JINGLE THE BELLS

2021 - Heroes and Zeros

This year has certainly not been a normal one. But then again, as science journalist Ed Yong elegantly put it, “Normal led to this”.  I hear multiple bells ringing, and not all of them in joy.

There where again many HEROES and ZEROS in this most eventful of years.  I list some.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II

This 95 year old Monarch continues to march on.  Despite losing her husband of 73 years and failing health she continues to inspire, adhering to coronavirus protocols whilst placing duty before self.  It does not take rocket science to understand that she again represented the best in leadership; globally.

Perhaps humorist Erma Bombeck was thinking of her when she said, "Worry is like a rocking chair: It gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere".

SOUTH AFRICA

We are a winning nation and continue to surprise ourselves, and the world.  This extract from the Sunday Times is why South Africa is my Nation of the Year.

“While unemployment has reached record levels and we can assume immense hunger and anxiety in all corners of South Africa, we are holding. People who expect revolt at any minute fail to understand how big and how important the informal or grey economy is in South Africa. We can't measure it in numbers because it's a cash economy. People make do. A friend who manages a big store in rural Transkei text me saying; November clothing stores sales topped 2019 sales by 43%.  Month to date for December, 68% up on the same in 2019. Not sure where the money is coming from. Supermarket, hardware, bottle store etc. all way up.”

 We are poised to show ourselves and the world that we are better than ever and that we are really building the New South Africa with renewed vigor and energy and that we never give up as Churchill said. “Never, never, never, never…”  - even though unemployment is 35%, our single biggest challenge going forward.

COALITION & BI-PARTISHANSHIP

As 2022 beckons, we are entering a new era of coalition governments at local level here in South Africa.  We are about to remake our democracy from a single dominant party to a democracy where the people's parties formed coalitions to work together in the interest of the voters. I suspect 2022 is going to have many positive outcomes.

In America, the concept of bi-partisanship, when representatives from both major parties participate to jointly address the challenges of the world’s oldest – and most fragile – democracy, is all but dead in a time of hyper partisanship.  Trump’s legacy is the ZERO of 2021 for the US.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Here is my advice for how to solve the climate crisis: No longer accepting the things we cannot change, but changing the things we cannot accept.  This is a Hero / Zero.

ZUMA – THE ZERO OF THE YEAR

Zuma left South Africa with multiple comorbidities. That is his destructive, toxic, and metastasized legacy – and that is for 2021 alone!  At least finally he was forced to do some payback; in an orange jumpsuit.

HEROES

South Africa’s scientists & doctors who first identified Omicron and warned the world that coronavirus’s most contagious nephew was let loose on the world, are undisputed, albeit unsung, heroes. Their reward was an apartheid travel ban against the country by the UK, which has subsequently become the pariah of Europe for its high levels of coronavirus infections.  Sweet irony.

There were many volunteers who helped our planet get through its year in ICU – to them, a salute and this quote; “Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless.” – Sherry Anderson

DO SOMETHING

My hero for 2021 is our MINDSET, our attitude.  If you can think, but not make thoughts our aim, If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, yours could be the world, and everything that’s in it -  to paraphrase & edit Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If.  So let us act and not just ‘want to’.  Oscar Wilde sums up my call to all of us to ‘Do Something’ in 2022:

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”  - Oscar Wilde

YOU & ME

Finally, let’s raise a glass to US  - yes, You & Me & All of Us.  As ordinary citizens of the extraordinary human race, we have outrun that great car-jacker, coronavirus, and refused to be derailed on our journeys by multiple pandemic hit-and-runs with our no-nonsense, can-do attitude.

We have truly actualised Vivian Greene’s sage advice, "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.  It's about learning how to dance in the rain." 

Or, in popular culture parlance:

Don’t sugar coat shit, I’m not Willy Wonka