Medellin It may seem trite, but it’s a very nice thing all around the world that people, in whatever language where you may be, welcome the day by saying “Happy New Year” to all they meet. In a troubled world, that’s a very nice graceful note that speaks to a semblance of core collective humanity.
Mi companera made that observation when we returned from breakfast, before seeing our family WhatsApp blow up, as first our son, and then our daughter, in New Orleans, started posting the news from the city. A large pickup truck driving at high speed had broken through the barricades on the world-famous Bourbon Street in the French Quarter and driven into the lingering crowd around 3AM in the New Year’s Day morning, killing at least 10 and injuring more than 35 people. Quick phone calls and family crowdsourcing found a picture of a policeman in bomb defusing gear in front of a close friend’s house in the middle of the Quarter, where an unexploded IED was found. It seems from the reports that the truck had Texas license plates and mayhem and death was on the minds of the driver, who was killed in a shootout with the police. What a terrible tragedy for the victims and for the future of our city.
What a way to start a new year on a day when our hopes are usually so expansive in spite of all of the evidence to the contrary. A new year always harkens to new beginnings and resolutions of change, because it allows us to momentarily forget all of the burdens and crises hanging over from the last year in own personal version of magical realism.
Now this year begins with wars still raging in Gaza, the Ukraine, Sudan, and elsewhere. Jimmy Carter finally passed away to end the year, seemingly to allow Biden, as president to give his eulogy. Planes are tragically crashing or being shot down with civilians aboard. Trump is biting at the bit to take the United States into darker places than we thought our ideals allowed. The list goes on, and it’s a long one.
A comrade of mine in a note hoped that I had written something to help point the direction that we all needed to go. I have not. The waters are still too unsettled for such certainties.
Luckily, in the progressive and organizing tradition, we have rock solid confidence at all times and in all seasons that the work to create change and build power always must continue, whatever the odds. It’s our pact with people and our commitment to the endless struggle required at all times. Our watchword, given so often by so many, is “do not despair.” As another friend and comrade phrased it appropriately, as we messaged each other about this day’s disasters, “2025 better be ready for us.”