There’s a tendency in some of the reviews of 2016 which are
finding their way online to praise the year as a great one. It’s the usual form of contrariness to
the oft stated maxim that 2016 has been such a terrible year, and it comes from
the right of the political spectrum of course. Because it has been a good year for “right-wingers”, no
doubt about it.
But of course 2016 is neither a terrible nor a great
year. It is a year the memory of
which is entirely dependent on the individual living it. Citizens of Aleppo, or Syria generally
(other than its wretched president) haven’t had a great year. People who have suffered family or
close friend bereavements haven’t had a great year. On the other hand, weddings and births will have continued
to bring pleasure to many too. In
a more general sense, citizens of western democracies are likely to have had a
better year than the citizens of poor authoritarian countries such as Russia.
The purpose of a brief blog review therefore can’t possibly
be to provide some sort of neat summary of the year. What it can do is see what the year has left us politically,
and whether it provides any signs of what is to come. Which is a bad statement to make of itself since if it has
done anything I guess 2016 has at least thrown up the frailty of political
punditry, which has mostly been wrong even from those who may have ultimately
been delighted at what has happened.
2016 hasn’t quite been the triumph of democracy that some of
its enthusiastic backers are now proclaiming. Yes, the Brexit referendum encouraged lots of people to vote
– a good thing – although it provided its victors with a narrow enough margin –
a mere 4% of the turn-out – to maintain the divisions that the campaign itself
exposed. In America, the scene of
that other great democratic cataclysm, the ‘populist’ victor has turned out to
be not quite so popular after all, winning his presidential election with a
popular vote that trailed nearly 3 million or so behind the loser. So democracy isn’t a winner here.
A certain loser could be liberalism. Liberal nostrums have received a
bashing, no doubt about it.
Liberals have been damned as establishmentarian and elitist as the newly
resurgent right marauds its way across the landscape. But even here the rhetoric disguises the reality. There can be few more elitist people
than the billionaire victor of the American presidential election, living in
his gold trimmed penthouse in New York.
As if to perpetuate his elitism, his cabinet is packed with more
billionaires than any cabinet in American history, his defence policy will be
overseen by generals and his foreign policy by the highly elitist – and
undeniably well connected – chief executive of an oil company.
In Britain, the apparently non-elitist Leave campaign was
spear-headed by public schoolboys (an Old Etonian and an Old Alleynian at the
two campaigns’ respective heads) and received the support of the majority of
the establishment print media, edited by wealthy mandarins working for
putocratic foreign-based owners for the most part. The populist leader of the right in France, meanwhile,
inherited her party from her father.
Elitism is very much in vogue, and it is on the “populist” right as much
as anywhere.
Truth took a knocking though. The Brexit campaigners paraded promises that they forsook on
the day after their victory, one of their key campaigners disparaged “experts”,
while the American president-elect continues to deal in fantasy even after his
victory. Facts and rational
argument took back seats to fiery words, the more outrageous the better. The reward for the fantasists has been
great indeed, with one of the most prominent even gaining a $250,000 book deal
from a once reputable publisher.
Internationally, Russia’s leader has played a poor hand with
shrewdness, bloody-mindedness and considerable success. The murderous thug who leads a regime
of torture in Syria and has presided over a villainous civil war looks as if he
has won through. The president of
Turkey has turned himself into a virtual dictator with little consequence as
yet, firming up his odd foreign alliance with that other clever dictator in
Russia. The current president of
America, a beacon of liberalism, leaves office with the possibility of his
legacy being burned by his successor, while the Chancellor of Germany, who
welcomed immigrants to her country so fulsomely, may yet be undone by the next
election.
Lost of celebrities have died, but then there are lots more
celebrities around. Celebrity
culture took off around the 1960s,
so it may not be surprising that its older personalities are starting to fall
away. Its younger personalities
have never been noted for lifestyles that promote longer living either. 2017 is unlikely to see much of a
change from that. Meanwhile, as we
mourn celebrities, unsung heroes will also pass away. Dr Donald Henderson, who eradicated smallpox, died in 2016,
receiving a public encomium finally via twitter at the end of the year.
In sum, the year has been messy and provocative. As such, it stands little different
from either its predecessor or, in all likelihood, its successor. The means of the mess may change, but
the broad thrust of flawed humanity making its ever populous way in a world it
can’t mould or understand remains similar.
Happy 2017.
