The Crisis of Truth

The new year did not get off to a good start, not at the local level, not at the regional level and certainly not on the international arena. The fireworks with which we heralded the arrival of 2026 sparked off military action, political tensions and economic uncertainty for all of us. In my reflection on the past year and how we got here, one thing kept nagging at my thoughts: truth has become an endangered species.

We live in an Orwellian world where truth has been sacrificed on the alters of bigotry, narcissism and authoritarianism. We are in 2026, but we could as well be living in George Orwell’s dystopian 1984. Talk of life imitating art! The truth, the naked truth, has been dressed up in white garments of lies, like a bride in a brothel where only cheating millionaires are welcome.

I grew up in an age and culture where honesty and telling the truth were core values. “Tell the truth and let the devil be ashamed,” I was repeatedly told at home and at school. Church reinforced the notion that “the truth shall set you free.” Who dared question that scripture? Who dared ask: “whose truth?” “Set you free from what or from whom?”

It was the same George Orwell who said “who controls the past, controls the future and who controls the present controls the past.” In today’s trumpian world, that statement has become menacingly axiomatic. Through the ironically named Truth Social, blatant lies are pumped round the clock like in a sewage plant, the suffocating stench of which is aimed at numbing our senses and sensitivities.

The Chinese are credited with saying that if you repeat a lie a thousand times it becomes the truth. They did not count on the Liar-in-chief spewing out thousands of lies continuously to erase history, drown out dissent and bury the truth. I doubt if Pat Buchanan meant his campaign slogan - Make America Great Again - to be the clarion call for parading the streets in gestapo hoods and made-in-China baseball caps.

I recall that Yoruba adage we used as motto at The St. Maarten Guardian:

“Truth never misses the road, only falsehood finds itself in a hole.” I doubt if that still applies to the world we live in today where seemingly it is truth that finds itself in a hole, while falsehood gleefully roams our airwaves and social media. To quote George Orwell again, “The further a society drifts from truth,

the more it will hate those who speak it.”

Indeed, speaking truth to power has become a dangerous sport in an atmosphere in which truth has become tribalized and morality has lost all meaning and relevance. It gets even worse: seeing is no longer believing as we are told that what we see in videos is not what we actually saw. The ongoing standoff between protesters and ICE agents in Minneapolis is a prime example.

Two shooting deaths captured on multiple video recordings and yet the authorities each time jump out in front to issue statements that are obviously at variance with what we saw in the videos. This is no more damage control; this is a deliberate and calculated attempt to control the narrative and bend the facts to breaking point.

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