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This has been an eventful year. Osama bin Laden is still on the run. George Bush is losing his popularity but keeping his faith. Tony Blair is losing his hair and will soon — by his own choice — lose his address. In Bermuda we’ve lost ‘Limey-in-Bermuda’ and Trimingham’s and Smith’s. On the other hand, the Queen is still on the throne — she’s been there fifty-three years now. Charles and Camilla are still together. Cuba’s Fidel Castro ‘vivas’ on. And an indigenous Indian has just won the Presidency in Bolivia.

We saw dark-skinned Frenchmen, of African and Arabian origin, go on a long rampage of car-burnings in France. We’ve seen thousands of pink-skinned Australians — women and men, thus truly representative of Australia’s new equality — riot against the presence of darker-skinned new Australians.

On balance, then, it seems that not much changed. However, there were changes.

For instance, the election of an Indian as the President of Bolivia. Important news, or just another ho-hum? Big shift, or just another election in some ‘banana republic’?

Reality? It’s a big shift. In Venezuela, and soon to be in Bolivia, there’s evidence of a process of separating from the U.S. and past styles of U.S. involvement in South American politics.

Over in Iraq, in Bush’s war there, the coalition has been de-coalescing as nations drift away and pull out their troops. It’s odd how, when nations were joining the coalition, Bush and his team made such large noises.. Now that these small countries are pulling out it’s quite unimportant and not newsworthy.

Barbados, once described as ‘little England’ in the Caribbean, is contemplating a referendum over the question of whether or not Barbados should dethrone the Queen and declare themselves to be a Republic. Here in Bermuda we’re still dickering over whether we should have a referendum or not.

This year, what has happened is that the world has gone several steps further along a path where small men and women are gaining more power; know they’re gaining that power; and are using that power to their advantage. What Africa calls ‘Big Men’ are being cut down.

With her son dead in Iraq, ex-mom Cindy Sheehan has cut down Commander-in-Chief George Bush. Something really nebulous called ‘world opinion’ makes America afraid to pull its vulnerable ground troops out of Iraq.

Here in Bermuda, we all watch as our economy stretches and Bermudians get squeezed. Not earning enough to buy a house. Not earning so little that they cannot afford decent food and a car and a trip and nice clothes.

With the sudden demise of two anchor shops, Hamilton’s City Fathers are now appearing to do something about their fifteen acre shopping mall. They’ll probably do something. Probably too little. Probably too late.

In all, this Christmas 2005 finds me in a world where guns are still going off and children are still starving.

But one thin little stream of hope keeps running. Thanks to the Internet and twenty-four hour news, we now know more about everywhere and everything. All of us now live in world where our consciences get tickled more frequently and more regularly.

This Christmas, I give thanks for a world that has a bigger and still-growing conscience.[[In-content Ad]]

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