2023 has come and gone. Like every other year, it has its fair share of challenges and anticlimactic downturns. But the last months took an indelible downward spiral with the continued events in Israel and Gaza. Much worse is that the policies of leaders of the countries of the global north have shown that they are antithetical to the harmonious evolution of the human spirit. The abject killings justified by the rhetorics of nationalism laid bare the rotten underbelly of the so-called “developed” world. It has signalled a fierce adherence to the preservation of a world shaped by primal hate. Thus, as the anthropologist Amitav Gosh proposed in his book, The Nutmeg’s Curse, it would be more accurate to think of the countries of the Global North as “status quo” rather than “developed” countries. Because to say that a given society or nation is developed, its policies must completely turn its back to the bestial inhumanity of the past centuries while being tirelessly committed to planetary correlation as our collective Utopia, or, as the critic Edouard Glissant calls it, “the always possible infinite”.

Some people like to say that humans are inherently bestial beings, and when they are not, they are only attempting an uphill battle towards being good. I do not subscribe to this perspective. I like to think of human beings in the sense conjured by the Igbo language of the Eastern region of Nigeria. In the language, the human being as “mmadu” translates to “beauty is”. In other words, at the most essential (perhaps even distant) core of the human being, beauty is. This beauty is not conditional, nor is it legitimised by the contours of all the debris of human struggles and suffering that, today, form a thick, heavy coating of base aspirations that, on a grander scale, coagulates into sheer evil. Many of us are struggling under the crushing weight that has buried our human beauty.

In the past months, I have met and conversed with many people who are dismayed and appalled by the inhumane killings of the people and children of Gaza. But far worse is to witness the facial contortions of their hopelessness and powerlessness. Many in the world would have wanted the killings to stop before they claimed more than twenty thousand lives (and still counting). But these people are not the policymakers. They are not leaders looking to preserve and replicate the worst aspect of human history and ominous premonitions from the past. They are the ordinary people of society.

Yet, it is in such disposition that I have found hope, courage and vigour in the past months. The beauty of our humanity is buried deep within, yet it glows and calls out in a shrieking voice to be heard and allowed to come to the fore. Many have protested – and continue to – in their various fields of work and life interests. These affirmative actions aim to insist on new and revitalised moral codes and standards. They solicit for harmony that draws from the Wealth of Difference.

Thus, as we dip our feet into a new year, I am reminded that the soul of our planet is dissipated across a myriad number of ordinary citizens animating the globe. Some are hard at work in areas and sectors that require unbelievable human sacrifices. Their morning is far from anything normal, nor are their nights of sweet dreams. These acts of courage that have put them in the crosshairs of big guns, armoured tanks and drones should never be taken for granted. At the least, it should inspire those of us who work in less dangerous sectors and realities to stand up for a better, more harmonious world in whatever little way we can afford.

We live in times of “a volatile negotiation between the past and the present”. As such, the future is a measure of our capacity to valorise love for humanity voluntarily, which can be enacted at granular scales and levels.

My optimism for the coming year is not naive; neither is it wilful gullibility. It is fervently anchored in the belief that beauty is. As it is, we must dig through the debris and thistles of human inconsistencies to get to it. Yet, there is hardly a nobler cause than to embark on this task firmly – every one of us. For those of us whose pulse and heartbeats are rendered restless by the shameful events of our time, every act to take a stance for a harmonious world rises as a potent prayer that weaves threads by which our interconnections are moulded differently.

It would not be so much about fighting against hatred as standing up for peace. May the new year carry within it the strength and the support system we need to continue to insist on an honourable notion of the human being.

May we stay blessed.