Dear All,

It’s over. 2016 is finished. I have to say that it was, in retrospect, a pretty horrible year -- wars in Syria and Yemen continued to claim lives and homes and heritage, and blasts and bloodshed continued apace in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The militant ‘Islamic’ State armies occupied land across the Levant, continuing to execute men, seize and enslave women and murder journalists. And youngsters from the western world flocked to join these armies, perhaps mistaking the journey for some spiritually meaningful adventure or else perhaps the thrilling re-enactment of some slick video game. Sometimes these recruits took their families along with them, and some of them even posted pictures of themselves holding their little children and heavy weapons or suicide vests.

I was particularly disturbed by the news of the death of one of the three teenage girls from Luton who flew out to join the militants and marry jihadis in 2015: the CCTV footage of them at Gatwick Airport showed three youngsters all under 17, fresh faced slight girls in jeans, little more than children. This year it was confirmed that one of them, Kadiza Sultana, had been killed.

War in far-away lands was almost normalised: western powers supported militants fighting Syria’s Bashar al-Assad oblivious to the cost of this in terms of both human lives and world heritage. Yemen remained the unreported or the occasionally reported war and everybody in the west ignored Afghanistan even when things got bad (so last year, darling!). European cities became terror targets, on two occasions with a truck as a lethal weapon.

2016 was a year of dramatic electoral decisions: Brexit -- the referendum result in favour of the UK leaving the EU, and the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency stand out as the most shocking. In the case of the UK, a horrible wave of xenophobia followed the referendum, and claimed the lives of a Polish man and a Northern MP. The murder of the young MP and mother of two young children, Jo Cox was brutal and the killer turned out to be a loner with an interest in Neo Nazi websites and memorabilia. Human rights organisations reported a spike in the incidence of hate crimes and ethnic slurs. The derogatory use of the term ‘Paki’ made a comeback in the UK.

This was the year that the debate about accommodating refugees turned poisonous, and divided countries and peoples. Somehow all the woes of capitalism began to be blamed on immigrants or outsiders. Across Europe and the US it somehow became okay to express intensely xenophobic and overtly racist views. A small town mayor in the US liked a friend’s post on Facebook that celebrated the elevation of white, blonde, Barbie doll-esque Melania Trump to First Lady by saying that they were tired of having "an ape in heels" there -- a reference to FLOTUS Michelle Obama.

Personally, I am sad to see the Obama presidency end. Not because of any policy reasons since he really could not do much, but because of the immense grace he brought to the office. Grace, elegance and humour, and a commitment to his family and particularly his wife, the elegant Princeton and Harvard graduate, lawyer Michelle Robinson Obama.

We opened a lot of Pandora’s boxes in 2016. Let’s hope 2017 is not doomed by our decisions and deeds. Let’s hope for a better year, beginning today.

Happy new year to all of you!

Best wishes