That Was The Year That Was

It has come to that time of the year again, a time when I reflect on what has been and what I feel is to come!

Wow, 2010, have you been eventful or what? In the UK we had our general election leaving us with the wonderful Con-Dem coalition. This has heralded in a new wave of budget cuts which we will begin to feel in the coming year. We have already seen anger at the way the Lib-Dems have turned their back on their tuition fees promise made in the run up to the election.

This quite nicely bring me onto the topic of the tuition fees protests. It has been many years since a student movement with the size and power we have seen at Millbank [link] and Parliament Square [link]. This year we have seen a reawakening of the student body to the activism of yesteryear. Now in this post I am not going to go into massive detail about the movement but what I will say is this, it has given me renewed faith in this generation. If you had said at the start of 2010 that 10s of thousands of students would march into London under a common cause to show their anger at the powers that be I would have laughed. We are meant to be the apathetic generation, "generation meh", but no more. We have shown that we can still mobilise and be powerful and from here we can build.

However this has also brought with it a darker side to the year. The police retaliation to the multiple protests and the resulting white wash of the media has left a sour taste in our mouths. First people were kettled into an area that they didn't want to be in so they went into Parliament Square to free up space. Then they were beaten, contained and even charged at by police on horseback. The tactics were heavy handed resulting in a man being pulled form his wheelchair twice [link] and one man was even left with brain damage after being hit over the head with a baton, the police even attempted to expel him from the hospital were he required emergency surgery for 3 hours [link].

Needless to say in the days following we were bombarded with stories of how the police were valiant heroes in the face of feral students from all the major media outlets. Some reports went as far as to claim protesters had pulled police from horseback [link], when the truth is very different [link]. This has caused a great number of people, both at the protest and not, to question the validity of the news and with it has woken up more people to the bullshit that we are fed every day.

On the other hand there has been a great change in the nature of news outlets this year with the fabled Wikileaks fiasco taking centre stage. Now Wikileaks has been around for a few years now but it is in this year that they have stepped up their game. The idea of Wikileaks is that officials can anonymously submit leaked documents and after removing personal details and ensuring the documents do not endanger people the documents are placed into the public domain [link]. This has opened up a new era in reporting in which the governments can no longer lie to our faces safe in the knowledge that their lies will stay under cover and never see the light of day. This movement has the power to fundamentally change the way governments operate and their relation with the people they govern. It is this that has so scared the people in power and caused the knee jerk reaction we have seen this year.

Obama stated as he took to office in 2009 that ""Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known" [link], oh how things have changed. After Wikileaks released around 250,000 embassy ties the mood of governments both at home and in the US turned sour. Political pressure was put upon websites connected with Wikileaks to force them into abandoning the site. Furthermore Julian Assange was arrested on dubious at best rape charges [link]. This shows to an ever increasing number of people that the powers that be these days only value free speech when it does not put them in a bad light. An encouraging effect of the political pressure is the backlash of DDoS attacks against the websites that have turned their back on Wikileaks and the way in which no matter the pressure applied by governments around the world the website has stayed functional even if it has had to change servers multiple times. This shows that even in the face of adversity free speech will succeed.

A major reason for the backlash of power against Wikileaks is the amount of information released in regards to the lies around the invasions and ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Videos of indiscriminate murder and destruction were released to an angry public as more and more of our people die over there. This year and last have been the deadliest in the history of the Afghanistan war [link] showing that rather than winning we are in fact losing, and badly. Not only this but the war is spilling more and more over into Pakistan threatening the stability of the entire area [link]. I'm not going to go too much in to depth on this matter but I will add that this again is another area where the reports by the main media should defiantly be taken with a pinch of salt. The "embedded" reporters must only report what they are told to by the army and thus cannot be fully trusted to be telling the true story. Now I wont go through a million examples but I will suggest you watch "The War You Don't See" by John Pilger [link] before believing everything bring said by these "embedded" reporters.

This year my faith in humanity was put into question again by the horrible Pakistan floods in July [link]. The floods killed (directly) thousands and displaced many many more. They resulted in an estimated £30billion in damages. With the war in Afghanistan spilling over resulting in the death of civilians the floods were the last thing Pakistan needed. Whilst this is a saddening event in it's own right it's the response of the British public that was more depressing. As the floods subsided the problems did not, as with any large floods the whole infrastructure was destroyed leaving many with nothing and at risk of cholera and other such diseases. There was a response and some aid was sent but many feel not enough. The TV and radio reports were filled with people saying that they wont support aid because of Pakistan's political stance. Now I understand that some people don't agree with Pakistan but this doesn't mean we shouldn't help their people when they are in need. The fact many turned their noses up at donating any money at all to help the civilians in need makes me sick, it shows the true dark side of humanity but alas I shall not go on too much about this as there is a lot to cover!

This year was catastrophic for the Gulf of Mexico with the Deep Water Horizon oil spill causing the largest environmental disaster for decades [link]. The amount of oil that erupted out of the drilling hole is unprecedented and at such at depth that the effects may not be known for years to come. 13 people lost their lives and many have lost their livelihood due to this disaster. The problems faced by BP were great when stopping the leak especially due to it's depth which resulted in the long time it took to stop the oil spilling out. I'm not going to place blame because this is a very complex issue and rather then pointing the finger this issue should be a wake up call. Our dependency on oil has meant we have had to drill deeper and deeper where the oil is a high pressures. This disaster will not be the last and most likely not the biggest as long as we rely on fossil fuels for our lifestyle, there's only so long they can last.

During 2010 the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, erupted grounding much of the air traffic over Europe [link]. This caused widespread disruption amongst travellers and commuting workers. The issue highlighted the vulnerability of our transport system and of international business in our age. We were lucky that the eruption was not larger and that the cloud did not remain in the atmosphere for longer. It shows a need for backup plans to be in place in case an event like this happens again for it goes to show that even in our advanced society we are still at the mercy of mother earth. However there is an upshot of this eruption, as a volcano erupts it releases CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. During this eruption though the amount of CO₂ released was less than what the planes it grounded would have released making it the first carbon neutral volcano [NewScientist 25/12/10 pg.23].

As I have already mentioned there is a cyber-war going on over Wikileaks. However this year we have also seen the start of a new cyber-war one that is more immediately threatening than the one oer Wikileaks, I am talking about the Stuxnet computer worm [link]. This was a worm that infected many industrial control systems, most prominently in Iran. For a long time it was unknown what the purpose of said worm was but it has recently came to light that the worm was intended to target centrifuges working at a certain rate required to enrich uranium. Due to the nature of the worm and the fact that it's impact was generally centred around Iran (suspected of enriching uranium for nuclear weapons) suggests that this worm was in fact created by a state in order to hamper Iran's ambitions. If this is correct (which it most likely is) then we have step boldly into the realm of cyber-warfare and this is just the first shot. In this case the damage was limited to simply breaking centrifuges but it is obvious that this could have been a lot worse if whoever programed the worm desired it to be. We have entered a new level of war and there is no going back.

Now I have talked a lot about what has happened in the past year but now I shall set my eyes on how I feel the next year will go. I'll start off with a safe bet and say that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue and so will the bloodshed. Combat troops may begin to be removed from Iraq but these will be replaced by peace time troops and more private arms. The war in Afghanistan will get worse and continue to encroach on Pakistan. A lot of civilians and soldiers will die, there is no doubt about that.

Another safe bet is that the Gulf of Mexico will not fully recover for many decades, if ever. The amount of damage caused by the Deep Horizon spill will not fade away over night no matter if the media simply forgets about it. We already know a lot of the claims put in against BP will not be settled as many of the people do not have full financial records (they catch the fish and sell it cash in hand) so I doubt there will be any major reparations on the part of BP. They will continue to be hugely successful and this event will be but a small slip on their radar.

Now as we've already seen I can't help but be doubtful that there will be any major changes to that way the bankers operate. The very people who lost all of the money are getting billion pound bonuses and we already see dozens of adverts on the TV telling you it's easy to get a loan in half an hour, be that at 2000%APR. Indiscriminate lending got us in this mess and I see no end in sight. There will be no long lasting effective reforms in banking and we are doomed to boom and bust for many generations.

Now there is a chance however that due to the huge cuts being made (in many cases unnecessarily) by the Con-Dem government will lead to a double dip recession. We have already seen the growth in the economy slow down and with the cuts in public sector jobs a lot less people will be able to spend to keep the growth going. We will see huge cuts across the board, including the likes of the NHS, meaning these next few years will be very hard, especially for those worse off already.

One thing I do see happening is an increase in the number and the severity of protests. There will be more student protests, more union walkout and more strikes as the Con-Dem government attack everything and anything public they can. The people will not take this sitting down and that means there will be an increase in civil disobedience. We are seeing the dawn of a new pro-active age, or are we seeing a recurrence of the 1980s? Either way it means there will be a lot more action in the coming year.

However that bring with it the fear that the police force, already heavy handed, will continue to increase the level of force used against protesters. We already frequently see police horse charges and people bloodied up. This year we have seen Alfie Meadow's almost die at the hands of police and as much as it sadness me to say it I would not doubt that we see another Ian Tomlinson this year. I just hope that some time some how the police tactics get re-thought and protocols re-drawn.

This year has had it's ups and it's downs. Next year promises to be as exciting as the last. I for one am looking forward to seeing how it will unfold. Comment with your ideas and have a happy new year, let's hope to god it's not our last.

Stay Alert, Stay Free.

PROTIP: V for Vendetta is awesome!

P.S. This is likely to be my last post until after the exam period in January.