Ten things be grateful for | thearticle

In recent weeks I have often asked people how they are and they have replied, gloomily, “Things are just so awful.” They don’t mean for them personally. They mean politically. The economic

crisis, energy prices, problems in so many areas of British society from care homes and the overwhelmed NHS to scandals around the Met, strikes, the Johnson and Truss premierships,

Kwarteng’s “fiscal event”. And that’s before we even get to international news: Trump, the Supreme Court’s decision about abortion, the elections in Italy and Sweden, and, above all, the

barbaric Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cruel regimes in Iran and China. The list seems endless. No wonder people feel so depressed. As we approach the end of such a year it may seem

Panglossian to try and find positives, but there are many things to be grateful for. Here’s a list of just ten. * THE COURAGE OF PEOPLE IN IRAN For decades our media and so many of our

politicians have turned a blind eye to what the regime in Iran has done to their own people and to people abroad by supporting acts of terrorism. To see the enormous courage of ordinary

Iranian people, especially women and schoolgirls, as they have stood up for their rights, should inspire all of us. This is not trivial. When so many British political commentators are

cynical about the state of our democracy (the last Prime Minister to both enter office and leave office as the result of a General Election was Ted Heath), we should remember what is at

stake in the battle for human rights in other parts of the world. * THE COURAGE OF UKRAINIANS The same is true in Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of the most barbarous

chapters in recent history, targeting civilians, committing war crimes, depriving ordinary people of electricity and water, even threatening them with nuclear weapons. And yet in the face of

such suffering, the Ukrainian people, inspired by Volodymyr Zelensky, have not given up. They have stood up for their independence with incredible courage, supported by their friends and

allies, in particular, people in Poland, Finland and the Baltic Republics, who know better than us in the West what it is to suffer at the hands of the Russians. * BREAKTHROUGHS IN MEDICAL

SCIENCE Our mainstream media constantly criticises the way our Government mishandled the Covid crisis. But who doesn’t remember the moment Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine at

Oxford, told the presenter of Radio 4’s _The World at One _that the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was on the way? That was just the first of a series of astonishing medical breakthroughs: new

ways of preventing prostate cancer, of treating motor neurone disease, a breakthrough in treating breast cancer and in repairing damage to human livers and now a drug that can slow down the

progress of Alzheimer’s. * THE RISE OF WOMEN POLITICIANS Is there a correlation between a country’s political decency and how many women serve in or lead that country’s government? The

Chinese politburo has no women members, Putin’s National Security Council has just one and the ruling regimes in Iran and Afghanistan have no women. On the other hand, Britain has had three

women Prime Ministers, numerous women ministers and more than 200 women MPs. Hillary Clinton ran as a presidential candidate and Biden has a female Vice-President. In January 2021, there

were 26 women in the US Senate and there are currently three women justices swerving on the US Supreme Court. According to unwomen.org, last month there were 28 countries where 30 women

served as Heads of State and/or Government, with 14 countries having achieved 50% or more women in cabinets and 26% of all national parliamentarians are women, up from 11% in 1995. Countries

which currently have female Prime Ministers or Presidents include 10 countries in Europe (the UK, obviously, had both a Queen and a female Prime Minister until very recently), 5 in Africa

(including only one in the Middle East), 4 in Central America and the Caribbean, 3 in Asia, New Zealand and Samoa in the Pacific, and 2 in the former Soviet Union. Twelve incumbent female

Prime Ministers or Presidents have been elected/appointed since January 2021. * WOMEN PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS Women have been at the forefront of the battle over the trans wars and the related

battle over freedom of speech. From JK Rowling, Julie Bindel and Hadley Freeman to Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce, they have all shown tremendous courage in their fight against censorship

and the shameful cowardice of much of our so-called progressive intelligentsia. * THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS Bahrain’s Minister of Industry & Commerce Zayed Alzayani, who first visited Israel

two years ago, has returned for further talks. Since his first visit Israel and Bahrain have launched direct flights and will soon sign a Free Trade Agreement. This is just part of a larger

set of negotiations and agreements between Israel and a number of Middle Eastern states, known as the Abraham Accords. It is the most important step towards peace between Israel and the Arab

world since the Camp David Accords (1978) and the Oslo Accords (1993). You wouldn’t think it because the British media has not given the Abraham Accords the coverage they deserve. *

INDEPENDENT PUBLISHERS One of the great breakthroughs in publishing in recent years has been the rise and rise of independent publishers, including Fitzcarraldo Editions and Pushkin Press.

They have punched way above their weight and have championed foreign authors, from Nobel Prize Winners Olga Tokarczuk and Annie Ernaux to modern masters such as Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth.

* THE GOLDEN AGE OF TRANSLATION In the last few decades there has been an extraordinary golden age of translation, introducing British readers to Central European writers like Joseph Roth,

Bruno Schulz and Antal Szerb and to great Soviet writers like Isaac Babel, Vasily Grossman and Lev Ozerov, and, most recently, Yuri Felsen. * THE NEW 1848 No one could have predicted at the

beginning of 2022 that this year would have seen widespread protest movements in Iran, Russia and China, three of the nastiest dictatorships in the world. These have been driven by very

different issues: conscription in Russia, Covid protests in China and women’s rights in Iran. One thing they have in common is the extraordinary courage of protesters. * THE DECLINE AND FALL

OF DONALD TRUMP First came the US mid-term elections, when so many of the Republican candidates championed by Trump lost out to Democrats. Now the Trump Organisation has been found guilty

of criminal tax fraud. Increasingly, moderate Republicans are turning against Trump and a nasty chapter in American politics looks as if it is finally drawing to a close. A MESSAGE FROM

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