Same old same old for the new year

I find there’s a real comfort in history and our inability to learn from it. I say this because looking back at 2010, it is difficult to shake a feeling of utter doom. Truth is however, that we have been here before and we will be here again.

The endless cycle of the wealthy and connected recklessly gambling and ruining the lives of everybody else will not end any time soon. 2010 and the previous few years just happened to be the years when the profligacy of the elite came to rest on the doorsteps, bank balances and mortgage payments of the Irish population.
They are not alone in their suffering; they are just suffering more than most other Western nations. In real terms, the poorest in Ireland are still not suffering to the same extent as most of the poor all over the world, they are just a lot worse off because they truly believe they should be immune to such hardship.
Depressions reflect inflated boom periods and despite what we are told now by those who trade in currency and essentially fictitious money, the cycle will continue unabated. In the spirit of all good evangelists, I should quote my holy tome.
In my case, it is a welcome Christmas present of Reeling in the Years 1970s. Watching the first five years of the decade reminded me of nothing more than the news bulletin I had listened to on the morning I watched it and 40 years on, very little has changed.
Murder, war, greed and corruption were still dominating the headlines in the hours before I pressed play on the DVD player. I do not wish to seem or sound morbid in stating this. It should be noted that all over the world at that time millions of people were still continuing to experience great joy, love and fulfilment just as they are now; that has not changed, unfortunately, neither have the headlines.
The film footage documented corruption in politics, state-sponsored terrorism, the leaking of confidential documents and a widespread revolt among the young, hip student population eager for change. Perhaps most tellingly of all it showed the housewives of Ireland taking to the streets because Ireland found itself at the end of a global recession with the highest unemployment in the EEC. All this was put forward in the context of a society in a state of flux and technological advancement; 2011 might not be such a daunting or mysterious prospect after all.
For Fianna Fáil supporters, the coming year will feel like an epoch and maybe the same will be true of Labour and Fine Gael activists but seeing as all three parties are competing so ruthlessly for the same voters, there will be little actual change. At the moment, it is a question of which party will do as the international markets tell them and it is difficult to see how that will change any time soon.
When we watch our favourite sports stars engage in repetitive, destructive behaviour we bemoan it. Similarly when a loved one, be they friend or family, engages in behaviour that is destructive, we stage interventions. In the case of the broader picture however, there is nothing even approaching change on the horizon.
When Cowen gurgled his way to radio infamy in 2010 it was christened ‘Gargglegate’ by the wags in the media. The phrase reeling in the years is misleading in that it gives the impression that we are a point of removal whereby we can draw events from the designated time to us. It is a temporal fallacy created by our experience of time. We experience time as a linear thing and so we seek to perpetuate this belief in our communication and TV shows.
With this in mind, it is less disconcerting to face then new year than we might be made to imagine. 2011 will be tough one but relatively, it may not be any tougher than many that have been positively survived before it.
We will all be living not in a new world but in the world, the same thing we have always lived in with the same ideas, trends and pitfalls presented in different ways. Mostly though it will be business as usual – survival.
The moribund coalition in Ireland is busy sowing its seeds through appointments to the choicest boards and the government in waiting is licking its chops at the prospect of power. For each, 2011 is a massive packet of potential containing very different things. For the rest of us, it will bring very much the same as the calendar year to which we wave goodbye.  
I want to be wrong in this statement but I feel that I am unlikely to be, given the centuries-old weight of history upon which I am drawing.
Human nature has not changed radically any time in the recent past but neither have the things most people recognise as being beneficial to humanity. Throughout history, the needs, happiness and prosperity of the many have been subjugated by the desires and wishes of the few, despite what most people feel and profess.  
Whatever happens in the 2011 general election, there will be very little change in the ordinary lives of the Irish population. Labour will not have the public funds they should, in theory, want to invest in any kind if State infrastructure and Fine Gael, being Fianna Fáil lite, will only complain about the mess which has been left to them.
Politics will not change in the coming year but here’s hoping the next 12 months brings us all happiness and health.