Irish Examiner View: Time to contemplate the shape of Christmases yet to come

It has been a challenging year, but a period of quiet reflection and contemplation may help us find hope for the years ahead.

A message of hope from street art on Chatham Row in Dublin. Picture: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

This is the time of year when leader-writers muster the editorial opinions of the newspapers in a way which is both reflective and anticipatory.

Too much dwelling on the past runs the risk of making people unhappy because, in terms of news coverage anyway, we can see that it is often the Devil who has had the best tunes. Conversely, if we make too many predictions, then we run the risk of scaring ourselves silly.

Forecasting is, as we have become more aware in recent times, a problematic occupation, making it difficult to speak with Delphic certainty on almost any subject, such is the speed of challenge and weight of counter-arguments in a noisy communications environment. 

We can dwell on the line from ‘The Boxer’, one of Paul Simon’s most elegiac songs, which lamented: “A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

The pace of life also bears on something else for which it is hard to find time and space — the ability to deal with challenges through a period of quiet reflection and contemplation. Let us hope that we can find that peace over the Christmas and new-year break.

As for our contribution to the agenda of the next 12 months, these are some of our hopes.

When we enter 2022, the centenary of the creation of the Irish Free State and the Civil War which accompanied it, will be called in as witnesses for an accelerating debate about the future of Ireland. That is unlikely to resolve itself quickly, but it is coming, and it will be a major theme in the next general election in 2025 or sooner. It can be influenced by the doctrinal issues of the past, or it can address the multi-hued tasks facing any modern nation state. This continuing discussion will require level heads, and a vision of a future in a changed world. And a vast store of goodwill.

For two years now, we have struggled with multiple impacts of Covid-19, a virus which arrived swiftly over the horizon with all the hallmarks of a dystopian thriller. It is not finished with us yet, but the scientific response has been stunning. Let us hope that 2022 sees rapid advances in the use of anti-viral pills, the first of which from Pfizer has now been cleared by the EU, with hopes that it will suppress levels of hospitalisation and deaths. It is one of many new treatments in development, and the ingestion of tablets may prove more palatable to those remaining people who are chary of receiving vaccines directly into their bodies.

Worldwide, nearly 4.5bn people have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, equal to about 58.5% of the global population. It is not enough.

Removing the huge disparity between rates in different countries is a priority. Supporting Covax to deliver equitable access to protective inoculations is the right thing to do. “No one is safe until everyone is safe” cannot be restated too many times. Without it, there is small hope of returning to the old normal and abolishing the new abnormal.

Pressures on health services are usually cited as reasons to support lockdowns. If they become so overwhelmed by the pandemic that they cannot provide their basic functions, then this tells us something significant. As we cannot continue to suppress the economy every few months without doing other forms of lasting damage to the nation, it follows that the capacity offered by hospitals, care homes, and numbers of staff must be increased for the future. Alongside the public inquiry which must inevitably come into Ireland’s management of the crisis, there should be a parallel piece of research into what resources in terms of finance, manpower, and training are required to ensure that this never happens again in our lifetimes. We cannot rely on putting society, commerce, and personal freedoms into suspended animation every time a “variant of interest” emerges.

Young people have, in many instances, borne the brunt of the past two years, with the curtailment of education, social lives, travel, and work opportunities. They have done it with great good humour, but there are signs that this is now wearing thin. We need to devise a new social compact that recognises their sacrifices and prioritises opportunities for them in the next five years.

Climate change should have been the central subject of 2021, and there have been any number of dramatic climate events to remind us that our world faces dangerous circumstances. Yet the scale of change which will be required has, in many instances, been soft-soaped. 

This is understandable politics, but it leaves the floor clear to those who wryly maintain that green and eco policies are anti-capitalist and that, if implemented, will deliver a future that will be poorer, colder, and where we will be eating insects for protein. Agents for change have to demonstrate, time and time again, that the alternatives are viable and, in many cases, both more attractive and more acceptable.

Big tech dominates our lives and our ways of communicating with each other. It is desirable that it should do more to ensure that the public square becomes a less threatening and more welcoming location for people to express their opinions. If it cannot deliver that, with all the brains at its disposal, then it is inevitable that some form of regulation, most likely imperfect, will follow.

Brexit is something that we are all tired of hearing about, and we will wager that this judgement is shared by many in the United Kingdom as well. Let us hope that a change of personnel at the highest level of negotiations means that we can find some modus vivendi that allows us all to co-exist, do business, and share mutual interests more happily.

For the Irish Examiner, it has been a challenging year producing newspapers without going into the office. But we have had our successes journalistically, and we thank everyone who has supported our print, digital, and commercial services. 

And we doff our caps to all our fellow citizens who have kept the country operating and helped the public during the strange times of 2021. 

We hope each and every one of you has a happy and peaceful Christmas.