mAY YOU LIVE IN LESS INTERESTING TIMES

The title of my first online book of blogs was May You Live In Interesting Times, the supposedly Chinese curse or Chinese greeting.  What follows is to promote my second book of blogs, recently published on my website. I needed to tweak the title above to cover the hundred or so blogs written as the world became even more troubled, from 2021 to 2025.  Though a tweak does scant justice to the magnitude of the global changes that have taken place since.

Still, by way of introduction, I itemize below the themes that have been dropped and those that have been introduced.  A little of what I wrote by way of introduction to the first book, covering 2017 to 2021, may usefully be repeated for this second collection.

“Blogging is ephemeral. I hope that pulling together these blogs on-line under thematic headings in chronological order will increase their life span. Broaching some of these topics, getting some of the shared frustrations of the day into my website, may even have increased my own life span.  Dip in where your interests lie and explore”.

This new book of blogs, as was its predecessor, is divided into four thematic parts with subsections whose subtitles are indicated in this introduction by italics.

Part One
Gone is Terrorism. Well not in reality. Europe’s intelligence services have become more adept at pre-empting major incidents, though lone wolf attacks are manifestly more difficult to see coming. In has come Immigration with topics from the Kindertransport to small boats. Disinformation about illegal immigration, alongside accurate figures for documented arrivals, had given Leave voters victory in the 2016 UK European Union Membership referendum so badly judged by Cameron. I have pointed out government’s parallel but contradictory policies: the one keeping up the supply of necessary migrant labour for the British economy, amounting to hundreds of thousands, the other most strikingly seen in Sunak’s prolonged obsession with deporting to Rwanda those arriving on small boats, which brought on the Conservative government’s bizarre legislation: Rwanda was safe because they said it was safe. It was a good story, with TV pictures, to tell faithful Brexiteers wanting to ‘take back control’ of our borders and end freedom of movement. Popular anxiety about immigration could scupper the new Labour government.  It has had brutal consequences under Trump in America.

There has been plenty to comment on under the other retained titles. Blogs included within Democracy and Politics discuss the decline witnessed in both.  Human Rights features new violations globally that have pushed the importance of international humanitarian law to the fore. Looking back, I’m unhappy not to have written about the terrible plight of women in Afghanistan.

Finally in this section, Catholicism: the focus of blogs has remained on Pope Francis, his teaching and his speaking truth to power with creative compassion.  Sadly I’ve also written obituaries for four outstanding Catholics:  Sister Pamela Hussey SHCJ, Bruce Kent, Father Albert Nolan O.P. and Father Gustavo Guttierez O.P.

Part Two
Brexit has gone. Its multiple consequences remain, the economic equivalent of long-COVID. We are all sick of it. In has come Culture Wars, about the degradation of politics, ‘woke’ versus ‘anti-woke’, and the whole question of identity including what it means to be British.  In, of course, has also come the Labour Party, its plans and the ‘vision thing’.  Government & Policy remains covering issues from disability and cuts in international development aid to the Post Office scandal. The Conservative Party including its wrecking-ball to the NHS, Partygate, and the blunders of the 1922 Committee.

Part Three
Gone is the heading Middle East & North Africa. In has come Putin’s Ukraine War with its own prolonged devastation and death toll. Though a biproduct was the fall of Assad in Syria. In the last three years, Putin’s invasion has transformed geopolitics and the immediate future of Europe, diverting scarce resources into the demands of modern warfare. It had created a new not-so-Cold War between an authoritarian and European democratic bloc of States, with other countries expected to choose sides. Now under Trump this configuration has changed for one even worse.
 
USA remains. Its themes have revolved around the Presidency, Biden, Trump, and the elections, Harris and Walz. I did float the possibility that US male voters might baulk at a black female President, but I thought Harris would narrowly win (having got the 2016 election wrong too). The extraordinary global re-alignment caused by Trump’s relationship with Putin and its dire consequences globally and particularly for the people of Ukraine came after publication.  This will preoccupy international relations for some time to come.

Africa also remains: There are still mass killings by jihadist religious extremists, those of Christians grossly under-reported.  Not to mention the desperate plight of Sudan’s people, casually terrorised by two barbaric armies, a particularly dreadful example of the consequences of the arms trade. I should have written about it.

There are blogs on eradication of malaria.  Themes have concentrated on events involving South Africa, their role in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice – see also under the next heading - and the Government of National Unity. The heading Israel, Palestine and Iran stays, dealing most notably in the last few months with the passionate debate about genocide in Gaza. The old threat of an Israeli – or USA - attack on facilities in Iran associated with the potential development of a nuclear weapon has intensified.

Part Four 
Nothing gone.  But in has come Climate Change - which appears elsewhere, for example under Catholicism. It seems absurd to be discussing the future of our atmosphere and the planet almost as an afterthought, in four blogs. Everything that could be said and written about global warming and renewables has been said and written. Trump has delivered a severe blow to any chances of bringing it under control.  But for fear of popular revolt, no-one with political authority seems open to the radical social and economic changes that are needed.  Doomed to short-termism, what other hope do we have but some scientific miracle to avert catastrophe? And friends and family have had enough gloomy blogs to be going on with as 2024 turns into 2025.
​
So, it is a relief to turn again to the old catch-all section Observations which ends the book. I particularly enjoyed writing about Dogs, Dunwich Beach and Detectorists. Unconditional love, gentle beauty, hope and perseverance. Not a bad prescription for surviving the rest of the decade. With thanks to Edmund Ross for IT work making this on-line book possible.