Politics, does anybody really care about them? Many should, because most of the decisions politicians make influence our daily lives, sometimes more, sometimes less. But, political events are another story. They can be simple things which get escalated to a political level, or things which have been in the oven for a while now, only to be revealed. Our recent history has had some very interesting political events. Here are the most important of these.
Brexit – Britain Leaving the European Union
This is a rather important decision, which most people laughed at when it was announced in 2016, a referendum on whether the UK should stay as a member of the European Union or leave. 51.9% voted leave and 48.1% voted to stay. Brexit, as it was named colloquially, was at first laughed at, because the process had to take significant time. It wasn’t until the 31st of January 2020 that Britain formally left the EU.
It took a lot of time because many new laws had to be passed, specifically for trade and travel. This is a significant move which may lead to other countries showing signs of Euroscepticism.
George Floyd’s Murder – Racism Exists
The United States has always had a problem with racism, something that the country struggled to deal with. Racism gets a lot of media attention there, and with good reason. George Floyd was accused of passing a counterfeit bill in a store and had a police officer arrest him, but while he was on the ground, he had a knee to the back of the neck. He couldn’t breathe and was killed.
This sparked a lot of fires, specifically targeted at racism in the public sector. This led to protests all over the world, with more and more people speaking out about racing in their own countries.
Climate Problems – The World is Shaking
It might not be political in nature, but it requires political action to be slowed down and stopped, eventually. Climate change shook 2020 with wildfires in Australia which only started off the year which turned out to be very bad. Fires then shook the northern part of the world when July and August hit, which ended up with lots of ecosystems disrupted if not destroyed. Southeast Asia and Central America experienced some of the worst tropical storms, while the Sahara desert grew. Things aren’t slowing down, which is to be expected, as carbon emissions are not below a certain, necessary line.
Covid-19 Pandemic
2020 was shook by a pandemic which is going to continue, but not for a while now, showing that most countries aren’t ready to handle such a thing. Some have handled it great, others with multiple problems over the year, but one thing is for sure, that viruses are deadly and that we need to be prepared.
Most political events in recent history have shown us that we as a species need to work on our communication and execution of ideas and plans. Shortsighted, selfish plans will not get us far, especially if we try to sabotage each other along the way.
