Celebrating the end of the 00s - good riddance

In four months, we will be celebrating the end of the 00s, a decade that would probably be more remembered for terrorism, social media, natural disasters, viruses, and the globalization of war (as opposed to world war I, II). In 1999, media around the world used the usual scare tactics of predicting a global shut down, the Y2K - We were expecting all electronic date registers to break back to the 1900s instead of moving on to 2000s. Both 00s nonetheless.

There was no nuclear armageddon, and machines did not burst out of order - quite the opposite, during the past ten years we've seen huge technological advancements. Social media, for example, reinvented and revolutionized media and public dissemination of information from the traditional Top-Down communication systems to people communicating on a flat level with other people, regardless of whether they are on top of things, or if they were laying low.

September 11, 2001 was the day that should not have been. The terror attacks on the globe's two largest financial icons - the twin towers of New York - paved way for the largest war in human history - a war fought globally against unseen enemies - and regressed the situation of human rights and human integrity globally. The west and the east, north and south were affected - we are now all under surveillance, everyone is a suspect of a crimes that did not happen yet.

2003 to date, the global war on terrorism takes another front - Iraq - sandwiching Iran between US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan and US-led Coalition watching over the oil interests in Iraq. At a later stage, oil prices hike to unprecedented levels, paving way for two important developments : the worst financial crisis / credit crunch to date and a shift in political rhetoric towards a much commercially-hyped switch to greener energy sources.

Katarina, the Tsunami, China's earthquake, to name but a few natural disasters took place around the mid to late 00s. Terror attacks spread out from Madrid, to London, Amman to Istanbul. Meanwhile, the shaikhs of the Gulf region made more money than they can ever spend, as well as the weapons industry - it sold more weapons during the 00s than in any other decade.

Then there was Google, the new all seeing, all knowing God - totally synchronized with our Facebook profiles. Human communication became more and more abbreviated: RnB, BrB, Y2K, LOL, Nasdaq, .gov, .net, .com, www, etc etc

On a cautiously positive note, the US hegemony placed an African-American as a president - just when the EU member nations and parliament is over-taken by formerly extreme right-wing parties, from Danmark to Holland and more recently Belgium andHungary. Meanwhile the Middle East sketched out its plans to go all nuclear, while Israel bombed Beirut, and almost wiped out Gaza.

A surge in ultra-orthodox islam shaped the Arab world's anti-globalization, anti-"westernization" opposition, ironically enough, being the only beneficiary of any democratic development. Democracy has been dying all over the 00s, all over the world, as anti-democratic parties come out winners of democratic elections.

Now, towards the end of the 00s, the whole western world will be taking the same flu shots, and this may spread to some priviliged nations too. The rest of the world will continue to suffer the lack of clean water or sanitation... and the picture looks grim, if we are to consider the effects of climate change on human development.

2010s (looks pretty symmetric) should be all about enforcing equality between men and women, promoting forgiveness as the basis for conflict resolution, and climate, climate, climate... But I have a good feeling that is not going to happen.