Hello and Happy New Year! I hope you all had a safe and happy holidays. I spent mine under Tier 4 lockdown restrictions in London, where I celebrated my first-ever British Christmas (feat. mince pies, Christmas pudding, and more) and reflected on all of the 2020 resolutions I can recycle in the year ahead.
Speaking of 2020: I joined the season finale of The Bunker podcast to go over the 20 worst moments of the past year (in case you needed any reminding). You can tune in via your favorite podcast app or by clicking below:
What I’ve written
Regular readers of this correspondence know that I’ve spent much of last year writing about the ongoing protests in Belarus, from its familiar strategies and the role of women to the global response and the potential impact of the incoming Biden administration.
For my final piece of 2020, I interviewed Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader who has come to personify her country’s democratic struggle. We discussed how she’s changed over the last several months, why she wants the world to “be braver” in its solidarity, and how this movement ends. You can read all about it here.
Since his reelection in 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced his fair share of protests. The latest are being led by tens of thousands of Indian farmers who are opposed to the government’s recent agricultural reforms, which they fear will favor corporations and devastate their livelihoods.
In the past, Modi has largely been able to overcome unrest with the help of heavy-handed crackdowns and nationalist appeals. But such strategies are falling flat in the face of the farmers’ protests. I wrote about why that is, and what it proves about the limits of Modi’s nationalism. Keep reading here.
What I’ve read
My colleague Ed Yong’s essential deep dive on where year two of the pandemic will take us:
The pandemic will end not with a declaration, but with a long, protracted exhalation. Even if everything goes according to plan, which is a significant if, the horrors of 2020 will leave lasting legacies. A pummeled health-care system will be reeling, short-staffed, and facing new surges of people with long-haul symptoms or mental-health problems. Social gaps that were widened will be further torn apart. Grief will turn into trauma. And a nation that has begun to return to normal will have to decide whether to remember that normal led to this.
This fascinating report on the rise of Income Share Agreements (and why they’re not an antidote to America’s student debt crisis):
To Simien, it seemed straightforward: “I printed it out and read it,” he told me. “On the top, it says, ‘This is not a loan.’” But though he didn’t realize it at the time, Simien’s signature had transformed him into a financial product. Unlike a traditional loan, the ISA was directly tied to Simien’s performance in the labor market—the more money he made, the more money he owed. That stream of income could then be packaged, bundled, and sold to investors, launching Simien into the Rube Goldberg machine of American finance.
It’s been weeks since this bombshell of a story about the journalist who gave up her marriage and job for Martin Shkreli was published and yet I’m still thinking about it:
Smythe has only one photo of the two of them, propped next to her bed. Shkreli, his arm around Smythe, has a wide-open smile. “Doesn’t he look human there?” Smythe says, laughing. Cushenberry made a blanket for Smythe with the photo on it, with a caption that reads, “All my better days are the ones spent with you.” I tell Smythe I’ll need to ask Shkreli for comment. “Maybe this will be a reason for him to reach out to me,” she says. Later, when I relay Shkreli’s statement—“Mr. Shkreli wishes Ms. Smythe the best of luck in her future endeavors”—to Smythe via video chat, she says, “That’s sweet,” quietly, not convincingly.
What I’m thinking about
I’ve never considered myself to be a superstitious person (I am, in the immortal words of Michael Scott, only “a little ‘stitious”), but the below tweet from Boris Johnson still haunts my nightmares. So, in the interest of playing it safe, I’m going to refrain from all this talk of 2021 being the best year yet. *aggressively knocks on wood*
Instead, here’s hoping that 2021 will be decidedly average … at best (inshallah) 🧿
Until next time,
Yasmeen
P.S. If anyone needs some New Year’s resolution inspiration, one of the best (and easiest) things I did in 2020 was turn off the notifications for all of my social media apps, including Instagram and Twitter. Yes, it was partially-inspired by The Social Dilemma. No, you won’t miss a thing.