2011: The Most Eventful Year Since?

We are living in an exciting time in 2011.  Big news has been the norm for the past few months and much of it is ongoing.  Lately, I’ve been finding myself reading and watching the news and asking “what’s next?”  Beginning with the Arab uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, both Tunisia and Egypt have gone through regime change.  Libya and Syria have ongoing civil unrest and warfare and a number of other countries have had various levels of violent and non-violent protests from Algeria to Iran.  The US and NATO have been engaged in a no-fly zone and conducted numerous airstrikes on Gaddafi’s forces in Libya.  There have been huge natural disasters over the past few months as well- the earthquake/tsunami in Japan which led to thousands of deaths and a nuclear crisis and the record tornado outbreak in the south and midwestern US.  Then there was the raid that finally killed Osama Bin Laden.  Oh... and lets not forget about the once in a generation royal wedding.  We are presently witnessing history in the making around the world.  In a few years, teachers will be lecturing on these present events alongside other events in history that have already shaped the world.

The full impact of most of these events remains to be fully understood.  Specifically, it will be interesting to see how the death of Bin Laden will affect the democratic protests in the Middle East over the coming days and weeks.  Yesterday, ABC news showed members of the Muslim Brotherhood celebrating Bin Laden’s death- a surprising response from such a fundamentalist Islamic group.  Pakistani citizens have openly thanked the US and Obama for ridding the world of the man many have accused of hijacking Islam for the sake of hatred and violence. 

We can’t know for sure if there will be more natural disasters in the near future, but there is more predictability with many of these other events and we can watch them unfold and evolve.  There is hope for the Middle East and North Africa, but with Gaddafi still in power, violence still ongoing in the Syria and other Arab countries, wars ongoing in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, there is still much to be concerned about in the world.  We will continue to see history unfold throughout the rest of 2011 and further into the future during this fascinating time.  I for one will be trying to take it all in and trying to understand the implications of these events for the near and distant future with the limited foresight that the knowledge of the present and past can give.