The Future World Map

The latest U.S. attack on Venezuela sparked a memory.

I’m about ten, sitting in a classroom in England. I know it’s geography because a world map looms behind the teacher, the way the Stars and Stripes once loomed behind General Patton—or, more recently, behind Hegseth, a loud, incurious fuckwit auditioning for empire.

A huge chunk of the map is coloured pink. Pink means Britain’s colonies and conquests. India is pink, even though this is 1960 and India gained independence more than a decade earlier. Perhaps the school couldn’t afford a new map. More likely, it was clinging to past victories.

That memory triggers another image: a global map fifty years from now. This one uses only three colours.
Red for the U.S.
Blue for Russia.
Yellow for China.

Canada is red. Absorbed by the U.S.

Mexico is red too. Most of South America is yellow, with red and blue bleeding at the edges. The legend does the work.

I stop myself. I give my head a shake. I remember that Mark Carney, our prime minister, is working overtime to make sure this never happens. Let’s hope he’s right.