Truth, War and the Hyperthreat of Climate & Environmental Change.

Jun 9, 2021 | Elizabeth G. Boulton
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When I reflect on truth, I think of the Netflix sensation Resurrection: Ertugrul. It has had seismic influence in the Middle East, Pakistan, India and parts of Africa. I found out about it when a local grandmother (in a small Australian country town), told me of her and her husband’s despair that the almost 500-episode series was coming to an end.

It depicts three civilisations on the verge of war: the Mongols, the Turks and the Byzantine Empire. A proxy for China, the East and the West. It’s the story of how people, sickened by the deceit and corruption of their world, dreamed of creating a Just State, leading to the Establishment of the Ottoman Empire.

It’s Islamic, associated with Turkish nationalism and soft-power and provides a chance to see how The Rest view The West — which can be uncomfortable! However, its themes are universal: justice, truth, resisting tyranny and stopping ‘the cruel.’ Its vision has appealed to global citizens the world over, and that, I believe may be something of great significance.

Concern about ‘truth and justice’ issues infused my PhD research, leading to a concept called the Creative State. This is the idea of re-imagining governance and society — what the State could be like — in the era of climate, ecological and other security crises. The Creative State sees more voices contributing to the shaping of their worlds and new institutional design. Of course, this reinvention process needs to include universities, or rather the entire system of knowledge management and what we think of as ‘knowledge.’ The model must change for two main reasons.