Top five of 2019

None of us will know who was on Santa’s list of naughty and nice this year. Not that anyone knew in the earlier years. And that’s a good thing, it keeps the fun going. What if I had to come up with a list? Here it goes. The list is huge on the ‘naughty’ side, but let’s take the top five.

The opener: Trump. Thanks to Trump’s cruelty, children, women and asylum seekers looking for a better life found themselves locked in cubicles. Humanity became an ugly word. Down the line he got even viler digging up dirt on a presidential opponent. That is not just naughty. It’s impeachment material.

His South American version Bolsonaro is next for letting the Amazon rainforests burn despite being aware of the grave threat it poses to global warming. Yes, the Indian Prime Minister deserves a place and so does British Prime Minister. One forced his country out of the union, while the other is pushing his citizens out of the country.

I won’t be doing justice if we keep out Jeffrey Epstein, even if he committed suicide, and we may never know the complete truth. What about Hong Kong Chief Executive? She needs to be on that list too for the way the pro-democracy protestors were ruthlessly manhandled.

The list gets better now. The young Swedish climate activist and Time Person of the year, Greta Thunberg sits top of the ‘Nice’ list for stirring the world in taking immediate action on global climate crisis. Thunberg’s climate-fight activists Jamie Margolin, 17, who co-founded the organization ‘Zero Hour’, and Xiye Bastida also make my list.

Another female. And it’s US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, for promoting healthy politics and not allowing Trump get off the hook.

I would myself figure in the naughty list if I left out the Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the people of Christchurch after the horrific attacks, her leadership is an inspiration to all. Sorry there’s no male in the top five. They are there somewhere down the line.

Seriously, I had some trouble putting this together. Santa must have had a tough time. No wonder he prefers keeping it a secret. We don’t want a chimney fire in our neighbourhood.

Peter Andres
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