2016 - What the Hell Happened?

In years to come, when they look back at 2016, people will ask “What the hell happened”.

It has been the year that the celebrities died en masse.  David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Leonard Cohen, Gene Wilder, Prince, Muhammed Ali, Terry Wogan to name but a few.  Some of the brightest and well loved lights of the music and film industry who will be missed by so many.

The year that the UK shocked everyone, including themselves, and voted to leave the EU by a tiny margin of just 4% of the vote.  The year that saw hate crimes rise by 300% after the referendum.  A year where half a nation believed lies and one racist, sexist, bigoted man over facts and common sense.

The year that America went mad and voted Donald Trump to be their president.  A man who has the attention span of a two year old and is so easily irked that he tweets insults at three in the morning.  As I am writing this, he has just been made “Person of the Year” by Time Magazine.

It is interesting to note that that same accolade was also given to Hitler in 1938.

The year where woman in the UK campaigned to remove tax from tampons, only to be told that the money would be reallocated so that they could pay for their own domestic violence support.  The year where a woman is being sued by her own embryos.  

The year where some states in the US are forcing women to bury or cremate the remains of an abortion or miscarriage.  A year where just yesterday, Ohio put the abortion limit down to six weeks; when most women do not even know that they are pregnant.

The year where millions of refugees have been forced to leave their homes relocate across the Middle East and Europe.  A year where the far right (and the Daily Fail) have got such a hold in some people's minds that they were wanting to check the teeth of migrant children for their ages.  A year where people like Katie Hopkins said "Rescue boats? I'd use gunships to stop migrants".

The year where mass shootings at schools and colleges seemed to happen every other week.  Yet the shooters were not called terrorists, but simply misunderstood and troubled.

The year when a certain footballer's retrial was successful for him, purely based on other men's testimony who were not there on the night, but merely testified that the girl in question liked sex.  

A well loved and brilliant MP, killed by a terrorist of the far right.

I could go on, but you get the picture.  You know.  You have lived it, as we all have.

Looking back, I cannot see much good in 2016, but there has been.  A little.

The campaign on GoFundMe for the rape victim mentioned above that raised over £26,000 to be shared between Rape Crisis and the victim herself.  The rise of the Black Lives Matter movement that is successfully highlighting the prejudice faced by black people by the police and society in general. 

The safety pin movement, started after the UK referendum and continued after the Trump win.  More people standing up and objecting, speaking out against what is wrong rather than watching from the sidelines.

The 2016 Paralympics, where Paralympians for the first time achieved more medals than the able bodied Olympians.  When the world, finally, started to realise that disability is not something that has to be hidden and felt sorry for.

We are better than the year we have just experienced.  We can behave better, we can learn, we can change, we can stand up for what we believe in.  I still believe in people.  We have to stand up to hate.  We have to stand up for the people that need our help.  We have to show compassion.  

To quote Winston Churchill:

"Never, never, never give up."

Dear America

Dear America,

I write to you as someone "over the pond" watching in interest, trepidation and ever increasing horror at the presidential election.

As someone not from the US, you may well say that my voice doesn't matter, my words mean nothing; that I do not have the right to an opinion about things that do not concern me.  But they do.  Because if Donald Trump wins, the whole world is affected.

I do not talk to the die hard Trump fans, or Clinton fans.  Your decision is already made.  There is no changing that at this late stage.

I speak to the undecided.  Those thinking that their voice and their vote do not matter.  Those who are tired of the same elite establishment being in control (although, if you do want to send Obama over here, we would welcome him).

I get it.  I understand.  Here in the UK as you will have seen, we had a referendum to stay or remain in the EU.  The left versus the right.  As the KKK endorses Donald Trump in the US, we had neo nazis, the English Defence League, Britain First; white supremacists; all firmly on the leave campaign side.

We were lied to.  Given inaccurate information.  Practically no information to be fair.  We were given no indication of what may happen if we left.  You could find some of this information if you researched, but many didn't.

The result?  a 51.9/48.1 split and a country that is more divided every day since.  The Pound is shot to pieces.  Racist attacks rose 300% in the week after the vote.  

Since the vote, research tells us that 1.2 million people regretted their leave vote after the referendum.  A tiny  proportion that would have made all the difference.  People who didn't understand fully what they had voted for.  People who thought that their vote "did not count" and they had purely voted as screw you to the establishment.  Then there are all the people who did not vote at all.

Your vote in the election today may well be the most important vote of your entire life.  Please do not squander it.  Please do not think that your vote does not matter.  That a vote for Trump as a joke to yourself may not affect anything.

Your vote matters.  Do not do what we did.  Make it count.  If I lived in the US right now, I would walk through fire to vote for Hillary Clinton.