THE INTRODUCTION OF THE EURO (2002)

Half the nation’s shoppers were carrying cheap pocket calculators in early 2002 in order to check just how much “old” money an item on offer cost. The introduction of the European single currency, or euro, happened on January 1st. There had been a well-run information campaign in advance so, despite some predictable profiteering by unscrupulous retailers, the changeover went relatively smoothly (although many remarked that “€50 is now the new 20 quid!”). Except for that hapless bank official who, having obviously missed the meeting, accidentally gave a customer €50,000 instead of five grand. The customer went away on holidays and wound up on Liveline insisting that, according to the banks themselves, mistakes cannot be rectified once you’ve left the counter. Sadly, he was ultimately forced to return the loot.

THE SMOKING BAN (2004)

Ireland has always been a world leader when it comes to banning things, and on March 29, 2004, we became the first country on Earth to institute an outright ban on smoking in workplaces. Most other European nations soon followed suit and now many smokers are made to feel like pariahs. Cigarettes have subsequently become quite extortionately priced and the packets all feature gruesome images of the ill-effects of frequent inhalation of the demon tobacco. You might say fair enough, but why no images of diseased livers on bottles of alcohol?

Tsunami (2004) / Hurricane Katrina (2005) / Earthquake in Haiti (2010)

On December 26 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Sumatra set off a tsunami. It claimed 230,000 lives in 14 countries and caused unimaginable damage around the Indian Ocean. We watched it in almost-real time, shocked as the video recordings began to circulate, stunned as places many of us had been to were overturned, crushed and swallowed and as people who could have been any of us were swept away.

But earthquakes don’t need to trigger tsunamis to be deadly. Some caused huge loss of life, like Haiti in 2010, when 315,000 died and 1.5 million were displaced. A lot of this could be attributed to poverty, poor buildings. Infrastructure, including vital irrigation channels and waterways, was destroyed.

Haiti is also regularly ravaged by hurricanes like Felix (2007) and Matthew (2016). But the one that had the greatest global impact was Katrina in 2005 which came close to destroying New Orleans. A whole lot of issues surfaced. In particular, that the places where poor African Americans lived were most susceptible to flooding. The storm surged and the levees broke. And it’s not as if people didn’t know. Way back in the 1930s Memphis Minnie sang:

If it keeps on rainin’ levee’s goin’ to break And the water gonna come in and we’ll have no place to stay And they didn’t.

Social Media

(Mid-noughties onwards)

So central is social media to all facets of life nowadays that we forget how new it is. As we now know them they largely date from 2003 when LinkedIn and Myspace were set up. Facebook followed in 2004. Between them they have re-engineered the world, and then some, with billions of registered users.

All in a decade-and-a-half, and we’re not done yet. For a start, new media and apps keep appearing and one or two have stickability, like Snapchat and Instagram (which dates from 2010). But some say that the major social media platforms have become bloated and slow moving thanks to viral videos, memes and clickbait. So now we have livestreaming. We also have augmented reality and virtual reality. Their time hasn’t come yet but it may.

But, and it’s a very big but, nothing is free and beneath the surface of sharing and communicating and all that feelgood stuff there’s another process at work. Darknet data analytics companies have used the modalities of social media to identify and target key groups in referenda and elections. This is separate from interference by Russian, and other, hackers and poses a major threat to the democratic process as we know it.

THE ARAB SPRING (2010-11)

Most of the western world cheered supportively when the Arab Spring first kicked off on December 17, 2010 with the Tunisian Revolution. This sparked a revolutionary wave of violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups and civil wars in North Africa and the Middle East, most especially in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq and Syria. These had mostly died down within two years leaving nothing but carnage in their wake. Syria, in particular, is now in tatters. So despite a seemingly optimistic start, the seeds of the Arab Spring have failed to bloom anything other than a big bloody and chaotic mess… that has caused a largely unwelcome deluge of migrants into Europe. Here’s hoping that the Arab Summer will be brighter…

Emergence of IS / the new Terrorism

(2013 onwards)

Al-Qaeda welded a new thing: global, not tied to place, dispersed and cellular, no central command, sophisticated capacity, jihadist, utterly contemptuous of all but the faithful, suicidal and devoted absolutely to the cause. They found people who were happy to die and used them.

The fury with which they were hunted after 9/11 degraded their mission, though many older movements pledged allegiance, like Boko Haram in Nigeria. But another version was in the wings in Iraq. There, Sunni jihadis coalesced with former members of Saddam Hussein’s military and overran a huge swathe of Syria and Iraq, declaring a caliphate. IS had arrived.

Their brutality and intolerance appalled. There were public killings, beheadings and crucifixions. Rape was a part of their war as was slavery. They inflicted much death and destruction. So too did the fightback and the extraordinarily complicated war that has developed out of the collapse of Iraq and Syria. There are many players on the field and most of them lack moral compass. Many war crimes have been committed for sure. But the whole war is criminal.

As well as conquering territory in a semi-conventional military campaign IS encouraged jihadis to attack targets everywhere and deploy any weapon, cars and trucks included. This dispersed campaign has caused much death and mayhem and has placed all European countries on high alert. The land campaign in Iraq and Syria is closing in on the caliphate but at a grotesque cost of human life. Battle-hardened jihadis returning to Europe from Syria are increasing the risks back home. This is like a deadly virus and it won’t be cured any time soon.