Where do we go from here?

Jair Bolsonaro began his fouryear term as President of Brazil in January 2019 When I look back at the year that gave way to 2020 that seemingly innocuous fact now begins to appear like a portent Things that would have been laughed at a few years ago were welcomed making for 12 strange months of anger and disquietMargaret Atwood doing what she has done effortlessly for decades put it all into perspective for the rest of us In September while launching the biggest book of the year her sequel to The Handmaids Tale she informed a journalist that she didnt make her stuff up the human race didAll kinds of things happened the world over with repercussions and ripples that affected us equally In January for instance samesex marriage became legal in Austria a few months after our own Supreme Court struck down the colonialera Section 377 that outlawed samesex relations That milestone in Europe served as a reminder of howlong the road in India will be for samesex marriage to obtain legal protectionFebruary was a month of jingoism The Indian Air Force launched airstrikes on purported militant camps in Balakot and contradictory media reports from India and Pakistan soon followed Over half a century after the Partition it sometimes feels as if we may never be able to move onThere were attacks of another kind in March when Special Counsel Robert Muellers report into US President Donald Trumps 2016 election campaign was published concluding that there was no collusion with Russia but refusing to exonerate him either There were memes and hot takes but underlying them all was a feeling of uncertainty that has yet to fade away That these memes featuring American politicians could easily be swapped with our own leaders was tellingWikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange was arrested in April after seven years in Ecuadors embassy in London while the circus we refer to as the general election began in India Tying those two events together were questions about data who owned it was it being used and misused and had social media platforms managed to destroy democracy The answers may take decades to arrive but this was a year that initiated questions for which we ought to be gratefulOn May 6 the Intergovernmental SciencePolicy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services published a report about the unprecedented decline of the natural living world Not long after millions of young people stepped out in major cities to insist upon dramatic climate action Governments may try and ignore climate change but a generation aware of its impact may prevent them from sweeping it under another carpetYoung people took to the streets in June too in Hong Kong turning protests against an antiextradition bill into a larger struggle for freedom They chose to reject what millions of us have accepted without question and may teach us a lot more before they put down their placardsJuly was named the hottest month on record globally by the American scientific agency National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration India got hot under the collar too in August and September first revoking Jammu and Kashmirs special status then watching Chandrayaan2 crash into the surface of the moon Both events revealed the deeply polarized land we now live in where bigotry and violence are no longer shunned and where insecurities rather than intelligence drive policy decisionsThis isnt to say it was a year of misery alone We were saved by art and culture by writers and filmmakers artists and musicians who used shared crises to create works of magic We were gifted films like Transit and Us novels like The Testaments and The Nickel Boys and albums like Father of The Bride and When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go We were witness to the rise of social movements like the Womens March and MeToo initiating conversations and advocating real change setting the stage for further movements that promise to do what decades of dialogue have failed to pull offIt is impossible to predict where the world seems to be heading There are no clues so we must turn to our prophets and I choose Atwood again When asked to sum up our times in one word she picked vital referring to the hinge moment we seem to occupy and alluding to the caskets in The Merchant of Venice that offer three possible outcomes What will we choose If she had the answer she didnt sayWhen he isnt ranting about all things Mumbai Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet He tweets lindsaypereira Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individuals and dont represent those of the paperCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates