<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/28/world-age-old-ruthless-patriarchs-global-order>
"Let’s attempt something delicate: talking about age without slipping into
ageism. Never before in modern history have those with the fate of the world in
their hands been so old. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are both 72. Narendra
Modi is 74, Benjamin Netanyahu 75, Donald Trump 79, and Ali Khamenei is 86.
Thanks to advances in medical science, people are able to lead longer, more
active lives – but we are now also witnessing a frightening number of political
leaders tightening their grip on power as they get older, often at the expense
of their younger colleagues.
This week, at their annual summit, the leaders of Nato – including Emmanuel
Macron and Mette Frederiksen (both 47), Giorgia Meloni (48) and Pedro Sánchez
(53) – were forced to swallow Trump’s demand for increased military spending.
The average age of Nato heads of state is 60. Germany’s Friedrich Merz is 69,
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is 71.
All bowed to a new 5% defence spending target – an arbitrary figure, imposed
without serious military reasoning or rational debate, let alone serious
democratic debate at home. It was less policy, more deference to the whims of a
grumpy patriarch. Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte – himself just 58 – went
so far as to call Trump “Daddy”. That’s not diplomacy. That’s submission.
This generational clash plays out in other arenas. Ukraine’s 47-year-old
president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is resisting the imperial ambitions of
septuagenarian Putin. Septuagenarian Xi eyes a Taiwan led by a president seven
years his junior. Netanyahu, three-quarters of a century old, is overseeing
devastation in Gaza, where almost half the population is under 18. In Iran an
86 year old rules over a population with an average age of 32. Cameroon’s Paul
Biya, 92, has been in power since 1982 in a country where the median age is 18
and life expectancy just 62.
There is no gerontocratic conspiracy at work here – no senior citizens’ club
bent on global domination. But there is something disturbing about a world
being dismantled by the very people whose lives were defined by its postwar
architecture. Khamenei was six when the second world war ended."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
