All I want for 2021 is...
By MARINA MAHATHIR
MUSINGS
Sunday, 27 Dec 2020
The year 2020 that we had looked forward to for so long turned out to be such a wreck of a year that some people are seriously talking about erasing it from their lives.
FOR some weeks now I have felt a quickening of the heartbeat and an electric pulse that goes up my arms through my nerves as if someone attached me to a power plug and left the switch on. It is literally unnerving because for the longest time I didn’t know why I was feeling like this, and no amount of controlled breathing could calm it.
Then I realise that it’s anxiety. Not the garden-variety type I might get before I have to give a talk but a real ongoing nerve-rattling sense of unease that I can’t seem to dissipate despite whatever measures I might take to alleviate it.
And I know where it comes from. It’s this year 2020, the year we looked forward to for so long because we expected it to be a transformative one, where we move from being a still-developing country through some magic portal to become one where we can stand shoulder to shoulder with some of those advanced ones. But 2020 has been such a wreck of a year that some people are seriously talking about erasing it from their lives, not even counting it as a year in their history. Even though this year has had more impact on us than any year in memory.
It is partly this gruesome pandemic that has devastated people’s lives all over the world. If a year ago someone said there would come a time when we would not be able to travel and high-flying jet pilots would now become Grab drivers, we would have laughed. But these days we are seeing the most extraordinary measures people are taking just to survive. On the one hand, it’s been miraculous to see the creativity and resilience of the human spirit. On the other hand, why did it have to come to this for us to see it?
I think what’s making me – and probably a lot of people – nervous is the sheer uncertainty of everything. While I’m not one to plan anything too far ahead of time, it’s the inability to plan anything at all that puts my nerves on edge.
I don’t know, for instance, with all these constantly-changing border restrictions, when I will see my daughter who’s studying overseas in real life again, rather than just on video calls. (Having said that, thank God we live in the era of video calls.) My work has pivoted online so much this year until, like many work-from-homers, I can’t bear to do another Zoom meeting. I’m hoping that once the vaccine becomes widely available, we can return to face-to-face meetings when we can focus more on the work at hand without being distracted by everything we have to do at home.
Since we’re always making wishes for the new year, these are some of the things I wish for in 2021:
1. An end to this global pandemic and the suffering it has wrought, and well-thought-out solutions to mitigate these human disasters.
2. A return to a kinder, gentler world where people talk to, rather than fight, each other.
3. The replacement of all the incompetents in our current government. Surely we deserve better.
4. Learning the lessons of Covid-19, especially how injustices and inequalities have been brought to light and exacerbated by a tiny virus.
5. More brainpower put to mitigating those same injustices and inequalities, especially for those who have the least, including migrant workers and refugees. Otherwise we should stop claiming we’re all part of one human family.
6. A lot of self-reflection on how ugly we, as a society, have become. We’re more xenophobic, more selfish and, incredibly, proud of it. Yet we complain when other countries are the same towards us.
7. More time, energy and thought spent on the big issues in life rather than the small things that we have no business interfering in, especially people’s personal lives.
8. Rethink how we spend our consumption and what we actually need in our lives.
9. Become more aware of what some use as excuses to justify further repression of our rights. It’s been so easy to use our fear of Covid-19 to justify the whittling away of democracy, leaving some people unrepresented.
10. Keep calling out the double standards used on ordinary people and politicians when it comes to the so-called justice system. And remember them when it comes time to vote.
11. That those awaiting trials for corruption all get found guilty and get very long jail times and pay ginormous fines.
12. And indeed, crack down on those who profit off people’s religiosity. In fact, let’s just crack down on hypocrisy.
13. That Malaysian women get recognition as equal citizens and are able to confer their citizenship on their children and there’s an end to insulting excuses for not doing this.
14. That we get a government that thinks of each one of us as equal, and not some more equal than others, that all of us deserve attention and the protection of our rights.
15. That more young people will come to the fore and lead us, because, frankly, I’m exhausted and it’s their time.
Sorry if I can’t give you more cheery wishes, folks, but still I wish you all happy holidays and a 2021 that is brighter, happier and safer than what we’ve been through this year.
