Two amazing facts in the world in 2015

Jan 16, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

At the time of writing, there are different results from different polls as to who is in the lead for the Democratic nomination in the US. Senator Bernie Sanders has closed the gap with Hilary Clinton. In the opinion of this columnist, the candidate from the Democrats will win the presidential race. Could it be Bernie Sanders? If he wins, his victory will be as historic as Obama’s.
Bernie Sanders is the most leftist oriented candidate to ever enter the American presidential race. Whereas scholars describe Mr. Obama as pure liberal, they classify Mr. Sanders as left liberal, meaning he is closer to radical, ideological issues than Mr. Obama.
Mr. Sanders has done the unthinkable in the presidential race – he says that there is a place for socialism in US politics. For someone with that ideological bent to come so close to being one of the two frontrunners for the American presidency tells you what changes the world went through in 2015. But wait! If you think Sanders is leftist, then examine the politics of the man who won the headship of the opposition party in one of the world’s leading capitalist states – the UK.
Jeremy Corbin is the, UK‘s most socialist oriented leader in the British Labour Party’s hierarchy. No one in the Labour Party’s leadership comes close to the socialist thinking of Corbin. Why in two of the most powerful capitalist states, leftist leaders have emerged and are in the forefront of politics in their respective countries?
It has to do with changing times. Maybe Sanders may lose next year. Maybe Corbin will not be the next British Prime Minister, but their rise to prominence shows that the people in advanced industrial societies are turning the backs of capitalist inequalities. It is of phenomenal significance that these two men come so far in countries that ten years ago, people would have rejected what they stood for. I doubt whether the people of the UK and the US want a radical socialist political economy in their homeland but they certainly want a more equitable distribution of their countries’ wealth.
If ever the capitalist system stands in the US, Canada and the UK as an unfair system, it was in 2015. As advanced industrial societies get richer, the majority of their citizens are getting poorer and they want a redrafting of the rules governing the distribution of wealth. In Canada, a dye in the wool liberal, Justin Trudeau won the general elections a few months ago
There can be no discussion of the world in 2015 without an examination of the Islamic State. The Islamic State (ISIS) is a threat to the very foundation of civilization. Whereas I believe that slavery and the Third Reich were the two most dangerous evils civilization produced, it can be argued that at no time were these evils look set to topple civilization. ISIS has no explanation in political theory. Maybe in psychology.
Who are these people? What genetic material are they made up of? My ideology precludes the acceptance of war but I would make an exception and argue for a global military attack on every ISIS outpost wherever each is located. I believe the major powers of the world, acting in unison and forgetting their differences, should invade Syria, Libya and Iraq and extirpate every cell of ISIS. The Islamic State is the emergence of an inexplicable evil
The year 2015 will remain in the memory of countless people for the tremendous loss of lives of humans fleeing the pains of war. It is not the loss in itself but how they died. I saw some images of the recovered bodies and I wished I didn’t.
2015 told the story of mothers clinging to their babies as the leaky boats took those helpless Syrians to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Thousands of mothers and babies drowned trying only to find some peace and comfort like the rest of us in the world. When I saw the images of those dead souls on an Italian ship, I think how lucky some nations are in the world including my own country.
It is not Syria alone. In Eritrea, Yemen and Somalia, people are fleeing horrendous violence many of whom never made it to safer shores. I don’t know if the world in 2015 was a better place to live in than in 2014 but this I know; once one life is lost because of the desire of that person to seek freedom, then that made the world a less nice place to live in.

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Two amazing facts in the world in 2015

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