What’s Next?
Nobody looks forward for this year.
Sometime in the mid-1990s, in 1994, I read the local paper’s coverage of the New Year, starting with a story on a train. A sleeping man was woken up after midnight as the correspondent wanted to give him a New Year’s greeting.
“It’s a new year. So what? It’d be just like the previous year. Nothing will change,” shrugged the unhappy man. I found the story particularly sad. The mid-1990s was a time of optimism and excitement in the Pacific, but in Southeast Asia and particularly in Indonesia, a storm was brewing. The man on the train was a working-class man who knew that the age of cyberspace and globalization was not for him. It was a time of stark inequality, celebrity excess, and shameless corruption. The first major anti-Chinese riot in more than a decade broke up in 1994. The Asian Financial Crisis, beginning in July 1997, burned down an Asia that thought it was holding the future, and religious wars and terrorism in Indonesia lasted until the mid-2000s.
Thirty years later, the storm is raging in the West. People worry about living costs while commentators sneer at them for worrying. Jews are dehumanised in the name of humanity. Nobody looks forward to advancement in science, arts, and society.
And it’s not just in the West. The decline of the West does not mean the rise of the Rest. Asia sees no way out of the population crunch. Africa still finds it better to migrate to the West instead of building a modern Africa.
The Arabs are still divided between the rich Gulf states that are not interested in building their nationhood, and the poorer republics who are more interested in spreading conspiracy theories about Jews and the West rather than improving themselves.
India might have all the right cards here, but educated Indians prefer to work in London and Los Angeles instead of Mumbai or Hyderabad. In other words, pundits might gush about India’s bright future in economy, technology, and politics, but India is still a long way from being the next China or Japan. The reality that the heads of government of Great Britain and Ireland are Indians is hardly celebrated even by Indians themselves, let alone by the world.
So, what will happen in 2024? A lot of elections are going to happen – seven out of the ten largest states will have a general election, from India to Indonesia. The election seasons will be nasty at least online. They will be funny too, and few believe the elected governments will bring a renaissance. We have become that jaded man on the train, now a quite old man (who’s hopefully happier).
January
The wars in Ukraine and Gaza will go on. Ukraine is forgotten and overlooked, while both the Muslim and Western presses will continue to scream about the brutality of the IDF. Antisemitic graffiti will continue to litter Western cities, simply because they are not punished. Interestingly, on Christmas week I found no antisemitic graffiti in my very Muslim city – because it does not have Arabs raised on a lifetime of hate for the Jews (and certainly no Jew), and the police might have cracked down on the anarchists over the last five years.
The Taiwanese presidential election will kick off in 2024, along with the threats and tantrums from Beijing as the Democratic Progressive Party leads the polls. Cyberattacks and rumours of American (or worse, Japanese) intervention are quite certain. Security analysts will have their different takes on whether China will eventually invade Taiwan or not.
The Australian summer will be the typical double dose of the Australian Open and the Australia Day controversies. Several city councils have decided to cancel citizenship ceremonies on 26 January for practical, totally unpolitical reasons. Millennial-oriented media will feature stories about people hurt and traumatised by the A-Day (including children of immigrants), and conservative commentators will mock them on X. Meanwhile, the AO organisers are now refining their crisis management plans in the case of flag protests inside or outside the stadia.
February
I will eventually get my PlayStation 5 (the more economical Xbox is not on the Indonesian market) and kick programmed arses with my imaginary Karens. Off to the election booth for me on Valentine’s Day (Vote: You might find the love of your life there), provided my voter’s ticket eventually arrives. I look forward to the hysterical reactions from the Indonesian Left and bemused reactions from Australian academics, who will bemoan the weakness of progressive politics in Indonesia. In other words: We’re not pro-LGBT enough and we’re not anti-America enough.
Pakistan, another big country, also has its general election in February, God bless them. Ukraine will hold back the Russian invasion for the second year.
The Year of the Dragon begins on 10 February, which Sinic countries from South Korea to Singapore hope will prompt a baby boom since dragon babies are supposedly alpha humans. Will China stir trouble by insisting it’s “Chinese” New Year instead of “Lunar” New Year?
March
Expecting hourly reactions from you, American freaks, about the American primaries, which the world will keep commenting on as everybody will take themselves as Americans. The Russian presidential election, meanwhile, will be predictable.
Easter will bring on all the muses about Jerusalem, the Holy Land, and peace. And probably some protests in Western cities. (Some) Muslims will take the Ramadan (10 March to 9 April) as the anti-Zionism month.
April
What do we have here? Eid-al-Fitr and Passover in the same month. Oh, all the reflections and religious references abound. Gal Gadot will be cancelled again simply to observe the Passover.
May
Hopefully, the most eventful occasion this month will be the Eurovision Contest in Sweden, a meaningful week for Europeans and Australians.
June
The European football championship in Germany. The host nation has been in poor form over the last five years, but like the federal republic, retains loyal fans and admirers. Germany will be the place to be for affluent football fans – the richest ones might want to put it as the first half of the European sporting summer.
July – August
Protests on Canada Day and Independence Day will be low-key as usual, compared to the movement against Australia Day six months before.
The Republican National Convention will go first, and global journalists will treat it as a Nazi Con of white supremacists, predators, Trumpers, and depraved antivaxx Christian imbeciles. Will it be Trump or someone else?
The Paris Summer Olympics will begin. The Russians will return. There are potential walkovers against Israeli athletes (the Israelis won’t mind). Mainstream media will look for a Black or Muslim sporting hero. China will try so hard to top the medal tally. Paris will face all the riot threats.
The Democratic National Convention will be the peak of the summer spectacle. Celebrity endorsements, factional infighting, and journalists will lament the negativity and pessimism among ordinary Americans, despite the administration’s strong performance in the economy. On the other hand, activists will be quoted on their disappointment with Biden’s indifference to Palestine, growing white supremacy, and rampant transphobia.
Will Kamala Harris renew her running mate ticket, or will the convention nominate a new person? Who will complain if the new nomination is a black woman?
Meanwhile, Nusantara in eastern Borneo will become the new capital of Indonesia, our Canberra, our Brasilia. Not sure it will be a magnet for white women apart from diplomats and maybe journalists. They are enough.
October
The American debates. The campaign chaos. The October surprise(s).
November
THE election. The winner, provided the Supreme Court’s decision won’t be necessary, will be either a false Reaganite (De Santis or Trump) or a false Rooseveltian (Biden, re-elected). And yet America cannot return to its 20th-century idealism. That presidency will fail too, and America needs to redefine politics in the 2030s or we are ALL doomed.
December
The British Parliament of 2019 will be dissolved on the 19th if there is no general election before the date. In any case, Britain (and Northern Ireland) must elect a new government before February 2025. Labour’s time might finally come to the joy of the Guardian and the BBC. Just like the USA, the UK must find a new solution beyond Thatcherism or Blairism.
Those are my safe bets for 2024. There will be plenty of freak moments that will change the year, and risks and opportunities which will never materialise. 2024 will be hard and disappointing for the world, but YOU decide how the year will shape you personally. Jump in.