Mick North

Best of 2008

The year 2008 has not been a good one for optimism. Too often it has been difficult to see exactly which direction we are now taking, and so in making my choices I have judged less by immediate impact and more on what was set in train. My best event may appear very dry, but I consider it to be a key step in a long-term process that will eventually improve the lives of millions of people. Every year more than 300,000 people worldwide, mostly civilians, are killed by small arms. The lives of countless others are blighted by armed conflicts fuelled by an arms trade which is out of control. If the cause were an infectious disease the international community would long ago have come together to seek a solution, yet has only recently woken up to the need to tackle the arms dealers. Multinational agreements are often achieved at a snail's pace, though with significant steps. For me one such step was the overwhelming vote in October by the United Nations First Committee on disarmament in favour of moving forward with work on an Arms Trade Treaty. Much of the world, 147 nations voted Yes with two voting No, has now shown a commitment to finding a way to clamp down on the arms trade. There will be many more steps to go, but whatever the fallout from other current crises, this was a very positive move forward towards a safer world.
 
Worst of 2008

November 2008 saw the election of one new president, Barack Obama, an event which many people throughout the world will have considered the best event of the year. It was very tempting to make it my choice as well. Earlier in the year there was another election which had also promised a new president but whose result has been turned on its head as the democratic process has been defied and a despotic leader has retained power. The country is Zimbabwe, the leader Robert Mugabe. What makes this the worst event of 2008 for me is the contrast between outcomes, the one that didn’t happen, which should have brought hope, and the one currently being experienced by the population. Whether it is the treatment of an opposition that had won a parliamentary majority and was likely to gain the presidency, now made impotent by intimidation and disappearances, the failing economy with economists saying that inflation was recently running at about 40 sextillion%, a figure I don't even recognise, or the cholera epidemic which Mugabe blames on everything except his own mismanagement of the country, there are no signs that his defiance of democracy has brought benefits to anyone in his country other than his closest supporters. The election should have been an opportunity for Zimbabwe to start turning things around, but despite the popular vote the result has been more of the same. All pretence of democracy has gone.
 
Book of 2008

My favourite book was The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Or The Murder At Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale, a best seller this year which appealed to me as a keen reader of detective fiction. The murder in Wiltshire in 1860 and its investigation by Jack Whicher, the most celebrated detective of his day, inspired Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens and led to the classical murder mysteries of Conan Doyle and later writers. Written in the style of one of those mysteries, but providing detail of the development of the role of detectives in crime investigation and the fascination of the Victorian public with their work, the book is an absorbing insight not only into one particular case but its long lasting impact on fiction.

Mick North is a founder of the Gun Control Network and a former senior academic at Stirling University

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