forgotten the story of ‘Chicken Licken,’ the fable of a little chicken who thinks the sky fell on his head, and the world is coming to an end, because an acorn fell from a tree and hit him on the head.

Chicken Licken rushes here, there, and everywhere, warning all the other animals that the sky fell on his head, and the world is ending. Many of his friends including Henny-Penny, Ducky-Lucky, Goosey-Loosey, and Turkey-Lurkey are all convinced of the reality of what is happening and join his crusade to warn the King of impending doom. However, in seeking to get Foxy-Loxy to join them, they instead end up as the hen, duck, goose, and turkey... on the Fox’s plate!

It is a tale believed to have been first authored by the famed Brothers Grimm but has been widely adapted in many languages and cultures, with diverse characters, but with the same moral, life lesson, or messages: Don’t believe everything you hear, or are told, and no one person knows everything. Now... believe it or not, there is an internationally accepted indexing, known as the Arne, Thomson, Uther of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, which measures the extent to which each makes light of mass paranoia and hysteria, and I have the uneasy feeling that by legitimising polycrisis, as the World Economic Forum in Davos did, in its 2023 Global Risks Report we are all being sucked into the acceptance of its reality.

“If you've been feeling confused and as though everything is impacting on you all at the same time, this is not a personal, private experience, this is actually a collective experience,” says Tooze, having coined the phrase to describe the cumulative effects of the global pandemic, the Russian-Ukraine War, numerous African drought, starvation and humanitarian crises, rising energy prices, exaggerated global cost-of-living, climate and environmental crises.

The Davos elite defined the situation as one, “where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact far exceeds the sum of each part.”

Well, how very grand and visionary of them all, to lump the economic, social, political, environmental, and technological nuances of our age under one heading, one umbrella, just so as to muddy the waters, so that in the absence of our being able to blame one influential individual for ‘things going awry,’ we are being convinced that this being a ‘collective experience,’ the blame can be shared with the ‘ordinary Joe,’ the ‘man on the street.’ It is the ultimate slap in the face for those of us who don’t have any real say in our direction, as a species, let alone as societies.

Put into perspective. This week, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves announced that ten million pensioners will be denied winter fuel payments, each of £300 this year, because she cannot balance the budget without doing so.

Yet, on the same day, she confirmed that all elected parliamentary representatives will receive energy and utility payments, “payable upon expense requests,” which have been as high as Suella Braverman’s £10,260, for the 2020-21 year, according to the most recent available figures. What a slap in the face ay?

The Sultanate of Oman is incredibly fortunate in so many ways, the most laudable being its overwhelming concern, based upon its faith, for its citizens. Upholding cultural and traditional values, perpetuating dignity and respect, are a world away from polycrisis and its ugly attempt at sharing responsibility for inequality and poverty. The ‘Chicken-Licken’ fable may make us smile, yet it’s realities are a fanfare we must heed.