We live in fascinating times.
This is the most dynamic time in the history of humanity.
Everything is changing very, very fast, my friends.
Just in the past 30 years, people have invented
internet, smartphones, cloning, drones,
portable GPS, flat screens.
Tinder alone is quite noteworthy, isn’t it?
An object created by humans
left the solar system for the first time.
We are preparing to colonize Mars.
Look at how modern factories are starting to look.
And this is how they looked just some 30 years ago, in the 1990s.
You see how modern smartphones look.
Now you will see it ... most likely.
Believe me, they look really cool.
We use them every day and know what they are capable of.
And they look very different from the mobile phones of the 1990s.
And that, too, was just 30 years ago.
This is what a contemporary car looks like.
It’s full of electronics.
And here is how it looked in the 1990s.
And now please have a look at this picture.
This is a parliament in 2019.
And this is a parliament in the beginning of the 21st century.
Here is a parliament in the beginning of the 20th century.
And here - you can hardly believe it -
a parliament,
a parliament in the beginning of the 19th century.
Is it just me
or can you not see much difference between these pictures either?
I find it outrageous that politics,
which affects so many things in our lives,
remains one of the most conservative and inflexible systems.
Think about it.
The way we organize governance,
the way we build relationships with our neighbors,
and the way we manage our resources
have not changed for decades and even centuries.
We are long overdue for a global reform of the political system.
We cannot go on like this.
We need fundamental changes in political processes
on both regional and global levels.
We need new global regulations
for our financial and tax systems.
We need new forms of citizenship, possibly independent of geography.
Nowadays, the circumstances
in which we were lucky or not so lucky to be born
determine our well-being, our opportunities,
and, let’s be honest,
our mere chances of survival.
Isn’t it rather archaic?
I think that our descendants may also find it bizarre
that we all were divided into 193 groups.
Every group had its symbol, a picture inside a rectangle.
Some would have horizontal stripes of different colors,
others would have vertical stripes, some would have a circle in the middle,
others would have a cross.
Some tried to be more original,
which they probably shouldn’t have.
Even if people from those groups were not so different from each other,
it was crucial to them to prove that they were better than the rest,
at least in some respect.
Only because they were born in a certain territory.
This doesn't make much sense.
People who focused on proving that their group was better
were prepared to do so at all costs.
They made sacrifices, they suffered.
They went as far as sending their own children to war,
all in pursuit of those illusory objectives.
Benedict Anderson, a prominent sociologist,
called nation-states “imaginary communities.”
On a historic scale, nation-states are a relatively new phenomenon.
They appeared at the end of the 18th century
in response to the challenges of the First Industrial Revolution.
Governments needed to direct and motivate people
by appealing to their national identity,
to their awareness of a unique historic destiny, a special national mission.
Suddenly, agendas of one piece of land became more important to people
than agendas and the future of the humanity combined.
Thus, it turns out that the countries
that emerged as a response to the First Industrial Revolution,
are pure egoists.
Of course, one could always find a rational explanation
of why countries act in this particular manner.
But this only holds true if we look at competition
as the only way to co-exist in the world.
Time passed, this paradigm shifted,
but nations remain as selfish now as they were before.
What do I mean when I say that nations are selfish?
Let’s figure it out together.
I decided not to overwhelm you with academic work
and scientific references,
but instead take a glossy magazine,
find an article, “Signs of your partner being overly selfish,”
and check the nations against those criteria.
After all, we are in relationship with our governments, aren’t we?
Let’s see what came out of this experiment.
Number one. Your partner is self-centered. Hmm.
This reminds me a little bit of the nation-states.
Nation-states are preoccupied solely with their internal affairs.
They live from one election cycle to another.
They compete with the other countries for world domination.
In the meantime, we as humanity are facing the kind of challenges
that no nation-state could possibly resolve on its own.
What kind of challenges are there?
We are talking about the ecological crisis,
extinction of species essential to our own survival,
pandemics,
oceans full of plastic,
contaminated air,
lack of drinking water,
political and climate migration.
Meanwhile, we all still focus only on our internal agendas.
It is important for us to have good insight
not only into the local but also into the global issues.
Ask yourselves
how well you navigate current global trends?
How good are your insights on issues of global technological regulations?
Do you believe those people who think climate change is a hoax?
And depending on your answer,
the better you are aware of those global issues,
the more difficult it is to manipulate you.
Number two.
Instead of discussing uneasy topics, your partner keeps silent.
We, as citizens, do demand reforms
that often remain ignored.
We have no control over the way our taxes are spent.
Not all governments have developed a habit of consulting us, citizens,
when it comes to the decisions
on important internal and external policy matters.
Corporate and state media
tend to manipulate public opinion
in order to distract us from what really matters.
We need to get much more involved
in holding governments accountable.
Governments are us.
Let’s imagine that a country runs as a business.
It has certain limited resources.
It has a certain budget.
I think that a government must function as a CEO,
who is hired to effectively manage the structure within the scope
of their responsibility to maximize value for shareholders
in a healthy competition of the market environment.
What happens if those duties are not carried out?
Shareholders fire the CEO
and hire a new person.
Now look at how most governments and even the United Nations work.
This kind of business would go under water in no time.
Why do we allow ourselves to have CEOs like that?
Where else would shareholders
be so indifferent towards their own businesses?
Who tolerates CEOs
who while appealing to patriotism and duty,
surround themselves with highly corrupt
and extremely inefficient people?
How long would such a CEO last?
An interesting thing about business is
that a general director holds very limited power.
The same arrangement could be applied to governments.
I am convinced that no person, no single group of people
should hold absolute power.
If you ask me about possible alternative models,
I’d say governments for rent. Why not?
Government as a service? I’m certainly in favor.
Number three.
Your partner criticizes you, your friends, and your relatives.
This is the narrative that remains with us from birth to death.
That makes us skeptical towards
our neighbors
and coalitions they are part of.
They are bad. They are alien. They are not like us.
Very convenient, isn’t it?
This narrative used by nation-states
does not contribute to the development of global partnerships
and transnational good-neighborliness
that could create a basis of trust for uniting people
in addressing our common shared agendas.
Why can’t our empathy surpass a line on a map
or a boundary pillar stuck in the ground?
Tell me, can nations not be selfish?
Nations are us, people.
Love other people.
People who are not like you.
People who are said to be savages, alien,
and altogether strange,
even those living next door.
People we never sought to understand.
People that your government doesn’t want you to love.
All that must be done with a high degree of priority, my friends.
We carry a responsibility to future generations
and the world that they will inherit from us.
Imagine you are flying on a plane without a pilot
or traveling on an ocean liner without a captain.
Will you continue to have fun in first class
or will you unite and go up to the captain’s deck
where the captain is missing?
Will you continue relying on people
who serve you drinks and play movies
or will you get together and solve the problem?
Because the problem is real.
We keep hearing about who has developed new weapons
and what new tariffs have been imposed against another country.
But those are not the things that matter.
One may certainly dismiss this and say,
"That's nonsense.
There is no alternative to the nation-state system.
It is but an illusion, a utopia, and is not worthy of attention."
But let’s think about all the innovations
people managed to develop and implement.
I believe that if we are capable of such things in technology,
then it means that we should also be capable
of similar breakthroughs in political thought.
Try to support politicians and opinion leaders
who promote the global agenda,
who stand for openness.
And I also ask you -
there are many young people in the room -
to become such politicians yourselves.
Because such concepts as “our sovereign model,”
“our unique traditions,”
“our path,”
“our world order”
will be supported until the end
by those who benefit the most from preserving the status quo.
It would be naive
to count on the politicians to drive the change.
It is up to us to make the change happen.
Please don’t get me wrong.
I’m not calling for an overthrow
of the constitutional order or a take-over of government.
There is no need for any forceful seizure of power.
We can gradually shift towards a new paradigm
by doing something every day that aligns with the global agenda.
We can’t invent the future using yesterday’s tools.
Imagine you order an Uber, and this car shows up.
You can be sure to get a lot of Likes on Instagram,
but if you ask yourself how convenient this is
and whether it satisfies the needs of today,
you will know that this scenario is very far from ideal.
But frankly, even this car is more modern
than the idea of the nation-state.
Why does everyone still accept
that the majority of national elections
result in something like this car, only in the political domain?
If we take steps towards a more globalized world,
we might see a different future.
A future on higher levels of existence.
A future in a united and not a fragmented world.
A future which is keeping up with the spirit
of the time we live in.
Thank you.
(Applause)