Opinion | Was 2016 the worst year ever in the annals of human misery? Not even close
Peter Kammerer refuses to be swayed by the explosion of news – mostly negative – that comes via social media. Not only does the ‘bad’ pale in comparison to major tragedies of the past, but we’ve also ignored much of the ‘good’
The year just gone surely wasn’t that bad. For those who voted for Trump or Brexit, prayers were answered. For now, neither of those “shocks” have negatively affected Hong Kong and our part of the world and may yet turn out to be positives.
Watch: Hong Kong’s 2016 in 60 seconds
Let’s put the so-called bad news of the past year in context
Both pairs of my grandparents, who lived through two world wars, a population-devastating pandemic, extreme poverty and, for those from Munich, political extremism of the most repugnant kind, would object to the claims about 2016 being so terrible. They have long passed on, but could have countered with some of the most horrendous events humankind has suffered. Until July 1914, Europe was peaceful and prosperous; the assassination of Austria’s Franz Ferdinand sparked a tinderbox that killed 17 million over the next four years. The final 11 months coincided with the deadliest flu epidemic the modern world has known, in which 50 million lives were lost. In 1919, the first shots of the Irish war of independence were fired, the Russian civil war continued to rage and the Treaty of Versailles was signed between Germany and the victors of the first world war, setting conditions for an even more devastating conflict 20 years later. And what about 1942, when the second world war was at its height in Europe, the genocide of the Holocaust at its fiercest and the imperial Japanese army bloodily smashing its way across Asia?
Hong Kong’s everyday heroes of 2016
Let’s put the so-called bad news of the past year in context; perceptions have been largely driven by social media, the way many people are now informed. News, by nature, is often negative. Until a few years ago, the majority obtained it from traditional media – print newspapers, TV and radio. Smartphones have changed that, and coupled with social media like Facebook and Twitter, we’re now bombarded with news at all times of the day. That can readily give an impression of crisis, especially in an event-packed year like 2016.