It is always easy to look around the world and see the bad news. In 2007, depressing stories were never in short supply: sectarian violence and suicide bombers in Iraq, a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, various degrees of political turmoil in Pakistan, Russia, Burma, Sudan and half-a-dozen other African countries, and a multi-billion mortgage crisis in the US. Within the Caribbean the situation was no different. A World Bank report said only countries fighting a civil war suffered from higher levels of crime than we do, and direct foreign investment across the region seemed to be falling as a consequence. There was also plenty of dispiriting news about Aids, drug-related violence, teenage pregnancy and delinquency. So where, then, did all the good news go? Will this year be more of the same?
No. Although problems of 2007 will become no easier this year, there are good reasons to feel optimistic. For however daunting the age-old obstacles to human development may be, there are still large numbers of people whose determined pursuit of something better is making a real difference. Consider, for example, the One Laptop Per Child initiative spearheaded by Nicholas Negroponte. Some critics point out that the initial goal of $100 laptops has not yet been achieved, but that quibble ignores the huge impact which the project has had on low-cost computing. Laptop prices all over the world have plunged to record lows, partly as a result of the innovative solutions which charitable entrepreneurs like Mr Negroponte have pioneered. The prototype machines are being distributed to children in the developing world have features that $1000 laptops lacked just five years ago. Who knows what the thousands of poor children who will receive one of these machines may learn to do this year? The information age reinvented the economies of many developed countries within a decade; there is no reason why something similar could not happen in Africa or South America.
There is also good news about poor children in the latest Unicef report. According to the agency, the mortality rate for children under the age of five has fallen beneath 10 million for the first time since records have been kept. Even more encouraging is the fact that sixty developing countries now have more than 90 per cent of their children enrolled in primary schools. Of course, there is still much work to be done to improve the treatment and prevention of diseases like malaria and HIV/Aids, but better education and information technology are two of the most effective ways to do so.
In the US there are hopeful signs too. This year’s most likely political nominees are committed to the prompt withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, and all of them understand the need to end the insularity of the Bush years. The frontrunning Democratic candidates are all likely to be far more multilateral in their foreign policies than Mr Bush has been, and one of them, Barack Obama, has the potential to be the most internationalist American president since John F Kennedy. Economically the situation, though bleak, is no worse than the dotcom crash a few years ago, and there is no good reason why the country cannot escape the threat of a recession. Also, despite the many prophesies of doom, most data show promising downward trends in some of the country’s most intractable social problems. For example, since the mid-1990s the number of Americans claiming welfare has declined by more than 60 per cent. A much-discussed essay published last month in a conservative journal points out that after the 1996 welfare reform, “child poverty, black child poverty, and child hunger have all decreased, while employment figures for single mothers have risen.” Furthermore, abortion is down to its lowest level since Roe v Wade and the divorce rate is the lowest it has been for nearly forty years.
There is hope in a number of medical developments too – like the recent breakthrough in the replication of stem cells – that promise to bring exciting new treatments in the months ahead. And there is a range of hi-tech innovations poised to change the ways we meet each other, share and store information, study, travel, and play. Some of these innovations will also help us to tackle major problems such as global climate with new methods such as carbon trading.
The best kind of optimism is not blind hope for a trouble-free future, but a confident striving for something better, based on previous human triumphs over problems that seemed overwhelming; it is a question of perspective more than anything else. For, as Mark Twain once wrote, “You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
