Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 21, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
As a daily columnist, I think it is expected that some readers, even if they are a tiny set, would like to read something about the world in the year that just went into history. I had every intention of doing such an analysis as 2015 began but in Guyana unfolding damnations in the corridors of power prevented that.
Well better late than never. The year just gone by has left its impressions on history. There were some good, bad and sad things that we will always remember 2014 for. As usual, we should start with the positives. The United States has re-established diplomatic ties with Cuba. And as expected, it was done through the thinking of President Obama.
If anything didn’t make sense in the world the past fifty years it was the US policy of disconnection with Cuba. Why have friendships with the world’s most despotic regimes and not your neighbour that is way ahead of those tyrannical regimes in terms of acceptable conduct? Comparing the governance of Cuba and Saudi Arabia is like comparing turning milk and milk that is so stale that if you smell it you would get Ebola.
The Cuban leadership must have political decency and allow its dissidents to have space to voice their disagreements. Fidel Castro became a dictator and Cuba is a dictatorship. The time has come for Cuba to end its nasty rule that includes, the semi-civilized policy of hunting down any Cuban who holds a placard protesting Cuba’s oligarchic rule and putting secret police surveillance of any Cuban who returns with a Time magazine in their suitcase.
2014 belonged to President Obama. He faced recurring accusations of former supporters who claim that he must pursue pathways long desired by America and the peoples of the world. Last year, Obama signed an Executive Order that prevented more than five million illegal migrants from being deported.
He took the first step to overhaul the immigration system in the US that has seen the birth of children born to illegal migrants who will grow up and not be allowed to enjoy their rights as citizens; because their parents are illegal entrants despite the twenty or thirty-odd years they have lived in the US.
India saw a good thing with the fall of the Congress Party from power. The story of the Congress Party is a global mystery. For four generations, one family has owned that party and its control of government. Every one of its leaders, beginning with its First Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to his great grandson who would have been Prime Minister in 2014 has never been to an Indian university; all educated at Cambridge University.
The Nehru dynasty at the psychic level believes it owns India. The good news was Congress lost. The bad news – a party no better has won.
Before space runs out we should look at the ugly that 2014 produced. Without a doubt, it was the expansion of an uncivilized bunch of people who go by the name Islamic State (IS). How and why these people came into existence has to find an explanation from science and not sociology.
Are the ISIS people a result of a genetic flaw as we see in science fiction movies where a lab experiment went wrong? Tragically, the world community is yet to come up with a military strategy to defeat ISIS. If the armies of the world need a donation to bolster their resources to fight ISIS, you bet I will contribute my last dollar.
Now for the sad parts of 2014. Journalism will lose its best Editor-in-Chief. It will not be easy for global journalism to recover. It is my opinion that the Guardian of the UK is the best newspaper in the world. I would definitely rate it above the New York Times.
It achieved these heights through the ambition of its Editor-in-Chief, Alan Rusbridger. Last year Rusbridger announced that he was leaving journalism to take up the Chairmanship of the Trust that owns this fine newspaper. Last year the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for its Edward Snowden coverage. Journalistic investigation and independent reporting will never be the same without Alan Rusbridger. We can never repay the Guardian for bringing down the nemesis of fair, independent, risk-taking journalism – Rupert Murdoch.
One of the sad things of last year was the control of Congress by the Republican Party thereby undermining the authority of President Obama. His last two years in the White House will be marked by fierce attempts by the Republicans to vitiate his legacy. It was an unfortunate day for the world because Obama deserves better.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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