2010 and beyond

So this is my farewell blog for now (notice the prevarication – damn I still have certainty issues) – Luke is taking a break and will pop up somewhere else in 2010. So as it is the end of the decade, I thought I would reflect a bit on 2009. Here’s my list of issues.

For starters, it still seems that being gay (or queer, or even vaguely “other”) is a problem for many global societies. Recently the Guardian in the UK recorded the cheers from queers about the coming out of Welsh rugby player, Gareth Thomas. Once married, frequently capped for Wales as a rugby forward, and now tired of being in the closet (he’s contemplated suicide before), he’s finally out and proud. I do have to note that he is 6 foot three inches tall and weighs 16 stone. I’m not sure about stones and kilograms but in my book he’s all man, and certainly big enough to share around!

As marvellous as this openness is – the news has largely been well received – being gay is still punished, formally and informally, in many countries. Uganda is, even as I write this in the relative safety of a large South African city, contemplating a law which will make certain homosexual offences punishable by death. And those who know of same sex activities and don’t report them can also be punished by the state. This schizophrenia – gay men and lesbian women can marry in parts of the world and be legally killed by their governments in others – says something about the evils of irrational prejudice, the complete indifference of bigots to science and research, the scapegoating of minorities in politically uncertain times and the triumph of certain cultural and religious beliefs over reason and compassion.

My second big reflection of 2009 is the on the state of printed media – books, magazines and newspapers. As regular readers (of this blog I mean) will know I have mused on books and writing from time to time. So is the demise of the printed word inevitable? Well Kindle and other e-book delivery mechanisms (I just made that term up) may replace an actual hard copy which you can touch, smell and lick (yes the reading experience must use as many senses as possible in my view) but at least it keeps people reading dammit. It does seem newspapers and magazines will be forever changed by online media – even live news shows are interacting with their viewers via Skype and e-mail and getting cellphone clips to illustrate stories in an effort to “democratise” the news experience. I don’t know where all this is going, but I can say that my eight year old nephew loves reading real paper books between video gaming and wii tennis, so that’s a good sign right? I grew up on paper books so I’d be sad to see them go – but hey human curiosity and empathy still drive us to tell stories. Does it matter what form they come in?

Then I’d like to talk a bit about citizenship and nationalism. I still find it bizarre that it matters to so many people where they were born and that this defines their identity in limiting ways. I find the whole idea of patriotism so curious – that through an accident of birth we find ourselves loyal to a set of beliefs and practices and values which we feel separate us from other people born a few hundred kilometres away. In many cases, through accidents of history, people from the same ethnic group were separated by an arbitrary national boundary and were now on opposite sides of the same fence. Pride in one’s country is so easily turned into hatred for those on the other side – I am ideologically against it and prefer to see myself as a citizen of the world. It’s idealistic I know – but just as the differences between gay and straight are artificial, so too are the differences based on gender, race, culture, ethnicity and all the other labels we use to define ourselves. Surely it matters more that we have so much in common?

Tied up with this is the matter of religious fundamentalism, and in fact fundamentalism of any kind. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that as so many of the things we used to take for granted about the world are crumbling around us (the demise of marriage as an institution, the blurring of sexual and identity boundaries, reduced confidence in the future of the planet, plummeting religious service attendance in the developed world, news of global markets in turmoil) many people are finding solace in the safety of fire and brimstone preachers from all faiths. What these people offer is certainty in an uncertain world – of course there is no certainty, it’s just reassuring to believe it could exist if we close our eyes and wish hard enough. 

Talking of fantasies, one so many people seem to have is to become famous – and thanks to reality television, this is now a possibility in more ways than were once thought possible. Scores of talent competitions have seen the light of day in the last ten years, alas very little real talent has emerged. Rather, it seems our standards have dropped. But reality television isn’t really interested in talent, is it? It is keener on ratings and revenue – and in the process perhaps we have lost something. For example, through the process of editing and manipulation, many of the reality shows which bring people together in artificial forms of reality (Big Brother springs to mind, as does Survivor) purport to show “real” people in “real” situations, but in fact they end up showing stereotypes playing a role. What we are left with is situations where people are often rewarded for being scheming and manipulative rather than for making a contribution to the planet (oh I know we can’t all change the world but at least we should want it to be better rather than just want to accumulate more “things”).

And so my wish for 2010 and beyond, as I look back on a year of blogs about books, boys and bonking, is that we can all find a way to discover our shared humanity. Yes it is idealistic and yes it’s not likely to happen in my lifetime. But if there was one question I’d like readers of this blog to ask themselves and others, it would be this: does this new societal phenomenon enrich the human condition, bring us closer to each other and contribute to mutual understanding and growth? It may not always be able to tell with some of the newer phenomena, but my plea is that we stand back, thing big and reflect wisely – we can do this thing called “life” if we stand together, respect our differences and look for the good.