Annus Horribilis

2019 - in Words & Pictures

Unlike many years past, 2019 was a surprisingly shameless year, not so much because of the shocking and sometimes, inhuman things that happened. But because most of them played out in the streets and on live television and in blatant social media meltdowns. 

2019 was the year that uncanny chain of events shoved the world to the brink, from deadliest natural disasters to wars & rumors of wars, to election chaos, to senseless trade wars, to fake news, and to the Brexit madness. It was a year that one could only count the positives on the fingers of one hand. Yet, beyond the turmoil, there were triumphs, like, for example, the U.S. Women World Cup win, and the huge number of women and minorities elected to the U.S. Congress which led to a spectacular takeover of the House of Representatives by Democrats.

Nancy Pelosi at SOTU in February

And the election of Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, the most powerful woman in Washington D.C. For some, though the positive aspect ended there, for the win set the stage for a clash over congressional oversight powers. In the course of the year, the Robert Muller investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 elections came to an end with no satisfactory outcome for either side. Though Trump was not indicted for Obstruction of Justice, he was not outright exonerated, and some of his close associates went to jail.

Clockwise from top left Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat
from Arizona; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat
from New York; Cathy McMorris Rodgers, 
Republican from Washington; and Lauren Underwood, 
Democrat from Illinois

Immigration was a thorny issue. Children were separated from their parents, with some held in what many described as cages. The dire situation led to one of the most haunting pictures of the year—an image of the lifeless bodies of Óscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, his arm limply draped over his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, locked together on the banks of Rio Grande where they drowned trying to cross from Mexico into the United States. 

In Britain, Prime Minister Theresa May bungled her way out of N° 10 Downing Street in tears over her headstrong and incompetent handling of the Brexit drama. On the other hand, her counterpart in the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn didn't fare any better. With no clear position on Brexit, and anti-semitic charges dogging his step, he sleepwalked into a national election on Brexit and spectacularly lost to Boris Johnson. He wasn't the only loser in Europe. The

Megan Rapinoe with her teammates Samantha Mewis, left,
and Alex Morgan after scoring her team’s first goal in the World Cup final.

vice-chancellor of Austria, Heinz-Christian Strache got entangled in a political scandal known as the Ibiza Affair and bowed out in disgrace. In Italy, the far-right Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini shot himself in the foot in a poorly orchestrated palace coup that ended up toppling him. Next door in France, the Yellow Vest's anti-government protests shook the political establishment and put the President, Emmanuel Macron on notice. In Asia, while the unyielding humanitarian crisis raged on in Yemen, protesters poured onto the wide boulevards of Hong Kong week after week. A subway fare increase in Chile led to protests in Santiago, and the tumult of mass gatherings, from Algeria to Sudan, from Bolivia to Venezuela, produced some of the most powerful images of the year. 

A RECAP OF THE YEAR

Cardi B at Met Gala Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 6, 2019,

January: Women wielded power in the U.S. Congress
February: Nancy Pelosi's clap at the State of the Union went viral 
March: A terrorist attack hit New Zealand 
April: In Paris, the Notre Dame Cathedral went up in flames  
May: Attorney General William Barr's congressional testimony set the stage for a confrontation  
June: President Trump made history by crossing the demilitarized zone into North Korea 
July: The U.S. Women soccer team clinched the World Cup 

Motorcyclists ride on a road as haze from
wildfires blanket the city in Palembang, Indonesia

August: A horde of U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls staggered into the open
September: Wildfires devastate the Amazon as Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas 
October: ISIS kingpin, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in Syria by U.S. special forces   
November: The Chinese principle of one country, two systems tested its consistency in Hong Kong  
December: Trump became the third U.S. President to be impeached 

Brentwood, California,

In the midst of all these, fires burned, from Australia where more than 12 million acres and 1,000 homes were destroyed to California, where about $80 billion in damage and economic losses were estimated. Further, more than 80,000 forest fires ravaged the Amazon Forest, a huge carbon store considered a vital buffer for the world against climate change. The fires, accompanied by deforestation have had devastating effects on this important ecosystem. In Russia, hundreds of fires spread across Siberia, their proximity to cities like Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk marked as alarming. Air pollution put millions of people at risk in Indonesia as well, where the fires were particularly destructive. Schools were closed as smoke billowed out over Southeast Asia. 
 NOTABLE DEATHS OF THE YEAR

There were notable deaths in 2019, among them, Doris-Day, the legendary actress and singer who died at age 97 on May 13 after “contracting a serious case of pneumonia.” The fashion designer and mother of CNN anchorman, Anderson Cooper, Gloria-Vanderbilt, died at age 95 on June 17. Representative, Elijah E. Cummings who died on 17 October left a legacy as one of the most powerful Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Earlier, on July 9, the billionaire former presidential candidate, Henry Ross Perot died in his home in Dallas at age 89. Seven days later, on July 16, the retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens who served on the court from 1975 to 2010 died at age 99. 

Less than a month later, the celebrated Nobel Prize winner, Toni Morrison died at age 88 on August 5. Soon afterward, Peter Fonda, the Easy Rider star died at his Los Angeles home at 79

on August 16, followed, 14 days later by Valerie Harper, the Mary Tyler Moore star who died at age 80 on August 30. In the last month of the year, the first French Bond girl, Claudine Augur, who starred alongside Sean Connery in Thunderball died at age 78 in Paris. Then on December 12, after a brief illness, another well-known name, Danny Aiello who starred in movies including The Godfather Part ll, Moonstruck, and Do the Right Thing died at age 86.  

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Photo-Synthesis

Memorable Images of the Year in Review

2016: A year that marked a striking repudiation of the status-quo... 

There were a number of unpredictable celebrity deaths—Fidel Castro, David Bowie, Mohammed Ali, Prince, George Michael, Carrie Fisher & her mom, Debbie Reynolds, among others. History was also made—The Chicago Cubs won the World Series after a 108-year drought, Donald Trump defied polls, party establishments, and the mainstream media to become the 45^th president of the United States, Britain voted to leave the European Union, a young African American gymnast and first-time Olympian, Simone Biles, won 

Ieshia Evans protesting in Baton Rouge

four gold medals after a spectacular performance in Rio. There were some iconic happenings too—from the soaring of Vienna waltzes at the New York City Ballet to “Hamilton,” a Broadway hit about the American Revolution. Female empowerment was dealt a mighty blow—the defeat of Hillary Clinton (the first ever female

In Remembrance Celebrity Deaths in 2016

 presidential candidate of any major political party in the US) at the presidential polls, the shocking impeachment and removal from office of two female presidents, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil & Park Geun-hye of South Korea. And, of course, the familiar tragedies—the barefaced killing of unarmed African American men by white policemen in many American cities and getting away with it, multiple terrorist attacks in continental Europe, and massive earthquakes in Italy.

President Obama

January: A mosquito-borne Zika virus introduced itself to the world as Brazil saw a surge in birth defects related to the virus. In Washington D.C., President Obama had tears in his eyes while speaking at the White House in condemnation of gun violence. On the 10th day of the month, David Bowie died at age 69.

Beyoncé channeled the Black Panther

February: During the Super Bowl halftime show, singer Beyoncé introduced a controversial element into her performance when she and her dancers appeared on stage with outfits reminiscent of the Black Panther movement. On the 13^th of that month, Justice Antonin Scalia died and his seat was draped in black at the Supreme Court.

March: A bomb blast at the Brussels Airport killed 15 people and two suicide bombers. Islamic State extremists claimed responsibility for the

Aftermath of Brussels bomb attack

disaster. An agreement signed between the European Union and Turkey was broadly successful in reducing the refugee and migrant flow into Europe. And, with the closing of the main route to Germany, more than 40,000 migrants were stranded near Indomeni in Greece.

Prom queen Zarifeh Shalabi

April: Music legend, Prince, died from an accidental overdose of the painkiller fentanyl. In California, a 17-year-old Muslim girl, Zarifeh Shalabi, was elected prom queen at her high school (a few miles from the site of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino in December 2015). Her non-Muslim friends campaigned for her by wearing hijabs in solidarity.

May: The warming effects of Climate Change shocked many

Bolivia's second largest lake dried up 

when a picture was published of Felix Condori, mayor of Llapallapani and a former fisherman, standing in the dry bed that was once Bolivia’s second-largest lake, Poopò. With the vanishing of Lake Poopò, the Uru-Murato people (the oldest indigenous group in the area) lost their livelihoods.

June: Boxing legend, Mohammed Ali, died. Nine days later, violence struck in Orlando, Florida when a

Demonstration in the UK for Brexit

29-year-old security guard, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others inside Pulse, a gay nightclub that was hosting Latin night festivities. Shot and killed by the Orlando police after a three-hour standoff, Omar’s act was the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter and the worst incident of violence against LGBT people in US history. That same month, contrary to every hope and prayer, Brexit happened, and with it, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, resigned.

Philando Castile shot by police

July: Images from a Facebook live video showed the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Philando Castile during a traffic stop by a police officer. Later, during an organized protest over police injustice against African American men, five officers were killed. 

In Turkey, a military coup was staged against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which failed spectacularly. 

Aftermath of Turkey's failed coup

On the 14^th day of the month, Mohammed Lahouaje-Bouhlel, a Tunisian man (residing in France) deliberately drove a 19-tonne cargo truck into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. The terrorist was shot and killed by the French police following an exchange of gunfire. As if that wasn’t painful enough, about two weeks later, two terrorists attacked the Saint-Ėtienne-du-Rouvray church in the French region of Normandy during a mass, killing an 86-year-old priest. ISIS claimed responsibility.

Omran Daqneesh

Dilma Rousseff 

August: A 5-year-old Syrian boy, Omran Daqneesh, was rescued after a devastating airstrike in Aleppo, and the image of his dust and blood-covered face not only captured the imagination of the world, it also became a symbol of the havoc caused by the Aleppo airstrikes. In Brazil, just before the Rio Olympics began, President Dilma Rousseff was impeached and removed from office after a bitter fight following accusations of corruption.

Simon Biles at the Rio Olympics

Luckily, it didn’t derail the Games, where Simone Biles, an American gymnast, and first-time Olympian, delighted her country with graceful performances on the uneven bars at the gymnastics arena, winning four gold medals. As the month edged slowly to an end, a 6.2 m earthquake hit the Lazio, Umbria and Marche regions of Italy, killing nearly 300 people.

September: For the umpteenth time, a rather scandalous event—a recurring nightmare in the African American community—played out when protests in 

Presidential debate: Clinton/Trump

Charlotte, North Carolina, set off by the police killing of a black man, Keith L. Scott, spiraled into violence, with gunfire leaving a 26-year-old man, Justin Carr, fatally wounded. 

Later that month, the first of three presidential debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump took place at the Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, with millions of people glued to the television for 95 minutes.

San Francisco 49ers players protested police injustice

October: People noticed when San Francisco 49ers players, Eli Harold, Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, protesting racial injustice, knelt during the national anthem. The second & third presidential debates between Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump took place on the 9^th and the 19^th.  Clinton was believed to have won all three debates.

Effect of Duterte’s war on drugs

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte’s ruthless antidrug-campaign led to overcrowded prisons. In one city jail, inmates took turns sleeping in any available space, including a basketball court. 

And in Italy, earthquakes ranging from 5.5m to 6.6m hit the regions of Umbria and Marche between the 26^th and 30^th of the month.

Chicago Cubs won the World Series

Trump & Obama at the oval

November: Donald Trump won more than the 270 electoral college votes needed to clinch the presidency. Hillary Clinton said in her concession speech, “This loss hurts. But please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.” Two days after the election, President Obama met the President-elect at the Oval office. In Havana, the Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, died at 90. Chicago Cubs made history by winning the World Series for the first time in 108 years.

Gunman killed Russian envoy

December: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned after losing a major referendum on constitutional reform on which he had staked his premiership. In South Korea, President Park Geun-hye was impeached after a political scandal involving the level of access to the presidency by an aide. And in Ankara, a gunman (who was identified as a police officer) shot and killed Andrey G. Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, at an art exhibition in the full glare of television cameras, shouting, “Don’t forget Aleppo! Don’t forget Syria!”

Park Geun-hye of South Korea

Just days before Christmas, a 24-year-old Tunisian, Anis Amri, who had earlier pledged allegiance to ISIS, hijacked a truck and drove into crowds at the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market in Berlin, killing twelve people. He then fled Germany and was later shot and killed by the Italian police in Milan. On Christmas Day, sadly, George Michael died. Two days later, Carrie Fisher died, and the next day, her mother, Debbie Reynolds, joined her.  

GOODBYE 2016!

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The Moment of Truth

President-elect Trump & incumbent Obama

The White House

The triumph of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, which comes at the heels of Britain’s exit from the European Union, has been hailed as the apocalypse. But apocalypse, it may not be. Though several issues and scandals fanned the embers of the bitterly fought 2016 election, what really propelled voters in the US, as in Britain (during the Brexit vote), was an unprecedented yearning for change. It probably doesn’t matter now that no one actually asked the question: What kind of change? 

President-elect Trump

Clearly, the clash between Trump and Mrs. Clinton challenged Americans to confront divisions over race, gender, religion, ideology, and the country’s very national identity. 

Farage & Trump

Interestingly, the "candidate Trump" and the "president-elect Trump" appear to be two different people. In his victory speech and in his comment during a visit to the White House for a meeting with President Obama, Trump sounded conciliatory. Now, what if the campaign persona was actually stage-managed? What if the facade of bigotry was just set up to appeal to a larger number of those angry  and desperate for change no matter what? What if no wall will be built? What if Muslims can enter the US as before?   

In a world where interest groups have usurped the rights of many ordinary people, causing the middle class to disappear and sparking anger, some believe that boosting populist movements everywhere is the best possible chance they have to upend the corrupt system. So, the emergence of Trump in the 2016 presidential election and his disregard for political correctness which many people despise, gave hope to those who felt short-changed.

Donald Trump

Interestingly, following his victory, many irritants in Europe, who mistake racism and homophobia for populism, are bracing themselves for the wind of change that they think a Trump presidency will bring.

Now, as controversial as this might sound, I think that it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to allow the radical movements in Europe to win for a change—from Marie Le Pen of France to Heinz-Christian Strache of Austria to Geert Wilder of the Netherlands to Pablo Iglesias of Spain to Beppe Grillo of Italy—not because they can deliver, but because it will prove a very simple point, and that is: It is easier to find fault than to find a solution. 

President Obama

As many examples have revealed, campaign rhetoric and the reality of governance are two different things. And truth be told, in the history of mankind, revolutions triggered by emotions had been largely successful because they were powered by ideas, which today’s populism gravely lacks. 

There is no question at all that in the absence of a fundamental idea of statehood, blind anger over a broken system alone cannot a revolution make.  

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The Danger of Populism

Willful Ignorance 

& 

The Danger of Populism

Politics is like sex. It fills people with euphoria, expectancy, and a shallow, reckless acquiescence that’s akin to madness. It uses a combination of lies, conspiracy theories, fear-mongering, and outlandish promises that can’t be kept to woo voters. It does so with unrelenting hypocrisy, and nothing demonstrates it better than the political position widely known as populism. Yet, as has been demonstrated again and again, the reality of governance always contradicts the lofty stated principles that encapsulate many a campaign rhetoric. Still, virtuous citizens, citing disappointment with mainstream politics, repeatedly fall prey to charlatans—the so-called advocates of the common people, counterfeit revolutionaries, and the phony heroes—who claim to be populists.

Beppe Grillo

In February 2013, following the disastrous tenure of Mario Monti, an austerity-obsessed bureaucrat, as interim Prime Minister of Italy, the people were so disappointed with politicians and politics that they turned to a comedian named Beppe Grillo. As founder of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, Grillo had previously organized what he called V-Day celebration (the “V” stood for vaffanculo, which means “fuck you!” or “fuck off!” or “go fuck yourself!”), effectively establishing himself as a quintessential populist, the man to rescue virtuous citizens from the money-dominated hypocrisy that politics in the country had become. Not surprisingly, the anti-establishment feeling in the country catapulted him to third place in the 2013 election. But once in parliament, rather than put the old dogs to shame with a populist agenda, the elected officials of the Five Star Movement began their tenure with a bitter and well-publicized fight over the amount they were entitled to as allowances, etc.

Alexis Tsipras

In January 2015, Alexis Tsipras of Greece, riding the wave of anti-austerity feelings in his country, led his party, Syriza, to victory in a snap legislative election. His campaign promise was to end austerity. Once in government, he faced a different reality – if he needed bailout funds from the European Union, he had to implement austerity measures because, in the world we live in, who pays the piper dictates the tune. It became increasingly clear that a refusal to accept the bailout terms would lead to Greece’s exit from the single European currency, or Grexit. Tsipras had two options: accept the terms of the bailout and apologize to his people for his inability to save them from further hardship or refuse the bailout terms and lead Greece out of the union into uncharted territories. Tsipras did neither. He called a referendum instead, insisting he wanted the people to decide whether to accept the terms of the bailout or not. As far as populism goes, he was on the verge of making history. He actively campaigned for a “No” vote and the people voted accordingly. But barely hours after the referendum, Tsipras dropped his anti-bailout finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, ignored the people’s vote, and accepted the terms of the bailout, plunging his country into the darkness he had come to deliver them from.  

In Britain, Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independent Party, UKIP, promised the people

Nigel Farage

that if they voted to leave the European Union, the £350m that his country pays to the EU weekly would be used to bolster the National Health Service. No one asked him how he planned to do that seeing as he was neither in government nor in any position to guarantee it. Well, as it turned out, the UK voted 52 – 48 to leave the EU. The morning after, just like bad sex, Farage denied that he had made the promise.

Basking in his victory, Farage went to the European parliament and insulted everyone in the most hypocritical rant of the Brexit drama. In spite of the victory of the Leave campaign, he and all UKIP MPs still maintain their seats in the European parliament, many say because he wants to continue to receive the €16m that EU taxpayers give his party every year. Interestingly, for all his anti-EU stance, Farage is clearly one of the major beneficiaries of the European Union.

What’s worse, some of the people who voted to leave the EU regretted it the morning after,

again, like bad sex. In a piece published on Quartz.com, Marcie Bianco said, “Voters’ confusion about the consequences of their actions is indicative of a larger trend. Civic-mindedness in the digital age increasingly seems to rely less on reason or facts and more on passion. In the case of Brexit, people voted emotionally. Many voters were fueled by a xenophobic nationalism reflective of a larger, global uptick in nationalist movements worldwide – including Trumpism in the US.”

Some of those who later regretted voting to leave the EU said they did not know their votes could make a difference. That, on one hand, is as idiotic as it sounds. On the other hand, it seems that in the era of social media, people’s minds are conditioned to irrational words or posts that can be edited or deleted in the name of freedom of speech. But in real life, unlike the artificial world of social media, irrational words and actions have consequences. They can’t always be edited or deleted at will, and therein lies the danger of populism. Unfortunately, freedom of expression, like the late Umberto Eco (author of The Name of the Rose), once said, has become the “Invasion of fools.”

According to him, “Social media gives the right to free speech to a lot of idiots who, in the past, only aired their views at a bar after one glass too many, which, of course, caused no real damage to the collectivity…But with social media, they are put on the same pedestal as Nobel laureates. In the past, the television had uplifted the village idiot with the impression that the viewer was superior. Now, the nightmare scenario of the internet is that social media has elevated the village idiot to the status of truth bearer.”     

The veracity of his claim was demonstrated in The New York Times with a report, which explained that activities on pro-Brexit Facebook pages—more than 11 million likes, shares, and comments—exceeded the engagement on pro-Remain pages. Likewise on Twitter, the Times’ John Herrman, citing analytics firm Talkwalker, said there was “a substantial lead in leave-related hashtags over remain-related hashtags in May, suggesting there was more discussion on the ‘leave’ side.”

And in an article entitled, “The science of why people insist on making idiotic choices,” Professor Andre Spicer of Cass Business School, City University London, wrote, “In the UK, we have seen a broad consensus of economics experts warning that a vote to leave Europe would be disastrous, but the majority voted to leave anyway.” He offered the following explanation, “To find the real reason people seem to disregard the views of experts about important matters, we need to look at how we process information. In The Stupidity Paradox, a recent work I completed with Mats Alvesson, we asked why, in a world of increasingly smart people, we so frequently end up making incredibly stupid decisions. One reason is our inbuilt cognitive biases. We often make quick decisions about complex issues on the basis of our past beliefs or even chance associations. After we have made these decisions—which often happen in a matter of milliseconds—we start the laborious process of proving ourselves right. We seek information which justifies decisions already made.”

The Brexit vote, not surprisingly, has convulsed UK politics. Even before Boris Johnson—

Boris Johnson

leader of the leave vote—was stabbed in the back (some might say, good riddance!), his political star did not look bright anyway. A comment in the Guardian newspaper summed it all up nicely: “Perhaps many Brexiters do not realize it yet, but they have actually lost... Throughout the campaign, David Cameron had repeatedly said that a vote for leave would lead to triggering Article 50 straight away... but, in the midst of the sentimental nautical references of his speech yesterday, he quietly abandoned that position and handed the responsibility over to his successor. As the day wore on, the enormity of that step started to sink in: the markets, Sterling, Scotland, the Irish border, the Gibraltar border, the frontier of Calais, the need to continue compliance with all EU regulations for a free market, re-issuing passports, Brits abroad, EU citizens in Britain, the mountain of legislation to be torn up and rewritten ... the list grew and grew.”

Boris Johnson & British PM David Cameron

Continuing, the commentator said, “The referendum result is not binding. It is advisory. Parliament is not bound to commit itself in that same direction. The Conservative party election that Cameron triggered will now have one question looming over it: will you, if elected as party leader, trigger the notice under Article 50? Boris Johnson knew this... If he runs for leadership of the party, and then fails to follow through on triggering Article 50, then he is finished. If he does not run and effectively abandons the field, then he is finished. If he runs, wins and pulls the UK out of the EU, then it will all be over - Scotland will break away, there will be upheaval in Ireland, a recession ... broken trade agreements. Then he is also finished...”

Donald Trump

Populism, like cancer, is something evil that spreads destructively. The examples of Italy and Greece cited above explain it all. Now too, the UK has begun to reap the fruit of its willful ignorance. In the US, where the Trump madness has stunned many, perhaps no observation is more apt than the words of Winston Churchill, “Americans will always try to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.”  

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