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“I WISH you … every happiness for the new year,” Karl Marx wrote to Friedrich Engels in December 1861, before adding: “If it’s anything like the last one, I … would sooner consign it to the devil.”
Marx might mainly have been referring to his personal economic woes, but a century and a half later we live in a world where his contempt for the previous 12 months tends to resonate each December, while his clarifying 19th-century critique of capitalism continues to do so. And for all his foresight, Marx might have struggled to imagine circumstances in which a mere 56,000 or so people control three times more wealth than half of humanity.
Similarly distressing statistics abound in this month’s World Inequality Report 2026, but what’s perhaps even more appalling is the insouciance of governments across every continent.
Of course, there are innumerable other horrors, but they are hardly likely to be front of mind for the vast segment of humanity whose primary concern each morning is to wonder where the next meal will come from. What a wonderful world.
Israel’s genocide against Palestinians continues, despite an ostensible ceasefire, and just yesterday, its main architect was in Florida, wallowing in the adulation of his enabler-in-chief. Benjamin Netanyahu conferred on Donald Trump his nation’s highest civil award (hitherto restricted to Israeli nationals), which may in due course find a place among the rest of the gilded kitsch in the Oval Office, perhaps alongside the coveted FIFA peace prize.
There are no guarantees of goodwill or peace.
In his pursuit of peace, Trump last week ordered America’s first air strike in Nigeria, ostensibly to thwart an anti-Christian genocide which isn’t actually happening, apparently targeting a relatively unknown militant group called Lakurawa, which operates in the Sokoto region, where there aren’t many Christians. Thanks in large part to poor governance, Nigeria is indeed prone to Islamist violence, which targets both Christians and Muslims, but it’s far from clear whether the US strike served any purpose — apart from providing a Christmas thrill for the fundamentalists among Trump’s MAGA base.
Intervention might have made more sense in Sudan, amid the atrocities perpetrated in El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces, but that rebel militia is backed by the UAE, an ally of both the US and Israel. There’s some suspicion, meanwhile, that Abu Dhabi facilitated Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland, although the purpose is unclear. There could be a strategic motive, given that the territory’s long coastline is separated from Yemen only by the narrow Gulf of Aden, but Israel could also be eyeing the territory as a dumping ground for Palestinians.
Back at Mar-a-Lago, the warm reception for Israel’s leading war criminal was preceded by a visit from Volodymyr Zelensky, but it ended with little progress towards peace between Ukraine and Russia. Apparently, a key roadblock is Vladimir Putin’s insistence on controlling even the narrow strip of Donbas that Russian troops have failed to occupy. Kyiv has already effectively conceded almost a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, but Moscow is half-hearted about give-and-take. It is dedicated only to the latter half of the concept, and Trump’s extended phone conversations with Putin have thus far yielded no perceptible result. Zelensky reportedly sought a 50-year security guarantee from the US; Trump agreed to 15. Will European leaders, many of them preparing for war with Russia, offer to make up the difference? None of them dares to openly challenge the US president, even as the juvenile delinquents in the Trump adminis-
tration bolster the far-right forces slithering towards power across much of Europe. By tilting towards extremes on issues such as welfare, immigration, and asylum, the so-called liberal democrats have only encouraged this tendency.
As ever, the US stands out as an exemplar of the West’s worst tendencies, with its elected kakistocracy aspiring towards a template that ranges from curbs on free thought and speech to deporting immigrants whose ideas or skin colour offend the ruling white supremacists. Its president is obsessed with regime change in Venezuela, but is least bothered about the fact that among the 39 higher-income countries in the OECD, the US takes first place in terms of relative poverty, and second place in the child poverty and infant mortality stakes.
Heaven knows whether any correction will follow, but it should be pointed out that the trends laid bare under Trump have been nurtured over the decades by Democrats and Republicans alike. All too few Democrats have resisted the Trumpian onslaught against the puerile illusions of American exceptionalism. Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration tomorrow as mayor of New York City offers the hint of a silver lining, but it would be premature to predict a brighter tomorrow.
Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2025
