What will we remember 2014 for? Here are my top five:
Malala Yousfazai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – Malala began to blog about the lack of education for girls in Pakistan when she was just 11 years old detailing the Taliban occupation of her beloved Swat valley. She rose in prominence and began to give interviews/make film documentaries despite her and her family receiving threats. She was fearless in the face of terror until the Taliban cowardly shot her in the head on her way to school. Miraculously she survived and the rest is history. If anything could give you faith in good prevailing over evil it is this little girl.
A sign that democracy is alive and well with 90% of Scottish people voting in the referendum. 2014 has certainly seen the general public become more involved with Politics. Interestingly the country appears to be rejecting the middle ground and dividing between far right and far left. UKIP and the Green party have seen a huge rise in membership numbers.. whatever your thoughts a country more engaged with Politics can only be a good thing.
The Media were exposed from a number of angles:
– Panorama and the phone-hacking scandal showed us that our journalists bribe police officers for confidential information and our politicians are deeply entangled with them; to the point where Rebekah Brookes was said to be ‘almost a member of the shadow cabinet’.
– Russell Brand exposed to the masses that the owners of Fox News In America were shareholders in arms dealerships selling firearms to the Middle East and therefore keen to perpetuate hatred of the Middle East via their reporting.
– The ITV drama The Lost Honour of Christopher Jeffries showed us how the Media destroyed the life of an innocent man when he had been wrongly arrested for murder.
– The head of our Supreme Court Lord Neuberger stated that journalists abused freedom of expression when they based their persuasion on misrepresentation and propaganda.
Here are my little sister’s thoughts http://tiffanyimogen.com/2014/08/27/hate-the-media-love-the-corncockle/
Lawyers all over Britain came together to oppose the Government’s attempted demolition of legal aid; winning a judicial review in September where the Government’s plans were ruled illegal (see https://chloerosejay.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/failing-grayling) The Ministry of Justice rallied and we have again managed to halt their plans with the final decision to be made in January 2015. This new year will see the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta and we can only hope that this will help in putting Justice, and access to Justice, at the forefront of people’s minds.
In December the book ban for prisoners was ruled unlawful – I cannot convey how disgusting I find the idea that we withhold literature from any human being. Do we want people to change or don’t we?
So there you have it 2014 had some pretty exciting developments – on a personal note WordPress tells me that my blog has been read in 44 different countries since it began and that’s certainly more places than I’ll probably ever go to – most importantly the image of Judge Bryan Jay has reached the wider world which can only have enhanced happiness.
Happy New Year
Chloe Rose Jay 