There’s a fascinating, objective shift happening in the zeitgeist that if you hadn’t been watching for it, you mightn’t have seen. 

You mightn’t have seen it because in the news “if it bleeds, it leads”, and this shift isn’t bleeding.  Also, media is consumed in self-selecting forums, meaning that we seek the news that we want to see, and unless you’ve been looking for it, it might have flown under your radar.

The shift is this.  In recent years, globally, the people who have experienced the oppression of inequality through colonialism, racism, sexism, etc., are getting empowered and rising up.  All of the categories of people who were subjugated, dehumanised, oppressed and considered ‘less than’ by the people who were/are protected by systemic injustice in society, are having empowerment surges.

There are exceptions, but this shift is having a phenomenal impact on the world.  Slowly, from a grassroots level, power imbalances are slowly shifting. 

Systems Won’t Change From Within

The infuriating thing about the world systems and the inequality that they maintain, is that the people with the power to change those systems don’t want to change them.  This is because the systems serve the elite, at the expense (to varying degrees) of everyone beneath the elite’s upper echelons.  To this extent, power-holders in society have had the power to protect their positions.  And so far, they largely have.

But not only do the hierarchies that serve the elite protect them from change that would encourage equality, the inequality of the political, legal and financial systems in the West have enabled corruption.  

Corruption is the dishonest or unscrupulous dealings in various systems for the corruptors gain, at the expense of equality and fairness.

This corruption, in this case enabled by capitalism, has meant that those with power/wealth, if they choose to, are free to ‘rig’ and control the systems through which society is run.  The result of these corruptive elements are that money and power, particularly in the United States, control the political system.  

The big money that funds the campaign finance system in the United States means that those who have wealth, have political power.  Examples of this were outlined clearly by US independent senator Bernie Sanders when he said:

“People understand that the political system in this country is largely corrupt. Both parties. The reason is you have billionaires in both political parties who determine what legislation gets to the floor and who are the candidates.  Let me give you examples. If you’re in the Republican Party, and just say you decide, ‘I don’t like these tax breaks for the rich or the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and I’m going to vote against that’, up steps Elon Musk with unlimited funds who says we’re going to run a candidate in the primary against you. In the Democratic Party, you say, ‘Maybe it’s not a good idea to fund Netanyahu’s war machine which is creating starvation for children in Gaza. I’m going to vote against that’. Next day, AIPAC is going to be running against you.  We have a corrupt campaign finance system.  Billionaires in both political parties are calling the tunes.  The American people understand that.” —May 7, 2025, on ‘Special Report’ on Fox News, with Bret Baier.

Because big money controls politics, it means that the interests of the already wealthy and powerful are protected. And, because of this, this also means that the systems are therefore incapable of changing the social order.  

But it’s not just manipulating the system for personal gain in ways that are blatantly unjust that has become an issue.  Because the systems actively reward and promote people with such behaviours, compassion-less, antisocial, impulsive and manipulative behaviour, is being rewarded with escalation through the ranks of these power hierarchies.  Not only do these personality traits become normalised within these systems, these personality types are actively attracted to these systems of power.

For exactly these reasons, it was only a matter of time before this type of personality was elected President of the United States, such as we have now.

So, for those of us who are interested in changing the establishment’s control over how society is run, it is clear that the agent for change has to come from outside those systems.  But how?

Crossing the Rubicon

The most influential themes of the last epoch (that we are still leaving now) were ‘power over’ and ‘might makes right’.  That means that not many of the traits of compassion, discourse, diversity, inclusivity and equality were valued willingly in societal systems and, so, were not incorporated to help make progress for the collective.

The people with the voices that were silenced, considered ‘less than’, in that epoch, have felt a huge shift towards wanting freedom from those limitations.  As we speak, there is a rubicon of history in the collective that is being crossed now.  

There is an inversion happening, quietly, a flipping of a switch, a revolution if you like.  What was powerful then is no longer feared.  We have already seen the start of it.  The Black Lives Matter movement is a great example of people coming together, calling for systemic change.  The global MeToo movement was the same.  Gay marriage. The first black President of the United States.  What we are seeing now in the Trump administration is a backlash against this progress, but as tensions rise, these unjust systems will fall.

Up Off Our Knees

There was a saying, when I was growing up in the north of Ireland during the war, that the oppressed had to “get up off our knees” in defiance and self-empowerment.  Irish republicanism (that opposes British rule in Ireland) was treated then with distain in the mainstream media and politically.  Even moderates calling for equality were shunned.

The Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s in the United States ignited a call for justice everywhere, including the north of Ireland.  In one such peaceful demonstration, calling for an end to imprisonment without trial for Catholics and/or Irish people who opposed British rule, in Derry on January 30, 1972, the British Army (Parachute Regiment) opened fire on unarmed civilians.

Thirteen people were murdered in the streets, with a 14th who died later from injuries.  The British Army enjoyed impunity at the time and were later exonerated by the Widgery Tribunal set up the following year to uncover what happened.

It wasn’t until 38 years later, in 2010, that the Saville Inquiry concluded that the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable,” and Prime Minister David Cameron issued a formal apology on behalf of the UK government.

The victims of Bloody Sunday that day in 1972 won’t be brought back and the grieving communities affected by that massacre won’t get a different history, but the power imbalances are shifting.  How?  By a relentless pursuit on the part of the aggrieved.

The Saville Inquiry only happened because of a persistent campaign by victims' families and the wider community to seek the truth.  And we are seeing, worldwide, that a relentless pursuit of justice and truth is having an impact and shining a light into the darkest corners of society where oppression and persecution thrive.  

The revelations around the many generations of the paedophile priest scandal in the Catholic Church is another example of truth coming to light.  The prolonged and exhausting fight against police brutality in the US is another.  Slowly, police officers are going to jail for the murder of innocent black people there.

The Voiceless Will Be Heard

Today, the voices that were persecuted need to rise up and be heard globally.  It is not their job to educate us, just as it is not the job of women to teach men how to recover from what patriarchy has done to countless lost young men with a failure to launch.  But, with compassion, it is our duty to listen.  To listen to the stories of sufferance, of persecution, of loss.  We NEED to hear these stories to see that suffering, to know how to help communities to heal and to grow.  

The injustices that are normalised in the systems in society, such as patriarchy, racism, transphobia, sectarianism, homophobia, systemic injustices done to people on lower incomes, etc., contribute to the culture of inhumanity that we are seeing in the world today.  Therefore, importantly, we need to hear these stories because their narrative has been missing from the systems that are unsustainable, that we need to gut, to reform.

Compassion and Kindness

As the tensions rise in war zones, we find ourselves seeing with new eyes.  Where once old allegiances based on old power structures held sway, they no longer do.  We are seeing a grieving mother and we hug our own children tighter.  We have compassion for the dispossessed, the onslaught in Gaza, the need to call Netanyahu to account for his own career politicking that could see the beginning of World War Three. 

The only way forward is to have compassion and kindness.  Compassion for the dead in Israel, their families, caught up in this brutal, ongoing war.  Compassion and kindness for the dead in Gaza, the starving, to call out the intentionally cruel and disproportionate attacks against innocent civilians and aid workers, murdered, and others driven from their homes in illegal settlements in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.  

The EU is reviewing its association agreement, as public sentiment has sharply weakened in much of Western Europe. This is compassion and kindness at work for those impacted by the war.

It is only with compassion and kindness in our hearts for those who are suffering that we can move away from the systemic injustices of the past epoch and move forward into the new earth that is coming.

Blessings to all on the path.