Alan McIntyre
What did you find most encouraging?
A pleasant surprise from the last 10 years was the ability of technology to build rather than destroy social capital. Ten years ago this week the headlines were how Y2K glitches would lead to planes falling from the sky and nuclear meltdowns for the want of an extra digit in a database. Instead, technology has trended towards a force for social cohesion and the free exchange of ideas. From reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, to cell phones enabling microfinance in Bangladesh, to the re-emergence of true grass roots politics during last year's US presidential election, technology has begun to help recover a sense of community that seemed in terminal decline. Of course it can be annoying, and it's not the community of the Glasgow tenement; but for every inanity on Twitter there's an online Scottish Review to celebrate, and for every Susan Boyle YouTube phenomenon there are Iranian students or Chinese minorities showing that in the face of Web 2.0, repression isn't as easy as it used to be.
What did you find most discouraging?
The most disappointing trend of this decade has been the rise (once again) of religious intolerance and violence. Not the pseudo-religious nationalism of Northern Ireland or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that marred the previous 30 years, but instead the global apocalyptic 'endless virgins in heaven' variety that's spanned the globe from New York to Bali and London to Helmand over the last 10 years. Of course radical Islam doesn't have a monopoly on religious hatred. The conservative jihad elements of the Republican party in the US have turned complex moral issues from abortion to gay marriage into excuses for violence, intolerance and repression. In the long cycles of rational enlightenment and unquestioning prejudice and theocracy, we can only hope that the last decade was a low point.
Which public figure did you most admire?
It's depressing that admirable public figures are in such short supply. Rather than pick one, here is my (predominantly Scottish) short list from the last decade. Alex Ferguson for showing that there is still a place of honour for workaholic cantankerous old Scotsman in public life. Alex Salmond for showing that at least semi-competent devolved government is possible without the strings being pulled from London. Jim Swire and Kenny MacAskill for their respective roles in the ongoing Lockerbie saga and for showing that it is possible to rise above the pettiness and reflexive populism that characterises much of our public life. Finally Barack Obama, not so much for what he has done (at least not yet) but for what he represents, as the living embodiment of the success of the American civil rights movement and the hope for moderation and rational debate in American public life.
Which public figure did you least admire?
Having lived in the US for most of this decade my gut reaction is George W Bush, but my more considered response is Osama Bin Laden. It's strange to remember that prior to that clear September morning in 2001, George W was an uninspiring first-term president focused on education policy and, like any good Republican, tax cuts and Bin Laden was a marginal Islamic figure who attracted the occasional cruise missile from the Clinton administration. In a single premeditated act of murder, Bin Laden sent his 19 acolytes to their deaths with nearly 3,000 victims and in the process triggered a global conflict that shows little signs of abating, with Afghanistan the primary offspring and Iraq the bastard step-child of a war that should never have been. He lacked the institutional infrastructure of mass murder at the disposal of a Pol Pot or a Hitler, but Bin Laden clearly had the same genocidal intent.
|
