A futurist view on Brexit
I was in Taipei, Taiwan, when the result for Brexit was announced In June 2016.
When I look today at the Brexit, the UK referendum’s result, there are several ways to talk about it. There are at least two ways. The first one is I can talk about it as a citizen, as a EU citizen because I’m French and I can talk about it as a futurist.
As a European and a world Citizen
As a European citizen I’m sad. I’m sad because I think this is the end of 50 or 60 years period. UK is a funding country of EU. As a citizen I think it’s an amazing dream, Europe. I feel sad that like one part of the family, one very important part is leaving the family.
As a Futurist
As a futurist I find it very exciting. I find it very exciting because as I said this is the end of an era, and an end of an era is the beginning of an era. I see also in application many things I’m talking about, like living in a chaotic world. I believe this is what we call a black swan. By a black swan I mean nobody would have bet on the Brexit, on UK leaving Europe a year ago, certainly not 10 years ago.
This is something that most people didn’t expect. This is something I believe which will have many effects, I believe it will change Europe as it is, it will change the world most probably. It will have many ripple effect, many financial effect, economy effect, social effect.
Collapse or breakthrough?
As of today I think this is just the beginning. Like every crisis in a chaotic world it may be the beginning of a collapse. Maybe that will be the collapse of the European project or that is a new breakthrough starting. Because I’m optimistic, I prefer to look and to talk at the breakthrough.
Maybe this is a beginning of a new Europe, what I call a fractal Europe, a Europe with a core Europe, what maybe we could call Euroland. All the countries which are using the Euro currency. Around this strong core Europe some partners like I hope UK and some other partners, UK on the western part, maybe some other countries like Turkey on the eastern part.
It can also be the collapse of Europe as we know it and maybe with more ripple effect outside of Europe, or it can be a breakthrough.
How could we live together on this planet? How can we work together and make decisions? We have decisions to make. Some worldwide decisions like when we talk about climate change.
Maybe what is happening in Europe will force us in Europe to make new ways of working and living together that can be helpful for the rest of the world.
