On 22 March, I was going to fly home to Belgium. On my way to the
airport in Denmark, I was stopped in my tracks as my dad called me.
He said my flight may be delayed. There had been an explosion at
Brussels airport. It quickly turned out to be the first of several
bombs in Brussels that day. My flight was canceled. The airport
closed for days. Dozens died, hundreds were injured, the country was
traumatized. I’ll never forget the image of the airport covered in
smoke. And that was only the beginning of 2016.
On 25 January, I successfully defended my thesis. I received a PhD in
Physics and became Dr. Vincent Van Eylen. And that was only the start
of 2016. In May, I moved to The Netherlands to continue my research
as the Oort Fellow at Leiden
University. Although a bit of my heart and plenty of my friends
remain in Denmark, I was glad to start a new job and life in a new
country. I’m lucky to have met so many wonderful new people in a
matter of months. Somehow
fitting for the political year 2016, my love and I visited Cuba, an
intriguing country that defies summarizing
in few words.
In Syria, cynicism and realpolitik carried
the day. The Brits left the EU, in a vote that proved that
economic anxiety and xenophobia can be a dangerously powerful
combination. Although the UK has always kept a foot outside the EU
door, the decision to leave the union dealt a powerful blow to a
project dear to my heart. The day after the Brexit vote, I expressed
hope that the outcome would serve as a warning sign, averting
disaster in the US elections.
Alas. The US elected Donald Trump. As someone who has followed the US
elections closely and watched the presidential candidates debate, the
outcome was as surprising as it was maddening and frightening. Given
the option of a sensible and deeply qualified candidate, voters opted
instead for the person who displayed a staggering lack of
preparedness and who made multiple statements that should be
disqualifying for the presidency. There’s a wide range of
motivations that compelled people to vote for Trump, but as we head
into 2017, I don’t intend to forget that he won on a campaign of
propaganda rather than facts, appealing to everyone’s basic
instincts and to outright xenophobia. Despite the alarming outlook, I
also know that many millions of people rejected Trump’s candidacy,
opted for complex stories rather than generalizations, embraced
facts, and chose to connect rather than divide. Although Hillary
Clinton suffered from rampant sexism, those who heard her concession
speech immediately realized that somewhere there’s a girl listening
who’ll one day be Madam President.
Despite the personal fortune, 2016 has mercilessly fired away at my
ever-optimistic mood. For most of my life, I’ve felt optimism,
rooted in the belief that the arc of the moral universe is long,
but it bends towards justice. For
most of my life, I’ve been convinced progress is essentially a
background process, which runs more or less automatically. The year
2016 served a harsh reminder that this is not so. That there is a
road backwards and that there are forces pulling in that direction.
Perhaps the most important lesson of
2016 is that progress is not
automatic. That the progress
of the past few decades has
been effected by the
leadership of people fighting
the good fight. We’ve
been caught off-guard in 2016, so in
2017, we have to stand up. Let’s shake off the complacency of the
past years. Let’s abandon the paralyzing pessimism of 2016.
If there’s one thing
that I learned this year,
it’s that there is
a lot in this world that’s
worth fighting for. In 2017,
let us fight the good fight. Because
I abandoned the belief that progress is automatic, but I haven’t
abandoned believing in progress. Happy New Year! To a great 2017!
