A bad year is gone, hope for better to come

As we bid farewell to 2016 and welcome the new year, we can only hope and pray that it will be better for all mankind.

2016 might go down in history as one of the worst years since the great war, in terms of loss of human life and widespread killing and destruction in many regions of the world, and in particular in the Middle East.

Our region experienced widespread killing and destruction in 2016, with causalities in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya on a scale not witnessed in past years.

It is as if the Dark Ages have redescended on the area, with man savagery unleashed to the maximum.

Arabs kill Arabs in the name of their own religion, Western countries are sending deadly bombs raining on civilians, economies are faring poorly — a more universal woe, true — extremism is on the increase, terrorism spares no one on the globe, elections brought even more extreme leaders, the European project is in danger… the litany can go on.

And it is not only the war that haunted our part of the world over the past year; there is also increased global poverty, deprivation, denial of basic human rights, xenophobia, racism and more.

Democracy, the operational kind, has yet to spring roots in many parts of the globe.

Threats to the environment continue unabated and worse can be expected to come when the leader of the greatest power, and one of the biggest polluters, believes climate change is a hoax.

The danger and challenges posed by terrorism and radicalism still exist because the international community failed to recognise the root causes and address them.

With so much misery, one can now only hope that things will look up.

That there will be more determination to end the cycle of violence and destruction and put an end to the rule of the jungle that has been ruling supreme particularly in our part of the world.

There is still hope that mankind will come to its senses and work to rectify all past mistakes.

That it will welcome the new year with deeper commitment to make the world a better place to live in.

Happy New Year!