As a writer, I have tried for years to distil the lessons learnt from the world and the larger community into something digestible and useful for our local experience.

Politics and history can be viewed as subjects, but they become alive with interest when they can be contextualised by looking at the ideals and then the experiential reality that comes after those ideals.

Whether it is the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Haitian Revolution, the independence movements in Africa or the United States’ War of Independence, they were all about freedom from some form of tyranny or oppression. But who among these achieved freedom and, perhaps more importantly, who has retained freedom?

The United States of America, which will celebrate 250 years in 12 months, has the word “liberty” enshrined in its constitution, and its ideals have been a protracted struggle between that of being a democracy of the people and an autocracy. It had its beginnings through rejecting a monarchy, but has never escaped the lore and the power that a monarchy represented.

The framers seemed to want to get away from a monarchy. However, in practice, for what they may consider practical reasons, it tilted towards an executive style of governance that in many ways was similar to an unconstitutional and absolute monarchy.

This led some to consider whether a constitutional monarchy and a parliament with an elected leader responsible to the constitution and the monarch is better — or whether it gives the people, through accountability, more control over the leader.

Systems and accountability aside, what has been seen as even more pernicious is that through campaign financing, leaders can be bought and made by the affluent in society or by special-interest groups.

This is only to say there are more things aside from platitudes and rhetoric that ensure liberty — and individual liberty is contingent on a collective adherence to an order. Additionally, if society is complex, pluralistic and diverse, there must be mutual respect for the diversity of every member of society.

There can be no “us and them”, no matter how far apart the diversity. Whether rich or poor, old and feeble or young and energetic, it becomes a we working for the mutual benefit of the other. This does not mean there are no separate needs or interests; it means to accomplish one thing is not to the detriment or denigration of the other.

Life is in all aspects experiential, and at times we experience bad so as to learn and appreciate what is good. For that reason, studying history is good because we can learn from our strengths, our successes, and our weaknesses and mistakes. It is good when we realise that no society or person is perfect, and it requires humility to recognise our mistakes and flaws.

The world has drifted to an era of authoritarian rule where the wise among us fear fascism. We know enough about Nazi Germany, the Second World War and the brutal Holocaust, and we deplore that generation of tyrants. We have only pictures of those atrocities. Hardly anyone knew until after the war ended just how terrible it was. Yet today, anyone can stop this very minute and watch the same or worse. You can watch a tank fire a bomb and kill scores of unarmed, hungry people trying to get food.

This is not 1945; it’s 2025.

There is a war being waged by Iran as the sole country with the means in resistance to this genocide, and some of us have an opinion about who to support. A Palestinian mother who loses a child cries the same as any woman on Earth. An old man who is feeble can lift no more burden than any other feeble old man. The Bible says, “As much as yea have done to the least of us, yea have done unto me." (Matthew 25:40)

That includes Palestinians and Sudanese. It’s not a Muslim baby being killed; it’s a baby.

We remember the March on Selma and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, and some remember the Belco riots and Barbara Ball, the Soweto uprising in South Africa and all the songs like We Shall Overcome. But where are we now? While we watch man's inhumanity to man on our telephones and remain silent, we also stand in line waiting for a handout from leaders we know to be corrupt.

This scenario with the leadership in America and Donald Trump didn't just start; it has been in the making as an accumulation of failures. Like Bermuda, this autocratic government has been in the making as part of the architecture and groomed by successive generations — each with lower expectations and standards of behaviour, until we get to a group that bears no resemblance to the founding movements that gave them birth.

That is why America is unrecognisable today. It is also why we cannot fix our politics in Bermuda.

We have lost the map and don’t know where to begin. Can it begin with a love for all humanity? What about, “None of us are free until all of us are free”? What about principles and not just words? But actions that support those principles? What about saying what you mean and meaning what you say? In other words, what about authentic people and not liars?

In conclusion, we are sitting on the brink of a third world war as the worst-case scenario and the inevitable change to a multipolar world where the sovereignty of every people will play a role. We will either understand the eventfulness of our times and prepare our citizenry as globally fit players — or we will remain in a neocolonialist state with puppet leaders minting puppets to carry on with the emptiness of meaning and purpose that we are living with.

When we look at the living experience, we see our heroes and the lives we exalt and presume to emulate. But in case after case, what we see is that life progressively goes in the opposite direction. Where once we had ideals and idealism, we now have idiots and the worst characters imaginable as leaders. The sad thing is that, invariably, they are chosen by we the people.

It doesn’t matter where you look. Whether it is Haiti, the United States, Africa, the Caribbean or Bermuda, it’s the same saga.