HUMAN WRONGS WATCH

Human Wrongs Watch

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram*

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 5 2021 (IPS)* – Goodbye 2020, but unfortunately, not good riddance, as we all have to live with its legacy. It has been a disastrous year for much of the world for various reasons, Elizabeth II’s annus horribilis. The crisis has exposed previously unacknowledged realities, including frailties and vulnerabilities.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

For many countries, the tragedy is all the greater as some leaders had set national aspirations for 2020, suggested by the number’s association with perfect vision. But their failures are no reason to reject national projects.

As Helen Keller, the deaf and blind author activist, noted a century ago, “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision.”

After JFK’s assassination in November 1963 ended US opposition to Western intervention in Indonesia, President Sukarno warned his nation in August 1964 that it would be ‘living dangerously’, vivere pericoloso, in the year ahead.

A year later, a bloody Western-backed military coup had deposed him, taking up to a million lives, with many more ruined.