Much has happened to our world over this past year – some promising and positive interludes, but overall, discouraging and punishing.
First, the good news – nuclear attacks remain on hold. On the downside, we have become unwilling witnesses to an acceleration of atrocious slaughter, slavery and starvation in Africa.
And while ISIS has been suppressed by a rare co-operation between Russia and the U.S., persistent deadly tribal and religious hatreds continue in the Middle East with these two powers abetting the atrociousness as they compete for colonial type military and economic domination over oil rich Islamic states. The Myanmar government is an ignored obscenity.
We have almost universally lost faith in and respect for our political leaders.
Western nations’ justice systems and courts have increasingly been shaken by partisan political ideology. China, the U.S. and Russia ignore international courts. The United Nations has shrunk in wisdom and vision.
The once admired and cherished Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on which our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms and our Constitution are based, has been absolutely rejected by China, Russia and the Muslim world. U.S. President Donald Trump and even the U.S. Congress ignore it.
Britain has become consumed with self-doubt on its role in Europe and the world – abandoning its leadership position – and tearing the fabric of its once united kingdom apart. Europe is teetering on a return to fascism. Ethically intelligent and impartial journalism is a disappearing profession.
Canada has been largely abandoned by both the U.S. and Britain, our two closest friends and sharers of our civilization, leaving us with a Canadian government that focuses principally on apologizing for the country and heritage that our forebears and ourselves have built.
Our federal government has proven to be out of step and foot-draggedly reactive to the changing world of commerce, trade and diplomacy – USMCA notwithstanding. China, and now India, quite clearly treat us with contempt.
Even our provincial premiers, who earlier showed that they cared enough about Canada that they were willing to compromise and co-operate on interprovincial trade and economic development, have changed for the worse with the election of new governments in Ontario and Quebec. Both share, with British Columbia, dangerously incompetent, myopic visions of governance and leadership.
One is tempted to turn one’s back on all this and do what the majority of our American neighbours are doing. They focus on taking care of themselves and their families. They buy guns to protect themselves at home and unquestionably support the strongest military on earth to keep “aliens” from invading and taking what they have. They accept the inevitability of pork barrel politics, poorly funded public schools, decaying infrastructure, and they object to paying for anyone else’s medical care except their own. The America of Roosevelt and Kennedy is being dismantled.
Thankfully Canada, although weakened, has not yet disintegrated as a nation. We still have a largely publicly funded high-quality education system; a universal health-care structure that isn’t perfect but is humane at its core; a system of justice that is still largely free from partisan political interference; a civilization that cherishes its arts and culture; and a political system that allows us to survive or fail on our own.
So welcome to the end of 2018. We leave it with few regrets.
Alan Murdock is a local pediatrician.
