Looking Back, Looking Forward

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Let's face it, this is the time of the year to do that, if ever there is one. Looking back is easy and not painful for me personally. Looking forward is quite another matter and I do not claim to be or seek to be any kind of Nostradamus but I do have some thoughts. So let's start with the easy bit.

Holiday Festivities And The Past Year

I had a good festive period; Carl (in photo) was here with me and I was able to eat, drink and make soberly merry with good friends; The presents I gave to family and friends seem to have been well chosen and well received. I couldn't ask for more. 

The pre-season activities, in particular my participation in the “bonnets rouges” singing of carols in the Bar du Pont also went very well (see photo, I'm on the right)) with a positive write-up in the local Le Dauphiné newspaper. That was very largely due to the patience, talent and perseverance of friend Jo.

The earlier part of the year passed with little of note. A couple of good friends died. It wasn't unexpected but was nonetheless saddening andt is something I am now resigned to; like it or not, as friends get older it is something that is going to happen rather regularly in the future until I am one of those who departs. So be it.

There is one outstanding item on my agenda from last year, an apparently trivial one but one that is important to me, and that is to get the Mairie to prune the lime trees across the road in front of my house to allow more sunlight in and a better floral display in the summer. As is the practice here, I shall enlist the support of friends in the village to put pressure on the Mairie to get that done. That is trivial in the general scheme of things but important to me and my neighbours.

The only other matter of importance to me is that I have had trouble for years in walking very far. Diagnosed in the UK as a problem with my hips it was identified here as a blockage in the Aorta where it splits to go down the legs and removal of that has given me back my legs. It feels great.

So much for the past. What does Dicken's ghost of the future foretell?

Looking Forward

For me personally, the demon on the near horizon is Brexit. I am in the process of trying to obtain French citizenship and have no reason to doubt that that will eventually succeed. It will take a while as French administrative processes move slowly but I foresee no absolute problem there. For the UK, to which I still have a strong personal attachment not only for myself but also for family and friends, the problem is much greater.

I totally fail to comprehend the apparent fatalism with which many UK friends apparently regard Brexit as inevitable. It need not be inevitable and the populace can stop it if it decides to. Rightly or wrongly I see Brexit as part of a more general phenomenon in Europe: the rise of the extreme right and nationalism backed by external funds to a significant extent. In France the “gilets jaunes” started as a protest against tax on fuel and looked initially to be a standard, short-lived French show of popular defiance. However the protest has become prolonged and extended its remit to include many more social grievances, all linked to the wealth gap. Throughout most of Europe the wealth gap, already large, is growing. Continuation of this trend can lead only to revolution of some sort, certainly in countries more amenable to revolution than the UK. If allied with nationalism, as Mitterand once said; that means war. That may sound over dramatic but I can see no other conclusion unless the trend to an increasing wealth gap is reversed. War in Europe nowadays may seem unthinkable but I can't see it in the interest of the extreme right and their wealthy backers to reverse that trend. War, on the other hand, would do them no harm.

I therefore think that the struggle to combat right-wing extremism and the further accumulation of wealth by the already extremely wealthy is paramount for the year ahead and must be won. The unlikely alliance between the very rich and the ill-informed and poor must be broken or Orwell will become a reluctant prophet. If it is, Europe can settle down to its usual messy compromises, but peaceably. If not, very dark days indeed lie ahead.