2014 was a year of construction, of setting in motion, of changing the wheels while the car is still moving. It was an intrepid year that ruffled all our hair and allowed us also to doubt many beliefs that we thought were certain.
No account can be completely positive, but neither can it be completely negative, because there have been advances and setbacks in all fields, on all continents. While imperial forces have once more invaded countries and imposed terror where they needed to divide in order to conquer and, fundamentally, to control the supply of natural resources for their transnational companies, empowered people pushed back against these same companies, these same powers and these same superpowers.
While contamination seemed to know no bounds, some have been able to victoriously proclaim that their territory has been cleared of land mines. There were also countries that left travellers to die in the corridors of their airports while others sent the best of their medics thousands of kilometres to combat terrible diseases.
Many new rights have been incorporated into civil codes, Constitutions or have been imposed through presidential decrees. Others continue to be lost, ignored or simply avoided in a crazy race towards the future.
The future in 2014 was 2015. 2015 from today is the present and where overdue obligations must start to be fulfilled. The New Year must become an excuse to once again drive forward demands, to remember that election promises must be kept and that social commitment must be made effective and be permanent in sustained action.
This form of writing that is so relativistic doesn’t mean to overlook the grave danger that we live in as a species: we are on the brink of a catastrophe. But this way of thinking is not always conducive for transforming actions that turn the path of evolution, many times it’s a chilling scream that paralyses and is met with a response of denial or indifference.
Therefore the message cannot be categorical, the language can’t be polarised between good and the bad, black and white, between advances and setbacks. The advances of yesterday are setbacks for today; what is pristine in a psycho-social context becomes dark in another one. So it’s worth lifting up one’s look to mistrust the simple answers and analyse with a wide view and in depth.
Peace is something uncertain, there are no guarantees of its durability; those who decide on life or death do not have a quorum. This is why there should be an insistence on nonviolent ways to resolve conflicts, to solve disputes and to counteract bravado and authoritarianism.
Nonviolence must be the complementary component of all actions carried out by governments, social movements, those who demand and those who decide, those in need and those who hoard. And when I say nonviolence I’m not thinking about a white-cotton cloud and the brilliant-white smiles in adverts, I’m thinking about water that bores through rock, that excavates the ocean floor, that purifies, that cleans, that decants, that fertilises, that quenches thirst and that feeds the seeds in the ground.
Nonviolence is not flaky, it’s firm, it’s persistent, it has flexibility to not break, it adapts to the forms it needs to adopt and advances with resolution when the occasion allows. Let’s create these situations, let’s make the radio of influence multiply so that the echo silences the debauched and harmful interests.
I invite you to carry out the only attempt that’s worthwhile; let’s humanise ourselves and endow ourselves for ever with things that give meaning to our lives.
