Five Ideas That Died in 2011
Angie G50
Moisés Naím / El País
A lot happened in 2011. This year's news roundups will surely be long and interesting. In this column I am not going to run through the main news stories but rather focus on five ideas that had a bad year.
First: Tolerance of inequality. Economic inequality and social injustice have always existed, and are not going away anytime soon. But in 2011, the idea that they are inevitable and must be accepted came under serious attack. The economic crisis in Europe and the United States highlighted something that we already knew, but that had not gained the political potency it did this year: too few have too much, and too many have too little. There's nothing new in this, but now, the statistics, and the reality, of economic inequities are on everybody's minds. And, as we were so brutally reminded by the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young fruit seller who set himself on fire in a small town in Tunisia, anger is no longer just about economic disparities, but also about injustice and lack of dignity. Millions of people throughout the Arab world took to the streets and overthrew dictators, refusing to accept the idea that their future would look like their past. Inequality and injustice will not disappear, but it became much more difficult to defend them in 2011.
Second: respect for politicians, experts and the wealthy. This was a bad year for those empowered by voters, knowledge or money. We learned that many rulers do not have either the power or the ability to make fundamental decisions, that each famous economist has a different explanation and solution for the crisis, and that many of the wealthy (individuals as well as companies) who contributed to the current debacle are living largely unburdened by the consequence of their actions. In 2011, the authority of governments, experts and business leaders was hit hard. We don't believe them, we don't trust them. And authority depends on legitimacy and credibility.
Third: intransigent opposition is good politics. The inability of Republicans and Democrats in the United States to agree on vital issues is perhaps the most infamous example over the last year. But the European crisis also worsened as a result of the politicians' inability to act. The paralyzing confrontation between the government and the opposition in Italy, Spain and Belgium had nothing to envy to that we see in the United States. And political gridlock went global in 2011. From Thailand to Japan, from Pakistan to South Africa, political polarization has morphed into governmental paralysis. The idea that national interests should be above electoral ambition has been out of currency for some time. In 2011 this toxic trend deepened and dispersed.
Fourth: the planet has a climate emergency. The idea that we need to act now, and unequivocally, to slow down global warming did not rank high in the world's agenda this year. It was displaced by economic crises, debt crashes, unemployment, the repeated failures to resolve the crises, the assassination of Bin Laden, the Arab spring, and many other events. Inevitably, however, the world's health continues its precipitous decline: the most recent data, accurate and unquestionable, show that the average surface temperature of the planet has increased by 1ºC in just 50 years. This increase is faster than the scientific community had assumed. But the idea that we need to do something about it fell in popularity this year.
Fifth: it is better not to have nuclear weapons. In 2011, the world's tyrants took note of Muammar Gaddafi's fate, and of the continued survival of his Asian equivalent, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il. The first decided against building a nuclear arsenal, and the second is holding onto his warheads, even though his population is starving. If they had any doubts before, the end of Gaddafi clearly showed that a dictator's survival depends on having nuclear weapons to protect himself against foreigners who might intervene and an army willing to shoot at his own people when they become too riotous.
Obviously this is an incomplete list. There are many other ideas that did not fare well in 2011. It was not a good year for Al Qaeda as an idea or Hugo Chavez' 21st Century Socialism. The notion that absolute prohibition is the best way to deal with drugs or that the Tea Party would become a dominant force in American politics have lost appeal and supporters. And there are more. Which ones? Share them via Twitter: @moisesnaim.