Without a doubt, this year was like no other year, 2011 is a year to remember! I don’t think anyone in this country or even this planet will forget 2011, a year filled with everything; revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria & Yemen, of which three dictators have fallen and the rest to come hopefully, Zein El Dein El Abdeen fled, Hosni Mubarak is in jail and Kadafy was killed! Ali Abd Allah Saleh is on his way out while Bashar is still fighting and killing his people trying to avoid the destiny of the other four tyrants! Unrests in Bahrain, Tsunami & nuclear leaks in Japan, riots in England, floods in Thailand, Pakistan & Philippine, powerful earthquakes in Turkey, Japan, New Zealand & Pakistan, South Sudan Seceded from Sudan, terrorism attacks in Norway, Belgium and Russia, financial crises in Europe & the United States, Italian and Greece prime ministers were forced out, economic protests worldwide, Bin Laden was killed, hunger in Somalia. Europe & the United States are falling, Asia is rising.
I-phones, Androids and Blackberries are everywhere, occupy movements have spread everywhere, from Wall Street to Tokyo in over than 95 cities in 82 countries and the United States officially left Iraq, UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member and still Zamalek didn’t win the national league in Egypt!
All that is on the global and local level while I’m sure all of us had his/her share from events on the personal level, some were good and some were bad but we all had our share.
2011 proved practically that change is possible, in fact it proved that change is inevitable and it doesn’t have to be a change to the worse in all cases, we can still see a light in the end of the tunnel, a small ray of hope that change can be for the better, we just need to believe and work for it and prove ourselves worthy of that “better” change.
Few hours from now and all these events will step down announcing the beginning of a new year, but the changes caused by these events will remain with us forever whether it was good or bad ones, it will affect the way we see things and it will definitely affect 2012 one way or another.
Some might argue that 2011 is a year to forget not a year to remember because of all the losses, deaths, mistakes and hard times we all faced, but I’ll look at the half full glass and be optimistic and say; hopefully 2011 was full of all these hard times and lessons to teach us how to handle 2012 and make it a better year.
Welcome 2012; hoping you give us whatever 2011 didn’t. And so long 2011 and it’s up to each of you to determine whether it was a year to remember or a year to forget!
