2019 has been quite emotional...

As the end of the year is getting nearer, with Thanksgiving, Hanukah and Christmas get-togethers with friends and family, it might be a good time to reflect on the year that has (nearly) past.

It has been a year characterised by lots of negative emotions in many countries and regions, large swings in nationalistic sentiment (for example in the US, UK, Italy, China, Russia and Turkey) are coupled with massive street protests even (or better specifically) in countries with oppressive regimes. Global warming is proving to be a major (generational) wedge in some cases as well.

Discontent is the main theme in all of these movements.

Dissatisfaction with perceived or real inaction or injustice. There are many drivers of this dissatisfaction, the main ones are the behaviour of leaders, economic distress and the (real or perceived) loss of identity and power. Cyberwarfare (especially Russian) now includes propaganda campaigns in foreign countries through social media (mainly Facebook) to fan the flames of emotion and destabilise the political balance.

We are living in dangerous times and Western societies need to keep these emotions in check, otherwise the energy released ceases to be constructive and becomes destructive. We risk undermining 60 years of progress by allowing ourselves to slide into ever deeper polarisation. French president Emmanuel Macron gave an excellent example of how tensions can be diffused by an intense dialogue and genuine engagement. The “gilets jaunes” crises has been resolved by holding numerous town hall meetings and showing that concerns are taken seriously.

This provides us with a blueprint on how to deal with strong emotions in our society: genuine engagement. Let’s keep the debate open and civilised and define (and maintain) clear rules for it. At the same time we need to regulate social media in order to avoid them becoming megaphones for lies and propaganda aimed at sowing discontent and polarisation.

Let’s just continue what we have successfully done as Westerns societies over the past 60 years, having healthy disagreements with each other in an honest and civilised discussion. We should not let ourselves be carried away by emotions when it comes to politics. Leaders who love their country will understand this, the others don’t deserve to be elected.

We should reserve our (positive) emotions for our loved ones and enjoy the festive season together, so we can look forward to a positively exciting 2020!