SO, a year like no other has finally drawn to a close. A year when most of us were home-bound and earth-bound, as closed borders everywhere meant we were grounded; aeroplanes being likewise mostly grounded, laying waste to a peripatetic lifestyle most of us had hitherto taken for granted before 2020 dawned.
The advent of vaccines against the Covid-19 virus raises high hopes that 2021 will be better for almost everyone on Planet Earth. Certainly, a path towards pre-pandemic normalcy can finally be sketched out.
During the year-end holiday season, it is heartening to witness here in Kuching, for example, how the malls, restaurants and coffee shops are packing in the crowds again, offering encouraging signs that resilient people everywhere will bounce back with a pent-up vengeance as soon as circumstances allow.
Governments the world over must be hoping that this is the case, giving the depressed global economy a much-needed kickstart early in this new year. Still, there is no denying the huge toll the pandemic has extracted, both in terms of lives and livelihoods lost.
Seems like everywhere one sees in town, amidst shops showing an early sign of returning vitality, for-rent notices pockmarking boarded-up ones nearby. A local real-estate investor friend worries aloud that existing businesses or new ones are not biting even with attractive rental offers just yet. He worries that this will linger for as long as Sarawak remained closed even to out-of-state domestic travellers.
Uncertainty remains the order of the day. A Kuala Lumpur-based university student who spent most of 2020 taking lessons online in Kuching while working on the side in a coffee shop is suddenly unsure again of his immediate plans now that movement-control measures in place in the federal capital have been extended for a further two weeks.
Another big uncertainty carried over into this new year is political. A state election in Sarawak, constitutionally due by the middle of the year, has been held in abeyance for the time being. Will it be timed together with a snap general election, given the continuing volatility of the national political scene?
Even after a widely anticipated general polls, will the country ever revert again to the long-accustomed path of a government with a secure majority affording us political stability for a full five years of each election cycle? Or are we condemned to fractious and highly malleable governing majorities with all the governance uncertainties ensuing, going forward?
Internationally, will a newly elected American president usher in much-welcome global leadership once again or will we witness a continuation of Sino-American rivalry that, if it exacerbates, will have nations in this region in particular being put in the extremely uneasy and uncomfortable position of having to choose sides?
All told, the havoc to our normal lives caused by the pandemic may have some redeeming features we may sorely miss with any return to "normalcy". As normal in-class schooling was noted largely for its absence in 2020 and as organisations instituted work-from-home arrangements, our usual traffic-clogged urban roads took a breather. Driving through smooth-flowing traffic may be a luxury we will soon miss.
As our collective carbon footprint shrank drastically with most airliners the world over grounded, Planet Earth must have breathed a lot easier too in 2020. That surely must have had an appreciable impact in mitigation against an otherwise headlong march towards climate-change disaster.
Every cloud supposedly has a silver lining and one as ominous as that formed by this pandemic ought to have several. As some businesses, industries and indeed even lifestyle choices die away, they will surely trigger creative destruction of the sort that encourages new lifestyles and activities in its place. Human ingenuity will soon kick in to bring in its wake new products and services to cater to these new lifestyles and activities.
That is how renewal happens. Crises and silver linings create new opportunities. Dare we hope that a greener and more sustainable earth will become likelier?
Let 2021 be the new beginning so the world can collectively build back better.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak