Published yearly reports on global
development, equality and happiness
introduce, reflections of governance,
economy, wealth and well-being
uneven distribution.
Policies, discrepancies, resolutions,
conflicting interests of individuals
and groups interacting on grounds
of power asymmetries leading to failure.
Bargains amongst elites and greater
citizen engagement only keys, to success
defying rise of authoritarian populism,
a recurring nightmare from the past
century, overturning concepts of human
rights protection, jeopardising freedom
impeding equity and justice amongst,
populations untrusting rulers and neighbours.
Loss of faith in institutions, strain
on international cooperation, a species
struggling to live in society and peace.
Lifestyles devastating nature
while consumerism pollutes, air and waters,
toddlers playing with toys neglecting
consequences and repercussions ignoring,
to every effect there is indeed a cause.
Yet, Humanity is precisely that, a two
hundred thousand years old creeping toddler
learning how to walk. Improvements
cannot be overlooked or flouted,
self-commiseration and deploration the vice
of media-nurtured pessimism, populations
addicted to bad news. Guilty I say those indulging
in irrational despair accepting nothing
can be done and that humanity is doomed,
a cancer to our Earth undeserving anything good.
Yet, life expectancy reaches 71 from 32 in 1900,
child mortality halved since I was born, thirty
years for one point one billion people to move
out of extreme poverty, death penalty ruled
illegal in more than half of all countries,
crime rate falling as crime is recognised
as such and prosecuted, rape no longer
an offense against chastity or morality
but a crime against a Person, torture no longer
an acceptable feature of criminal justice,
as general consensus now deplores it,
our outrage proof of our progress, while
300,000 more people gain access
to electricity each day, 120 democracies
among the world’s 193 countries,
up from just 40 in the seventies.
Looking for renewable energies,
carbon emissions from fossil fuels fail
to rise, new fields are explored, science
posing questions deemed heretic before.
And of course things could be better
and maybe problems could be solved
faster, but when we fail to see the progress
we make we begin, to stop trying.
And that my dearest friend would be,
the greatest natural disaster in history.
So assemble the broken pieces of your courage,
Turn off the news and make change happen.
Happy 2018.
[Featured painting: Bad News by Claire Petit, 2010]