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2008 Event of the Year: The Financial Crisis by Thanos Kalamidas 2009-01-11 10:11:13 |
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Every year since Ovi magazine became daily we have chosen either a persona or event of the year, but this year it took us a bit more to decide. Yes, we took in to consideration the comments and yes we read the mails and we did talk about it between us and with friends. We even checked the cover stories of the last year and guess what: Barack Obama had most of the covers compared to Alan Johnson, our persona for 2007.
But was Obama the persona of 2008? He definitely was the hope, the promise, the expectations, the controversy but it still remains to see. It remains to be seen if all this expectation will come true, if they will become acts and if the wind of change will not be proved just to be a gentle breeze. Don’t worry, I’m not pessimist or anything, Barack Obama made his revolution only with being elected in the place of the president of the United States but it is just not enough. You see, bad news is coming from just everywhere, the number of people losing their jobs, their houses, their lives is coming from everywhere and the people feel every day more and more defenceless.
And when the people feel lonely, ignored, without hope they act and because there is nothing left to them they act violently and we saw that happening the year before in France and the last months of 2008 in Athens. Again that was an idea for the events of the year but then again it was not enough because we have the feeling that this was just the beginning or better the first flame and what remains is to see if something will happen that will put out the flame or whether the flame will become a fire that will burn a lot of forests and lands.
Like wars have burned a lot of lands this last year, even the very last moment when people were hoping for a better year children died in Palestine and Israel. Tens more kids and adults die everyday in Zimbabwe. And then we got the terrorism, it seems that every year terrorism chooses a new continent and this year Asia was the continent with India the chosen. Terrorism is the invisible enemy and I’m afraid it has many shapes and, apart from the known who hide in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have state terrorism like Mugabe’s and we have the ignorants’ terrorism like HIV AIDS and social prejudice, and yes unfortunately racism is still alive and over the last year was rising.
But again none of them could be persona or event of the year. But there is something which has access to all miseries and like an octopus has tentacles extending to every issue and most of all the worries and the end of dreams for most of the people and I’m talking about the financial crisis that has been building up over the last decade and like a volcano exploded this year. For the financial crisis we faced and not dealt yet there are people talking since the end of the '80s predicting that it soon will come the day where the use of a virtual wealth will pop like bubblegum. Over-consuming with borrowed money has become a lifestyle one way or another which we are all familiar. And despite all the warnings nobody seemed to have the will to do anything. The worst was that the blow came from the country that financially was leading the globe for decades, the United States.
And then the guardians started doing one mistake after the other and it took only a few families who couldn’t pay back their loans to pop the bubblegum bubble and make the price of milk all around the world unaffordable for the average family. Everybody this minute is waiting for Barack Obama to take over and lead the change in economics, find or at least suggest solutions, because one step before the fall of the financial system only solution that can work can be acceptable otherwise the riots in Paris and Athens will become a global phenomenon with starving masses rioting in supermarkets because they need food.
I have often written that globalization as the powerful seven or eight or nine dreamt about will never happen because there is another globalization that has succeeded for a long time now, the globalization of poverty and this is our enemy this moment, the greater enemy that gives the right to anybody who want to destabilized democracy to act and we saw enough of it over the last few years.
Ovi magazine has no Persona Of The Year for the year 2008 but we have an Event Of The Year and we think that this is just the tip of the iceberg with a huge trouble underneath that will change the world and the way we see and deal things for at least the next decade with great influence especially to the environment. And please don’t think that we forgot the environmental issues but again money is part of the destruction. The greed for more money demands more energy and that builds more nuclear power plants and destroys more rainforests.
We in Ovi magazine wish we would have a persona of the year somebody who has the solutions and acts and I wish nothing more than next year to write and editorial with all the good things and all the changes happening, but for the year 2008 the event of the year has been the financial crisis.
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