“So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over, and a new one just begun,” well Mr. Lennon I am going to look back at 2022 with an eye on 2023.
It was a year of building bridges and destroying them, a year of climate talks and a lack of natural resources, a year of one Queen and three Prime Ministers and above all a year of normal, sorry the new-normal. Seems like John Lennon was dead right “And so this is Christmas, for weak and for strong, for rich and the poor ones, the war is so long.”
Let’s start with the obvious one, the death of a pandemic. The new-norm. In fact, the new-norm looks to be incredibly like the old, pre-pandemic one. On the plus side we did get back to normal, on the negative side normal wasn’t really what we needed, we needed change. You would think that two-years of lockdown would have taught us something about ourselves as a society. Did it?
In many ways the lessons we could have learned have been swept under the carpet and the pandemic wiped from our memories. A self-sufficient and sustainable approach was blown away on a wind of change. Tourism in Dubrovnik bounced back, of that there is no doubt, but it feels very much like a missed opportunity. One that won’t come around again, at least I hope not.
On the positive side the year brought finally a new connection for the south of Croatia, the Peljesac bridge. And it looks like it was just in time for entry into the border-free Schengen zone. It was hailed as the greatest Croatian project for a decade, a project that was designed by a Slovenian, built by Chinese, Austrians and Greeks and paid for by the EU.
And 2023 will bring with it a much stronger bond between Croatia and the rest of the European family as we not only enter Schengen but will also change our currency to the Euro. “This will be the fourth currency in my lifetime, the dinar, the Croatian dinar, the Kuna and now the Euro,” said my mother-in-law with a smile.
On the flip side we’ve seen many bridges destroyed as Putin’s dreams of a Soviet Union, a greater Russia, once again surfaced. As the tanks rolled into Ukraine in February the world watched with their heads in their hands. After personally meeting several Ukrainian refugees and hearing their harrowing stories I was lost for words. The stupidity of man knows no bounds. This of course lead to a shortage of gas, oil and wheat. Whilst the Western world is moaning about the price of petrol the second largest continent, Africa, is struggling to feed people.
And Africa has the richest man in the world, a man who paid $44 billion for a social media company in 2022. To put that into context he paid more for Twitter than the annual GDP of 38 of the 54 African countries. Does that make sense?
2022 was the end of an era in Great Britain.Queen Elizabeth II passed away on the 8th of September and a country mourned. After a full 70 years on the throne, in a time in which she met 13 US Presidents and 15 Prime Ministers.
And talking about Prime Ministers the UK managed (don’t ask me how) to have, not one, not two, but three different leaders in 2022. Maybe they were trying the Republic of Dubrovnik’s Rector system, you know a new Rector every month, to see if that would work? A year in which a country a fourth of the size of Croatia hosted a World Cup, and a year in which a country with a population of 4 million beat one with a population of 213 million.
A year when a massive ice shelf collapsed in East Antarctica, but countries are still fighting and dragging their heels at the United Nations climate talks in Egypt. A year when we had the first ever all-woman referring team at a World Cup, and America deciding to ban abortions. And a year when Putin’s hoards caused untold human tragedy in February, but a month later the headlines were dominated by one Hollywood actor slapping another at the Oscars.
It was a mad year. Is this the new-norm?
Read more Englishman in Dubrovnik…well, if you really want to
