2019: The Year in Review
Looking back on events in the world, in Algeria, and here on Ibn Ibn Battuta in 2019, and ahead to 2020
Viewed from above, we exit the 2010s while spinning out of control, the old established order now a shambles. Viewed from below, we close the decade with reclaimed agency, every "me" an island speaking "my truth".
In the struggle between institutions and individuals, institutions lost this round badly. New technologies overwhelmed human societies' traditional guardrails in the 2010s, giving individuals the means to run amok, the freedom to write their own rules, but few scaffolds on which to build common projects. From Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring, Brexit to Hong Kong, the results have leaned heavily toward destruction. (Of course, whether one sees such destruction as positive or negative depends on which institution is in the crosshairs.)
Nina and I began 2019 by watching, bemused, as news of our wedding unexpectedly went viral in the Algerian media. But these days, there are no more untouched backwaters, not even Algeria, so wider trends arrived at last. In February, Algerians rose up in a popular movement, or hirak, calling for sweeping leadership change. Breaking points long predicted had finally arrived.
I followed events intently, but have tried to keep a respectful distance. We spent our year learning, striving, and exploring as always, including here in Algeria and through trips to Austria, Germany, Morocco, Tunisia, the UK, and the US. Unlike in years past, I traveled relatively little within Algeria, but took time to film an Algerian reality TV show (forthcoming in 2020).
Before we embark on a new year and new decade, here are a few highlights from 2019:
Ibn Ibn Battuta
Here on the blog, I first caught up on earlier trips to Egypt (culminating in one of my most important posts, "A Second Chance for Egypt, A Third Way for the Arab World"), followed by a few within Algeria: Tassili National Park, Tamanrasset, and Tlemcen.
I reminisced about the 1969 Panaf Festival of Algiers, announced the forthcoming "Andi Hulm"/"I Have A Dream" reality show, and catalogued this year's travels to Bou Saada, Morocco, Tunisia. I also finally visited California, and pondered the dizzying contrasts of San Francisco.
In the weeks ahead, stay tuned for articles on a few other trips from 2019. (Update: Don't miss new articles published on our 2019 trips to Austria, London, Montreal, and Colorado.)
Media & Influences
Outside Algeria, 2019 delivered a steady stream of horrors and disappointments across the wider world; some "best year ever" that was. There were rare points of light—think the Women's World Cup of soccer, a certain impeachment, and Baby Yoda. Throughout 2019, I found escape or insights from a variety of sources; along the way I continuously shared the best ones on Sfarjal and Twitter, but recommend these most highly:
On television (if we still call it that), Black Mirror remained best in show. Bureau des Légendes, The Expanse, and Stranger Things continued to provide great entertainment. Maniac was surreal and fascinating, The Handmaid's Tale gripping and eerie, and The Mandalorian just good fun. I watched Game of Thrones from start to finish, then pondered what, if anything, it meant. (Zeynep Tufekci had perhaps the best take on that question this year.) Dark remained excellent, going deeper down the rabbit hole in exploring the nature of time.
Although movies paled yet again in comparison to the intricate long-form storytelling on the small screen, I did enjoy Star Wars: Episode IX.
I read too few books, continuing to get bogged down in Books I Should Read rather than enjoying Books That Are Actually Fun To Read.
But I devoured articles in search of explanations of our confounding new world, this alternate dimension we seem to have entered a few years back and still struggle to understand and navigate. A few stood out this year:
"The Demise of the Nation State" by Rana Dasgupta (The Guardian) Actually published last year, my favorite piece I read in 2019 ascribes today's political chaos to a breakdown of the nation state model. Compelling and critical.
"An Equal Say" by David Bell (The Nation)"Who has the authority, in a democracy, to determine what counts as truth—an elite of the supposedly best, most intellectually capable citizens, or the people as a whole?"
"Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns" by Bill McKibben (New Yorker) Hitting climate denial where it hurts.
"Alienated, Alone And Angry: What The Digital Revolution Really Did To Us" by Joseph Bernstein (BuzzFeed News) Ironic perhaps that this published by BuzzFeed News, but no less insightful.
"Out With the Old, In With the Young" by Astra Taylor (New York Times) The most important of many growing gap in our era?
"The Constitution of Knowledge" by Jonathan Rauch (National Affairs)"Who should decide who is right? And who should decide who gets to decide?"
"Doublethink Is Stronger Than Orwell Imagined" by George Packer (The Atlantic)"We are living with a new kind of regime that didn't exist in Orwell's time. It combines hard nationalism—the diversion of frustration and cynicism into xenophobia and hatred—with soft distraction and confusion: a blend of Orwell and Huxley, cruelty and entertainment."
Other favorites this year ranged from the fascinating...
"The China Connection: How One D.E.A. Agent Cracked a Global Fentanyl Ring" by Alex W. Palmer (New York Times)"A Ziploc bag of fentanyl will pay for college, with money left over to buy a house and car."
"The Art of Decision-Making" by Joshua Rothman (New Yorker)"To aspire, Callard writes, is to judge one’s present-day self by the standards of a future self who doesn’t yet exist. But that can leave us like a spider plant putting down roots in the air, hoping for soil that may never arrive."
"Index-Crazed Investors Turning S&P 500 Into One Gigantic Company" by Luke Kawa (Bloomberg) Seeds of the next big crash?
"A Million People Are Jailed at China's Gulags. I Managed to Escape. Here's What Really Goes on Inside" by David Stavrou (Haaretz) A related and underreported story is just how many Muslim countries have supported China's repression of the Uighurs.
"The Unbelievable Story Of The Plot Against George Soros" by Hannes Grassegger (BuzzFeed News)"How two Jewish American political consultants helped create the world’s largest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory."
"Better Language Models and Their Implications" (OpenAI) For the first (I think), this year I read a story written by a computer.
... to the thought-provoking...
"Against Advice" by Agnace Callard (The Point)"Indeed, one of the paradoxes of advice seems to be that those most likely to be asked for it are least likely to have taken anyone else's: their projects of 'becoming' are the most particularized of all."
"What if All That Flying Is Good for the Planet?" by Costas Christ (New York Times)
"The YouTube Revolution in Knowledge Transfer" by Samo Burja (Medium)
"A New Americanism" by Jill Lepore (Foreign Affairs)"Writing national history creates plenty of problems. But not writing national history creates more problems, and these problems are worse."
... to the downright bizarre:
"The Lost History of One of the World’s Strangest Science Experiments" by Carl Zimmer (New York Times)"The hummingbirds were dying. Cockroaches were everywhere. And then Steve Bannon showed up."
"The Jungle Prince of Delhi" by Ellen Barry (New York Times)“For 40 years, journalists chronicled the eccentric royal family of Oudh, deposed aristocrats who lived in a ruined palace in the Indian capital. It was a tragic, astonishing story. But was it true?”
"The Wrong Goodbye" by Joe Sexton & Nate Schweber (ProPublica)"The patient lasted just minutes after being taken off life support. By then it was too late…"
"I Found Work on an Amazon Website. I Made 97 Cents an Hour." by Andy Newman (New York Times) "Inside the weird, wild, low-wage world of Mechanical Turk."
Podcasts again provided me a great torrent of insights and inspiration this year, with Tyler Cowen's Conversations with Tyler, Monocle's The Foreign Desk, NPR's How I Built This, and Kerning Cultures standing out as favorites. Best episodes included Richard Baldwin on globalization and robotics, Margaret Atwood on writing, Peter Hessler on the nature of revolution in China and Egypt, Ted Gioia on culture and cool, Anand Giridharadas on elite philanthropy, Matt Stoller on the dangers of monopoly, and street-level perspectives from the Hong Kong protests.
Looking Ahead
With Algerians focused on larger questions and life moving fast, I decided (albeit with mixed feelings) not to produce a 2020 Algeria photo calendar.
There will be many more changes in the year ahead as well—including our anticipated departure from Algeria, already known as “Bourexit.” Much more to follow soon.
Thank you all for reading. Be well, and safe travels!