The Old Year Ends – a look back at 2015

December 28, 2015 at 2:00 am | Posted in Australia, Making History, Migration, Politics, Psychology, Religion, Social Responsibility, Society, War and Conflict | 8 Comments
Tags: 2015, climate change, environmental destruction, extremism, far-right intractibility, government corruption, injustice, Not in My Name, protests, racism, refugees, violence, war

Apart from my lovely family and friends, I must admit that I have not enjoyed 2015. Not on the state, national or international level. There hasn’t been very much to enjoy in the world of politics, religion, economics, international relations, terrorism, whatever.

With one of the defining images of the year being the body of a little refugee boy washed up on a beach, how could it have been a good year for anyone who looks beyond their own safe little bubble? I for one wouldn’t mind having another go at it to see if we could somehow change how it all went. Failing that, is the hope that last year was as bad as it will get.

Children among the destruction in Syria

I started to write a list of the nasties that happened through the year:

• the terrorism in the name of religion that is not a religion;

• the racism and violence in many countries across the globe;

• the lack of support in many instances for the millions of people displaced by war;

• the ineptitude, idiocy or corruption in too many governments in too many countries;

• the failure to address global warming on a global scale;

• the brain-dead far right-wingers who would prefer the whole world to collapse rather than help those less fortunate than themselves;

• the destruction of our valuable, even precious, environments and wildlife, to feed the greed of multi-national corporations;

• the extremes of weather – excessive cold and heat, floods, droughts, huge wildfires, hurricanes, typhoons and tornadoes, the melting of the polar ice caps;

• the extreme polarisation in politics, race and religion, and the fear-mongering among our so-called leaders;

• the overwhelming power of the arms industry, the far right press, and corporations in deciding national and international government policy.

Need I go on?

Of course there were good things happening too:

• the rise of people power through social media, demonstrations and actions to show their displeasure at where the world is heading;

• the rise of a pope who, against those Catholic extremists who would prevent him, speaks for the people, the environment, and the cessation of war;

• the countries like Germany who have taken in tens of thousands of refugees;

• the individuals who stand up for right when they see wrong.

We need the good so much, but it is demonstrated by individuals and small groups in small and seemingly insignificant actions and interactions, whereas the bad is overwhelming in its ability to create a sense of despair, depression and hopelessness.

However, I must concentrate on those small things and the ordinary people like me who do them, and hope they will add up to more than the bad stuff and overcome it. I must do what I can for my own sanity, but even more for the sake of my grandchildren. I don’t want them to live in the kind of hateful world that seems to be all too possible right now.

I must cling to the hope that springs eternal from the human heart. If it didn’t, I would end it now. So I hope with all my heart that, through good people standing up to corruption and violence, hatred and destruction, at least some of the horrendous problems we’ve had in 2015 will get better in 2016.

(c) Linda Visman