Bangladesh, May 27 -- Across history, every political and social order has rested on two foundations: the story it tells about itself and the reality experienced by ordinary people. These two dimensions rarely align perfectly. Governments, institutions, and elites often promote narratives that emphasize stability, prosperity, freedom, and legitimacy, while citizens encounter a more complex and sometimes contradictory reality. For long periods, such discrepancies can remain manageable. Yet when the gap between official narratives and lived experience becomes too wide and too visible, the foundations of political stability begin to erode.

Today, many observers argue that the Western world is confronting precisely such a crisis. Across Eur...