So here's a quick rundown of the year. These are by no means the biggest or most important news stories of 2013; they are, as the title suggests, simply 13 things that happened:
Horse meat scandal
Richard III's body found in a Leicester car park
A Papal transition
Margaret Thatcher died
Boston marathon bombings
NSA Edward Snowden leaks
Prince George was born
The rise of the bitcoin currency
Higgs Boson confirmed
Syrian chemical weapons investigations
Typhoon Haiyan hits the Phillipines
The world lost Nelson Mandela
Beyoncé dropped her secret album
I hope everyone has a wonderful 2014. Happy New Year!!
Not the most cheery of titles, particularly for this time of year, but here we go…
I've been thinking about death quite a bit recently. I realise how morbid that sounds, but so many public figures have died recently. Of course, as I blogged about last time, the world lost the legend that is Nelson Mandela not long ago. More recently the actor Peter O'Toole passed away and a couple of months ago so did Lou Reed.
In my personal life as well, the 12th December 2013 marked 10 years since I lost my uncle. My uncle was an amazing person. And his love of living made his death hit a lot harder; I'd also never known anybody to die before and, although it's not a first that is often talked about, a first death is a hard thing to come to terms with (as is any death of someone you love)
But this post is more about life than death.
I studied medieval and early modern English history at school for my A-levels. At that time in history, death was very much central to the experience of life. This was due, mostly, to the Christian belief in the afterlife and the fate of the immortal soul and life on earth was seen just as a transitionary phase. Although, the reformation changed some beliefs (notably purgatory) about life after death, it still remained that death shaped life.
Although this may seem a depressing way to live, it doesn't have to be. Remembering that you will die can help you to gain perspective in a lot of things. Asking yourself will this matter when I die can make you care less about petty arguments and exam grades and focus more on relationships and experiences.
It is also something all living things have in common: we all will live, we all will die. (As Fight Club taught us: 'On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero')
I quote too much, but I will leave you with a quotation from Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech. Regardless of his personal life, it is pretty much agreed on that Jobs was successful during his life and his ideas on living are definitely worth considering. Just like my uncle, he seemed to love life and that is, at least by my standards, commendable:
“Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it, and that is how it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”
(Steve Jobs)
So yeah, this post is basically saying YOLO, make the most of it.
How to write a blogpost on Mandela? It feels as though everything that could be written or said about him has been done so since his death on December 5th 2013, but I thought, on the day of his funeral, I would add my own voice to the ongoing tributes.
There is a lot of different ways I could approach this and a lot of different things I could say, but I will try to keep it as brief as possible.
I wasn't alive during Mandela's struggle to end the apartheid; he became South Africa's first democratically elected black president in the same year I was born (1994), so the majority of his life and his legend is history to me. This history is definitely something I would like to explore in more detail, maybe in a future blogpost; however I do not think this is the time for an in-depth analysis.
What I will say is that, for me, as for so many others, Mandela is a huge inspiration. I know I will never achieve the impact he had on the world in my own life, but his compassion and charm, his determination and willpower as well as, for me most importantly, his humility are qualities I want to develop in myself.
Although at first I was extremely saddened by the news, I'm glad, as has been demonstrated by his memorial service, his incredible life is being celebrated.
R.I.P Madiba- gone, but never forgotten. The man who inspired the world.
The 1st of December 1988 marked the first World AIDs Day. It has been held on the same day ever since, but a lot has changed in the last 25 years.
In the late 80s, when the campaign started, AIDs was widely misunderstood and a HIV diagnosis was almost synonymous with a death sentence. Although AIDs (and World AIDs Day) still exists, much progress has been made and many leaders are now calling for 'the beginning of the end of AIDS'. This is a global tipping point 'where the number of people newly infected with HIV is surpassed by the number of people newly offered treatment'. If current rates of progress, due mainly to the incredible advance in science and the global effort, the beginning of the end could be reached as early as 2015.
With these advances, it is also time to rid ourselves of the language of 1988. Its is no longer accurate to say 'AIDS in Africa'; although, of course, it is still a problem in parts of the continent, simply saying this phrase lumps together a continent made up of over 50 countries, each with widely diverging progress. As many as 16 countries, including Ghana, Zambia and Malawi have already reached the beginning of the end, which is a huge testament to their health financing and planning.
Good news stories such as these are often absent from the news headlines.
Having said all this, now is not the time to get complacent. Of course the huge progress made should be celebrated, but we should also realise the problem still exists. In fact, the success in fighting AIDs may have caused, in part, the movement to lose its political momentum as AIDs is no longer seen as an emergency; however even in 2013 it is estimated that funding to treat AIDs is still $3.5 billion short and donor funding has now stalled.
Insufficient money is also not the only problem. Many people are still left behind including LGBT groups, sex workers and drug users. More must be done to reach these vulnerable groups, who are often stigmatised.
So to reflect on the last 25 years, we should celebrate all the progress that has been made, but use this progress as motivation to build on it further and reach more people in order to make the 'beginning of the end of AIDS' a reality.
India is constantly in the headlines for being an emerging economy and an important future global player. Therefore, it is easy to forget just how many impoverished people live there.
India is home to more street children than any other country in the world. These children aren't registered at birth and therefore legally non-existent. They aren't counted on food ration books, can't access healthcare and often can't enrol in school without proof of age or residence.
Inevitably, these children have limited options. They are vulnerable to traffickers, pimps and being recruited into begging groups. As child labour is not illegal in India, they often become the main breadwinners for their families as immediate earnings are prioritised over education. These uneducated children become illiterate adults and the cycle continues.
However, there are some children who have the hunger and drive to make a change in their life. With the backing of the Indian charity CHETNA, street and working children across 4 Indian states write and edit their own broadsheet paper, which is published every 3 months. The newspaper is written in Hindi and titled 'Balaknama', which is translated as 'Children's Voice'.
'Balaknama' tackles serious issues, which affect the staff, who are all between 8 and 18 years old, such as police brutality, child marriage and illegal child labour. These reporters, arguably, know more about these issues than most other journalists as they live through it.
Although, not all the reporters can read and write yet, they find a way for their voice to be heard by dictating their stories and views to their friends.This is their first recognition as 'proper' people, not just a necessary part of the ecosystem; those who belong at the bottom of the pile because of widespread belief in Karma. As the chief reporter Vijay Kumar (age 18) says: "Street children are like ghosts, no-one notices and no-one cares. Our newspaper, Balaknama means children's voice…that's what it gives us. People need to listen.'
The way these young people are finding a way to speak out about their own futures is truly inspiring and I hope it motivates you to create something with your life. I, for one, will definitely be blogging more regularly!
On my recent trip to America, I ended up talking to a lot of strangers. First of all, the main purpose of my trip was to attend my cousin's wedding and his wife, as well as a huge number of guests, were people I had never met before.
I also ended up talking to a lot of cab drivers, street food vendors etc.
This may seem like a random post, but the point of it is, I learnt so much from them. Whether it was how a certain portion of American visas is reserved for Africans and how the situation in Ethiopia is now improving so many people choose not to leave from Desta (a cab driver who drove us a lot), or about the million muslim march which is scheduled to take place on September 11th this year, or indeed how attitudes to muslims changed after 9/11.
I also learnt a little bit about happiness and how many different sources it can come from. Your whole school life, it's kind of drummed into you that you have to have a career you really love to be happy. And sometimes that is the case, as was proved by the Canadian I sat next to on a flight who now works for Play Station in California and the years it took to get him there were worth it. But your job isn't the only aspect of your life. Your happiness could come from having freedom with your time; if you're a cab driver you can work pretty much whenever you want and and build it around spending time with your kids or fixing up old cars. Happiness could be having enough money to live and enough time to enjoy the money you have. It could be long walks through central park when you get home. I'm only 18; I can't define happiness and I don't intend to, but I hope I continue to learn about it from both people I know and those I don't.
Jack Howard (a YouTuber/internet personality) recently tweeted:
"It's September & I don't have to think about going back to school for the first time in my life. But I'm learning more now than I ever have." The exact same applies to me (although I intend to go back to school in 2014). There are truly some things you can never ever learn from books or school and many of those things you'll learn about from people. So go ahead and open a conversation with a stranger and see what you find out....
Anyone who knows me will know I'm a huge fan of Brandon Flowers. Brandon often talks about his love for his home of Las Vegas and how he used to get goosebumps when he saw the sign: 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas'. I've never felt this way about my home of Norfolk (maybe because I haven't left it yet), but I always get those goosebumps when we touchdown in Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, Pakistan and have done since I was a child. Brandon talked about how he realised Las Vegas is not quite as fabulous as the sign makes out as he got older and I've certainly realised that about Pakistan.
Pakistan represents to me my childhood, my family and a part of my identity and although it, understandably, gets very bad press I will always love it. There are a lot of bad things that come out of Pakistan, but it is also a very beautiful place; not only because of the natural beauty of the place itself but because of the people within it (I will most probably do a blogpost about Pakistani people I admire) and it holds some very beautiful memories for me; particularly memories from independence day.
Today is 14th August 2013 and it marks the 67th year of Pakistan's independence. It's unfortunate that the country was actually born out of conflict and sectarian violence between muslims and hindus. But it was created as a sanctuary and a unified country. As the national anthem states: "The order of this sacred land is the might of the brotherhood of the people". What's most upsetting is that, that idea has disappeared. The brotherhood doesn't exist and sectarian violence between different types of muslims seems to have taken over.
However, there are still good people and if there are good people, there is hope. It will take time and there will never be complete harmony, but I believe that Pakistan's 'brotherhood' will form once again. Then again, I'm just an 18 year old dreamer (but I am not the only one...)
Happy 67th Birthday Pakistan! May you have many more x
This my space to write about things that I care about. It will focus mostly on current affairs and news stories, but there will also be other thoughts whether they be on social issues or song lyrics.
