The Year of the Yawn

2009 was a dampener. But the last month of the year could show how things are going to be in 2010, predicts Pramit Pal Chaudhuri.

Prediction: Some 400 days from now, anyone looking back will declare 2010 actually began with the preceding month of December. Because this past year has been a long, unremarkable yawn. It was supposed to be annus catastrophicus, and while a lot of things teetered on the edge, nothing fell into the abyss.

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So much was supposed to happen in 2009 that didn’t. It was a Year of Lull.

First, the global financial crisis proved neither global nor strictly financial — or even all that much of a crisis. Economic indicators went into negative everywhere except for East and South Asia, Latin America, Australia, Canada, parts of Central Asia, swathes of the Persian Gulf. And did we mention Israel, Poland and Botswana? Japan is an Asian exception but it has been in recession for so long that, strictly speaking, no one could tell the difference between pre- and post-crisis. The End of the Market types have been reduced to saying, “Beware: Ireland will implode!” There is still no alternative to capitalism, unless rural employment guarantee schemes are an ideology. “History is still over,” wrote Francis Fukuyama at the year’s end.

Second, the new American era that Barack Obama was supposed to introduce has smelled and acted a lot like the previous one of George W. Bush. What the new administration ushered in was a sea-change in oratory, syntax and basketball skills. Obama proved there is no direct correlation between melanin and political radicalism. More disturbing for his supporters was that Obama spent much of the year accomplishing remarkably little. His troop policy for Afpak took so long to emerge that you didn’t care when he said the US would send 30,000 more troops into the Hindu Kush.

Which takes us to number three: Afpak. No one doubts it is “the world’s most dangerous region” and retained that spot — despite the odd attempt by Wall Street to take the lead — all of 2009. But ultimately, Afghans and Pakistanis proved most dangerous to themselves. Both slaughtered their own brethren with ever-increasing efficiency and brutality.

Fourth, this was supposed to be the year of G-2, the year when China was to prove itself the equal of the United States. Nothing of the sort happened. Beijing declined to be top dog. Hu Jintao responded to Obama’s call for China to hold up half the sky by effectively saying: “We’re still poor. You like to be superpower, you do the donkey work.”

China was spoiler at Copenhagen, passive at the G-20 meetings, aggressive about Sudan sanctions and blocked everything else on the multilateral calendar. It refuses to devalue the yuan or, to quote analyst Minxin Pei, “confront what has become an enormous overcapacity for producing cheap goods.” There was evidence of superpowerdom-in-the-making — namely, that Beijing could be so brazen about self-interest and impress everyone by doing so. But ruling the lands beyond the Middle Kingdom? Beyond an oilfield or coal mine, Beijing ain’t interested. China didn’t even scoop up the West’s corporate riches. Unless you think buying the only two Swedish car brands is of geopolitical significance.

No one else showed global leadership qualities. There is now a president of All Europe Minus Switzerland. The man who sits on the throne that Charlemagne, Attila, Napoleon and Hitler sought is a Belgian whose name was, uh, mm…well, it was definitely not Hergé.

The second Manmohan Singh government began with a near blank legislative record. He did revive ‘Balochistan’ as a geographical expression with the present generation of Indian schoolkids. And it isn’t clear the White House has yet forgiven him for gatecrashing the Salahi summit. Such was the vacuum that Brazil emerged among the emerging economies, a global contender for something other than football.

This year will go down in history as one where history was not made. Michael Jackson’s HIStory underwent a revival. With his death, MJ reminded today’s kids how insipid the past decade has been when it comes to pop music. Vista-afflicted Microsoft should have died, except that Google failed to deliver a Chrome killer punch. A climate change fest forged an international consensus that Danes must never be allowed to host major world events again. Twitter, admittedly, went from less than 500,000 users to over 7 million. But that was 2009: its greatest events could be described in the same number of characters as a footnote.

Having said that, let’s face it: December was different.

Pakistani politics went from Level 1 Pac Man to Ultimate Mortal Kombat as pretty much everyone in Islamabad goes for Asif Ali Zardari’s throat. Obama passed a revolutionary healthcare bill, indicating there’s life in the young administration yet. The Manmohan Singh government showed a continuing ability to take uncalculated political risks by setting Telangana on fire.

Even al-Qaeda, the dreaded terrorist group that had metastasised into a home video network, attempted to attack the United States again. Airplane debris scattered on bombed-out Detroit wouldn’t be 9/11. But it’s a step above Zawahiri’s Rant of the Week.

The past few weeks augur an exciting period, even in entertainment. The world’s most boring sport generated the Tiger Woods sex scandal. The second most boring sport tossed up the Michael Schumacher comeback story.

Over 50 zombie films were released in 2009. This record tells us that people around the world shared a deep desire to see the soulless undead staggering around without purpose. Yes, it looks like this December was the first month of an exciting 2010.