good wishes

Here we are again, almost at the dawn of a new year. This temporal border is a pure convention, we already know, but that does not prevent it from producing a mixture of expectation and fear in us. I still remember the night of December 31, 2019 and the joy with which I toasted, at a dinner with friends, for the arrival of 2020. Having such a beautiful figure, I proclaimed with my usual enthusiasm, the new year must be at have a great year. Since that day my friends have forbidden me to make any omens, especially if it is a hopeful prediction. And it is true that we have been very short of hope lately: times have become cloudy and restlessness is growing. Agree, things are not looking good. But, since it turns out that, even if they paint well, they sometimes turn out to be fatal, why can’t the reverse happen to us? I want to say that, although now we see everything in an ant color, perhaps reality will be bright later. Life is pure chance and fate likes to play with the illusions of humans. So in this article I am not going to make predictions, but to make wishes. And, put to dream, I will do it big.

And, thus, I want to believe that in 2023 there will be a coup in the Kremlin that will seize power from Vladimir Putin, whose whereabouts no one will ever know anything about (some German historians will discover in 2073 that he was locked up in a dacha in Siberia, where he will die 30 years later). The new Russian leader will not be exactly a pearl, but he will agree to end the war in Ukraine. Next, and after having seen the ears of the wolf, the nuclear powers will begin a new stage of talks for the control, limitation and future destruction of atomic weapons. After the fall of Putin, secret documents will appear that irrefutably demonstrate Trump’s involvement in a plot with the former Russian leader to perpetuate the two in power and divide up the world. There was exchange of money and classified information, for which they will accuse Trump of high treason (he will be convicted of it in 2026 and imprisoned in the maximum security ADX federal prison).

In addition, the Iranian women’s revolution will be able to paralyze the country and overthrow Ali Khamenei and all his dogmatists, after which a reform process will begin to change the Constitution and achieve a State that guarantees human rights. The fall of Iranian fundamentalism will produce a domino effect; the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, fearful of democratic contagion, will stop supporting the Taliban, and in Afghanistan the social unrest will further weaken the power of the fanatics (which will end up collapsing, like a house of cards, in 2024). Daniel Ortega will be killed by a heart attack, which will lead to an uprising of the tormented population and the humiliating expulsion of Rosario Murillo from power. A provisional government formed by the writers Sergio Ramirez and Gioconda Belli, who will sacrifice a few months of their lives for the cause, will start a constituent process. Cuba, forced by the new Russian situation and by the contagion of Nicaragua, will finally throw the rogue post-Castro saga from power, and the same will happen in Venezuela. And meanwhile, in the EU, En Marcha will be born, a pan-European progressive movement that in the next decade will manage to renew the democratic system and deactivate neo-fascism.

I imagine many more formidable surprises; I see the Sahrawis returning to their land, the Palestinians and Israelis starting new and fruitful talks, Europe launching a development plan for sub-Saharan Africa that will put an end to the boats around 2030. I see groundbreaking advances in cancer therapy, the Alzheimer’s, psychosis. A drug against super-resistant bacteria will be synthesized, and a way to prevent viruses from invading human cells will be discovered (these discoveries will win the Nobel Prize in 2027 and 2029, respectively). I have more things to dream about, like, for example, that in 2023 the scientist who will manage to reverse global warming will be born, but as I am running out of space I will use it to wish myself and all my loved ones a healthy life, lots of laughter and enduring, happy and free loves.