There have been any number of media discussions about last year - mostly believing that it was one of the most eventful, era-changing years, comparable with 1968 and 1989, so full of events that Osama bin Laden's assassination was a tiny news story.
In the UK there has been growing unrest with the banks etc., but here in the semi-rural, tiny, under-educated Isle of Thanet we have been immune from riots, occupations etc. Our concerns tend to be parochial - inevitably.
What I felt most about last year was the sense of things finally coming home to roost. Often in a distressing way, people getting their comeuppance - Gadaffi, bin Laden, Mubarak, the Tunisian guy, and the continuing efforts in Syria to get rid of their leader Bashar al ? whose name for the moment escapes me. In Europe the long-predicted difficulties of the euro came to a head. Everyone said that having such diverse economies sharing a currency would lead to a disaster in the end, and it has. In our personal case, we finally gave up the fight with our debts - that was a definite comeuppance. There are trends that have long been predicted, growing teenage violence, lawlessness, gang culture, which seem to have finally become close to getting out of hand. Anxiety about the nucelear industry would have been more fully vindicated if the Japanese earthquake/tsunami scenario hadn't just been one of many horrors this year.
Of course there seem to have been certain groups that haven't got their comeuppance - the bankers for example, heavily criticised, much disliked, but still taking home vast salaries and bonuses. But I don't think these trends will somehow stop with the change of the year - there is a seething mess out there, who knows what will emerge next? Of course, this is the year the world ends, according to the Mayan calendar. They apparently prophesied that this time humanity would wipe itself out - last time humanity disappeared - in their view, 5,000 years ago, it was with flood interestingly...didn't realise that the flood story/myth/memory went beyond the European/Mediterranean culture.
I just rather hope we don't end up quoting Phyrrus "Another [year] like that and we're done for!"
In the UK there has been growing unrest with the banks etc., but here in the semi-rural, tiny, under-educated Isle of Thanet we have been immune from riots, occupations etc. Our concerns tend to be parochial - inevitably.
What I felt most about last year was the sense of things finally coming home to roost. Often in a distressing way, people getting their comeuppance - Gadaffi, bin Laden, Mubarak, the Tunisian guy, and the continuing efforts in Syria to get rid of their leader Bashar al ? whose name for the moment escapes me. In Europe the long-predicted difficulties of the euro came to a head. Everyone said that having such diverse economies sharing a currency would lead to a disaster in the end, and it has. In our personal case, we finally gave up the fight with our debts - that was a definite comeuppance. There are trends that have long been predicted, growing teenage violence, lawlessness, gang culture, which seem to have finally become close to getting out of hand. Anxiety about the nucelear industry would have been more fully vindicated if the Japanese earthquake/tsunami scenario hadn't just been one of many horrors this year.
Of course there seem to have been certain groups that haven't got their comeuppance - the bankers for example, heavily criticised, much disliked, but still taking home vast salaries and bonuses. But I don't think these trends will somehow stop with the change of the year - there is a seething mess out there, who knows what will emerge next? Of course, this is the year the world ends, according to the Mayan calendar. They apparently prophesied that this time humanity would wipe itself out - last time humanity disappeared - in their view, 5,000 years ago, it was with flood interestingly...didn't realise that the flood story/myth/memory went beyond the European/Mediterranean culture.
I just rather hope we don't end up quoting Phyrrus "Another [year] like that and we're done for!"
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