The Paradox of Digital Societies

We live in the most connected era in human history. Over five billion people now have access to the Internet. Digital platforms shape public discourse and private thought. The impact on our economies, our politics, and even on our minds, is transformative.

The pandemic was a watershed moment in our living history, not least in how it accelerated our virtual connectedness. It brought wide-ranging digital communities into our very living rooms. We conducted schooling, office work, legal trials and endless group quizzes on screens. The potential for simpler, more streamlined communication exploded into the public consciousness.

Our expanding virtual worlds promised increased inclusion and accessibility, and a tangible sense of a shared global experience like never before. It was a very human experience. Societal cohesion was reshaped by a dynamic online global community, one held together by innovations both marvellous and challenging.

Digitalisation has brought knowledge to our fingertips and given rise to new forms of solidarity and community. Online, people are exploring identity in freer, more fluid ways. Digital society also has fantastic scope to amplify the voice of marginalised communities.

Take, for instance, movements such as Black Lives Matter or Me-Too, which have brought systemic issues of abuse and inequality to the forefront of international discussion, and rallied people across the borders of race, gender and nation. People can connect with others all over the planet, forming communities not limited by geography or ethnicity, but united by shared values and causes.

We are fostering a kind of global empathy, a sense of collective responsibility. We can see this in globally coordinated environmental protection campaigns and anti-war protests. The cohesive potential of this digital society is truly exciting.

Yet we are also entering an age of digital disruption. The many benefits from this relentless digitalisation of our lives, unfortunately, come at considerable cost. Our digital spaces, which should be so good at opening doors and minds, are, instead, responsible for closing them. The very technologies that promise inclusion can entrench exclusion.

Our information ecosystems have become battlegrounds. Algorithms have the unfortunate habit of trapping us in digital echo chambers – feeding prejudice and starving us of nuance. This results in fragmentation, a kind of online tribalism. Information, while accessible, is becoming decentralised.

Online hate is rising, as is the spread of conspiracy theories, the propagation of extremist ideologies and even violence. Truth itself is now up for grabs. With the rise of fake news, trust in institutions and in each other is breaking down.

The very real dangers of this were realised last summer in the United Kingdom, for example, in the race riots that followed the tragic murders in Southport. The fabric of our social cohesion is being unravelled in the digital realm. It is also there that we must focus our efforts to weave it back together.

The Challenges of International Migration

Migration is one of the oldest human responses to uncertainty. People move in search of safety, opportunity and dignity. They always have – but never in such numbers. According to the United Nations, as of 2024, the global number of international migrants had almost doubled compared with 1990 – from 154 million to 304 million.⁵  It could hit one billion by 2050.

Climate change, conflict and economic and political instability are forcing masses of people to move, often faster than host countries can adapt. These forces are rewriting the geography of human life. They challenge not only our infrastructure, but our compassion.

Sudden demographic changes can trigger backlash, especially in communities unused to diversity. Extremist voices love to claim that multiculturalism has failed. Minority communities are made to feel unwelcomed, even threatened, because of their religious customs or the colour of their skin. This, in turn, fosters insularity in those communities: an unwillingness or inability to integrate; an “us versus them” mentality on both sides.

Isolated events are turned into sweeping generalisations, feeding fears about so-called “cultural dilution”. Because multiculturalism is so often tangled up with immigration, it ends up being framed as a threat to national identity – even though the inhabitants of nations can never quite agree on what that identity is.

The challenge is exacerbated if people feel institutions are not on their side. Minorities may feel unheard; majorities, overlooked. Populists often put across unsubstantiated stereotypes of minorities and migrants, presenting a false and negative picture of them as benefit-seekers and criminals. They are certainly not reporting their important positive contributions to the economy and the citizens’ well-being.

Violence or crime is wrongly blamed on whole communities – the flames of prejudice being fanned by the press. Social media, with its penchant for misinformation, populist clamour and partisan biases, magnifies tensions and undermines social cohesion in nations with diverse or migrant populations. As global crises continue to escalate, so too will migration.

What can we do as a global community? We must work together to find homes for those who have lost theirs and try to help alleviate the strain on countries that are overwhelmed. We must be welcoming to those we can accommodate. We must strive to tackle the root causes that drive people from their homes in the first place.

At the national level, governments must work harder to foster inclusion and integration, and to build harmony and understanding between diverse communities. It is a challenge that governments cannot afford to ignore. The consequences of a fractured society are severe.

In my home country of Malaysia, we are all too acutely aware of the way in which a lack of social cohesion lowers resilience, which is why we have racial harmony enshrined in the Rukun Negara – our declaration of National Principles. These words affirm that Malaysia “nurtures the ambitions of achieving a more perfect unity among the whole of her society … creating a just society where the prosperity of the country can be enjoyed together.”⁶

We have striven to celebrate the diversity of race, religion and culture that is so integral to our country. I firmly believe that this is one of our most precious assets, making us stronger, happier and more prosperous as a nation. Of course, it makes us better at navigating uncertain times too.

The maiden edition of the Southeast Asian Social Cohesion Radar survey, conducted in 2022, found that a majority felt there was strong social cohesion in the region, with Singapore and Malaysia near the top of the list.⁷  We should take pride from this strength, evidenced even in the context of the pandemic, as tension and mistrust increased across the globe. In ASEAN, we have worked hard to sow the seeds of social cohesion, and that work is bearing some fruit.

It stands out in the 2022 social cohesion survey that of all the factors that influenced social cohesion, the most significant were grouped under the heading “social relations”. This describes participants’ ability to trust in other people, the strength of their social networks, and their perception of the acceptance of diversity. Interpersonal trust was found to be more important for cohesion than trust in institutions, social rules, civic participation and even the perception of fairness.

Social cohesion is built from the ground up, on a foundation of humanity, and we must not take it for granted, nor stop striving for improvement. It starts small, with everyday interactions: a friendly word, a favour offered, a meal shared.

What, then, is the core foundation on which we may foster this trust? I believe it is to be a good neighbour. It seems fitting that we reflect on that ideal. As a Malaysian, I am proud to call Singapore my neighbour and I value the close bond that we share. Yet, elsewhere in the world, countries are turning on their neighbours.

While the very worst of the violence we have witnessed in recent years has been perpetrated across borders, the backlash against multiculturalism within many countries has also meant that some communities no longer feel welcomed in their own hometowns. Far from being friends or allies, neighbours have become enemies.

Globalization Leaves Many Behind

Of course, behind every movement of people is a wider movement of capital, labour and power – which brings us to the third key dynamic, globalisation.

Since World War II, and especially since the 1980s, trade liberalisation – that is, removing barriers to trade – has been a crucial driver of development progress and of bringing nations closer together. The push for open markets and international rules helped shift the world away from isolation and toward cooperation. More recently, the rise of digital communication has supercharged the global trade in services, connecting economies in ways unimaginable a few decades ago.

Globalisation has brought immense benefits: higher incomes, reduced poverty and narrowed gaps between countries. But these benefits have not been evenly distributed. Within nations it has been a different story – one of winners and losers. Some people – often those in struggling regions, and in lower-skilled jobs – have lost out. Others, especially the highly educated and those working in thriving global cities, such as in Singapore, London or New York, reap the rewards.

The rise of a small, multi-billionaire elite has led some to contend that today’s rich are living through a new Gilded Age, exceeding even the excesses of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with enormous riches and power heavily concentrated at the top, especially in the top one percent.⁸

Inequality has deepened further since the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2022, nearly two-thirds of all new wealth created globally went to the richest one percent, while the bottom half of the world’s population, nearly four billion people, received just two percent.⁹

Moreover, the extremes of inequality enabled the ultra-rich to fund political influence through lobbying, political financing and their control of traditional and social media. Such vast inequalities impede social mobility, intensify economic insecurity, weaken social cohesion and, eventually, can ignite social conflict.

While globalisation has brought unprecedented prosperity, there has been – as observed by the Oxford economist Paul Collier – “a contrary process: a widening patchwork of places and communities that have fallen behind.”¹⁰  In some countries, the successful have even seemed to disregard the left-behind people, places and communities altogether – all are subject to political neglect.

This is another factor in the rise of nationalist politics and populist politicians. Where vast inequality exists, populist movements and protectionist politics soon follow, with local and international consequences.

Global institutions as well as national governments have both failed to adequately address the deep, spatial inequalities within countries. They have often been slow to set up mechanisms to compensate losers, or put in place social protection systems to prevent or alleviate poverty. The upshot has been a push back on globalisation at the national policy level, driven by the growing antipathy toward it from those left behind.

Malaysia has also experienced the uneven effects of globalisation. Economic activity is heavily concentrated in the Klang Valley and a few other urban centres, and some states have been left behind. In my recent book Globalization: Perak’s Rise, Relative Decline, and Regeneration,¹¹  I traced the ebbs and flows of globalisation over two centuries and assessed its impact on the natural-resource-rich state of Perak – one of the first that became multicultural, it must be noted.

Navigating Together: Principles for a Cohesive Future

What therefore does it mean to navigate uncertainty wisely? Amid such upheaval, the pull of familiar certainties can feel deceptively comforting. There is a temptation to retreat into narrower circles of identity, to hoard privileges and to romanticise a past that, if we are honest and strip away nostalgia, never was.

I am confident, though, that the answer to uncertainty is not withdrawal. Navigating these uncharted waters demands resilience and reinvention, but, most importantly, it will take collaboration and collective courage.

I would like to offer four guiding principles:

1. Rebuild trust: We must reinvest in the social contract. We need transparent institutions, accountable leadership and civic spaces where people feel seen and heard. Rebuilding trust means investing in media literacy, digital integrity and honest communication – not just control.
   
2. Prioritise equity: Social, economic and ecological justice must be at the heart of policy. We must expand our understanding of equity to include not only disparities among people, but also the imbalances between people and planet. A just and resilient future means closing human gaps and healing our relationship with the planet.
   
3. Embrace pluralism: Social cohesion does not demand uniformity. It requires the respectful accommodation of diverse cultures, religions, identities and origins, as well as social and political perspectives. It is about recognising human dignity and accepting differences, reframing migration and rejecting fear-based politics. Trust in our shared humanity is fundamental. Compassion and love for your neighbour is a value taught by every major religion and philosophy. In our connected world, it has never been easier to see people on the other side of the world as our neighbours too.
   
4. Imagine boldly: Resilience is about more than survival – it is about vision. Education must equip people to think critically and act ethically. Cities must be designed for inclusion. Policy must be guided by moral imagination.
   

There is an old saying, “Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors.” We are certainly not living in tranquil times. This uncertainty is not merely a temporary storm. But we are not adrift – and we are not without modern tools. Uncertainty, if met with clarity and courage, can become a valuable compass and a crucible for renewal. It can inspire us to build societies that are not just more secure, but more just.

I have often wondered how best to approach leadership in times like these. I have come to believe that good leadership is not the art of prediction. It is the practice of moral clarity in the face of ambiguity. It is the strength to hold space for differences without surrendering to division. It is, simply, to captain the ship – to steady the course in uncertain seas – and to ensure no one is left behind.

So, let us not only navigate the unknown: let us chart it. Let us map the conditions whereby uncertainty becomes not a threat, but a threshold. May our work ripple far into the communities, into the institutions, and into the hands of the generations who will steer the course next.

Uncertainty is here to stay, but according to a popular saying of enduring wisdom, ambitiously attributed to Aristotle and, I am told, also to Dolly Parton: “You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust the sails”