How close are we to the Hunger Games?

We talked about nuclear energy, we talked about time travel. Now lets turn to an even more dangerous topic: politics.

I know, that politics can be a lot to take in, and that personal opinions and objective facts are sometimes hard to differ. So dear reader, now you may walk away and never talk about politics again - or you may journey with me to a dark time.

When we look at dystopian futures there are certain classics one may consider: 1984 by George Orwell and also Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Both were cast into life shortly after WWII. But in the 2010s there was a hype of teen novels covering also dystopian futures; The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner, The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth and maybe the most popular: The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins. With the dark shadow of the empire rising and many crisis over the world, the questions arises, does any of these dystopian futures truly can happen?

Now lets have a look at the world of Panem - the State in which the Hunger Games Series takes place. Panem was founded after a nuclear winter and the corresponding collapse of civilization. It is located in modern North America and includes territories that today belong to the USA, Mexico and Canada. It is a federal state consisting of a capitol and thirteen districts. The capitol has a supreme rule and leads a totalitarian government consisting of manipulation, propaganda, calculated murder, deportation and many other morally questionable methods to control the people. The wealth of the state is mostly hoarded in the capitol with its citizens being truly rich an living a fabulous life. Meanwhile almost all districts are poor and suffer from hunger most of the time - only a few districts accumulated some wealth because of the goods they provide for the capital. Generally the districts work hard to provide everything the capitol needs in order to be oppressed by it.

Of course the Districts tried a revolution, but this was killed very swift and with it came, that district thirteen was seemingly eradicated. In order to ensure, that the districts never ever tried again to rebel against its supreme capitol, Casca Highbottom and Crassus Snow (with a little help of Dr. Volumnia Gaul) invented a method to keep them quiet: THE HUNGER GAMES. Each year there will be held a reaping ceremony on the fourth of July to pick a boy and a girl under the age of eighteen from each district. They will be brought to the capitol and send into an arena, where they will fight till death until only one lone victor remains. Why do they need a victor? To give the districts hope, that somehow they will survive. The best thing about this: It will be televised and is a major event like the super bowl or the football world cup nowadays - so the whole nation watches as children brutally murder each other.

So much about Panem. Lets think about, which state today may resemble it a little. In the past someone may have said China, which seems to control its people at least through observation, social score etc. but I think in the last 100 days we may think of another state which ironically lays at the same geographical spot as Panem: The United States of America. Currently they are very eager to create their own narrative and eradicate other opinions and facts by labeling them as fake news. They also plan to expand onto Canada and Mexico - which is odd enough. When a state starts to create a different versions of the "truth" by simple things as renaming a puddle of water at its coast and starts labeling anyone who doesn't accept their 'truth' as an enemy - this is the start of a totalitarian system build on propaganda.

Also the US is very good with hoarding the riches with the already rich and making politics that will make the poor even poorer. The Power in Panem is not truly divided. The President reigns supreme. He decrees everything. He does everything in his might to secure his power. He dictates the future of the start - he determines what is 'truth'. See any parallels to the current administration of the US? No? Yeah, me neither.

There is one big difference: We had no nuclear war - yet. Panems Society is build upon the scarcity of resources caused by the aftermath of the nuclear winter. The are no more details given why or how this war happened in Collins' fictional world, but for our world today a nuclear war is a horrific scenario but not impossible. With things moving badly in India and Pakistan - both equipped with nuclear weapons it isn't unlikely that the first nuclear weapon will be blown onto another country since the US bombed Japan. Let us hope for the best.

The structure of Panem and its ways to control the masses sometimes seem to be similar to some things we see today, but they are far more brutal and far more advanced than nowadays propaganda. And since there are no nuclear rockets in the sky right now and there are no big rebellions going at the moment it is save to say that we are indeed a few years away from such a scenario - but we've moved closer to it in the past five years than we've been since the end of the cold war. This should be a warning for everyone of us.

So let us hope that we never hear the words: 'Welcome to the first annual Hunger Games!'