King Abdullah’s vision to world challenges

His Majesty King Abdullah stressed that world leaders should put politics and popularity aside if they wanted to succeed in facing the coronavirus epidemic. The King said in an op-ed published by the Washington Post on April 27, 2020 that the world should set all differences aside.

His Majesty’s views in the op-ed entitled: “It’s time to return to globalisation. But this time let’s do it right”, probes more into a new era of global unity and cohesion rather than differences and discrepancies in the sense that the King stressed more than once on the need to learn from this ordeal which humanity has undergone so far.

King Abdullah, who focused on various types of threats to humanity, shed light on the risk COVID-19 has incurred on the world which revealed the gaps in the global order, calling for creating a new formula, metrics and parameters to give up calling for de-globalisation by enhancing the re-globalisation.

“Today, our world has decided to turn warning sign to siren. Unlike previous threats, this one is hitting us all, and all at once. This crisis has thrown a harsh light on the gaps in our global order -- gaps caused by social injustice, income inequality, poverty and misgovernance.”

The King reiterated that the issue of today’s world is not “rebuilding”, which of course is not sufficient, but rather a new formula of world unity, and relations should be launched in order to secure a brighter future and a prosperous epoch for mankind.

Kind Abdullah’s piece resonated very well around the world as he rang the bell for world leaders to start acting together to address common threats in a concerted effort that guarantees continuum, peace, stability and prosperity worldwide by first flattening the curve. Leaders must act now to orchestrate their efforts to enhance cooperation rather than competition, believing that strength is in unity, not for a certain country per se but for the well-being of the people who are susceptible to such threats and risks that would shape their future, psychology and mindset.

His Majesty voiced his grandiose belief of re-globalisation, globalisation with new parameters that boost countries’ capabilities and “usher cooperation rather than competition”.  This is a Royal call for all world leaders to join efforts, turn a new page by ending all pending issues and resolving world conflicts as a first step towards a much more harmonised world and synchronised mission as the Monarch confirms “a re-globalisation that recognises that a single country, acting alone, cannot succeed. One country’s failure is every country’s failure.”

For this to crystallise, the United Nations and the super powers should steer ahead towards rebooting the world systems; the international bodies and entities should be reformed to adopt the best policies, strategies and methodologies that address world quandaries and adapt to requirements of the new epoch.

The King highlighted that Jordan, due to its “experience with the Aqaba Process”, a multi-national forum and a series of international meetings launched by King Abdullah in 2015 to enhance security and military cooperation worldwide, can contribute to helping “in any way it can” to this new beginning of recalibrating “the world and its systems”, stressing that it is a must to “reconfigure international institutions and build new ones where needed”.

The King also warned that as “threats do not come in silos, the solutions cannot be in silos”, calling for creating and sustaining “new organisations that draw on the skills and resources of different sectors across national boundaries”.

His Majesty has called on Arabs to orchestrate their efforts to resolve their dilemmas, stressing the importance of the mode of togetherness to achieve the goals. He elucidated that “as Arab nations, we have no choice but to act together to mitigate the impact on us all. The natural resources we had relied on to shield us are no longer enough.” The King also advised Arabs to set aside their differences and recognise that “yesterday’s rivalries are meaningless against this shared threat. We need to leverage the strengths and resources of each of our countries to create a regional safety net that protects our collective future”.

The King sent a universal message to his people and the world when he emphasised that as the world is currently countering the spread of COVID-19, it is time to defeat it, “[we must] put politics and popularity aside, and we must also … come together and get to work”. King Abdullah warned that the world must address the challenges of “unemployment, famine and poverty which lie ahead”. He underscored the necessity to bridge the “global opportunity gap,” which entails “access to health care”.

King Abdullah called for reconsidering new parameters and modes that international financial bodies employ in the developing nations to help them better address the critical issues and predicaments the people and governments would be facing during these periods of uncertainties.

The King has submitted to the world a Jordanian model to the future of human prosperity and development, helping the world institutions to think out of the box and recalibrate their systems on new pillars that better serve the rich and the poor for the sake of the generations to come.