John Rapley
THE BRACING Mediterranean sea-breeze gave way to London's damp air and grey skies as I stepped off the plane from Marseille. It had been a dozen years since I was last here during the holiday-season, and though I never cared much for England's rain, there is occasionally something peaceful about it. The relative quiet gave me pause to reflect on the imminent end of another year.
There are still some raw nerves left over here from the bombings earlier this year. And one could argue that the tensions underpinning the "clash of civilisations" - which many say drive terrorism - remain as acute as ever.
In Iraq, despite the surprising turnout in the recent elections, the violence of the insurgency seems to point not to a disappearing dictatorship but to a possible future of civil war. Equally, the inauguration of Afghanistan's new parliament could scarcely conceal the fact that many of its faces belonged to the warlords who once plunged their country into anarchy. They could yet do so again.
Meanwhile, although France's race riots largely spared Marseille, word on the street suggests that that was only because the drug gangs controlling the quarters where they might have erupted didn't want the police prying into their affairs. Whether or not there is any truth to the whispering is not the important point. More significant is that it testifies to the fact that the divide between the "us" and "them" of which many spoke - "us" being law-abiding citizens and "them" thugs - was probably no less bad than it was in the cities that burned.
Further afield, the near-collapse of world trade talks in Hong Kong suggests that the rich countries still don't "get it." The poverty of the Third World, which drives the migration, which drives the marginalisation, which underpins both race riots and suicide bombers, remains as acute as ever. But the solution offered is more seemingly empty promises.
STAGNATED WAGES
Yes, the world economy grew well this year. But its fruits continued to be unevenly shared. At least, I mused while thinking on that point, I wasn't stuck in New York. Transit employees there seemed to speak for American workers, whose real wages have stagnated in the face of mushrooming corporate profits, by crying 'enough'.
Almost as if by coincidence, Bolivians elected a president who is a darling of the anti-globalisation movement. His country thereby became the latest in South America to thumb its nose at the international trade regime.
Does all this troubling news mean that I have given up hopes for a merry Christmas? Hardly. That there are worries aplenty in 2005 seems immaterial. After all, compared to Christmases past - in eras far more violent or uncertain than today's - we cannot complain.
Besides, even if we had reason to fear the future, it wouldn't much matter. Even in the worst of times, it seems to me that people have always been able to find reason to pause, reflect and give thanks for the things in their lives that are good. Even those jaded by Christmas, even those who don't believe its precepts, even those who dismiss it as pagan ... even among them are many who still find the idea of a season committed to peace, however imperfectly, a noble idea.
And, whatever the storm clouds, the fact is that the world today is more peaceable than it has been in a long time. That is no cause for complacency. But if there is a season for everything, and this is our season for peace, we are not doing as badly as we might have feared. So I wish you all a merry Christmas.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government UWI, Mona.
