As we say goodbye to 2023, I feel compelled to say that witnessing genocide in real time has overshadowed so much and become one with the grief of the world.
Since the management of the covid pandemic when blind obedience and global leadership let us down royally, to the current situation in which 2 countries hold an entire nation and the rest of the world, hostage, the decade of the twenty-twenties should be known as the “moaning/groaning twenties” not the “roaring twenties” of our twentieth century. Sometimes it feels like Hope is a casualty of war and how can it not be? With cruel cat and mouse games being played with the lives of civilians and so many children. The slaughter of innocents ,the siege of Gaza, the resort to pulverizing people and places instead of looking for negotiated and historical and just responses to the crisis that is Israel, all of these characterize in a microcosm the glaring inequalities that now control our world. To call for peace is criminalized while The U.S. and Israel celebrate and make deals off slaughter.

But artists, writers, academics, students, workers, everyday people (if not politicians) show us that hope must be necessary and principled. The new year is a time to reaffirm our commitment to the light and hope of the struggle for justice, both for the Palestinian people and other colonized and uprooted peoples throughout the globe.

These times have given me much to reflect upon, the most salient being , the purpose and meaning of existence in the face of so many multi-faceted aspects of injustice, power, and cruelty. To exist as a non-White non-Anglo person watching these times is certainly a lesson ten times more powerful than a degree in Political Science! Not so hard then to imagine the Spanish of Conquest killing the Indigenous peoples with the same smug self-righteous abandon as the current killers . Likewise the French and English, throughout the world and over centuries.

I share some paintings that speak louder than words ! Enjoy a visual exploration of some great artists, a moment to breathe before the world calls us back .

My hopes for 2024 and beyond, are for a future where hope is possible for the most vulnerable and “otherised” peoples– whose lives matter far more than we are permitted to believe. Here’s to a 2024 full of love, hope, justice, and humanity! Let us all be movers and shakers for Justice and Solidarity!
Happy New Year!