The world around you.

The world in 2011 at a glance.

The world into which you were born in 2011 is certainly a strange one, and it is for this reason that the song “Mad World” by Tears for Fears is one of your dad’s favourites!

Bursting at its seams, the global population is set to reach 7 BILLION people by the end of this year, resulting in space become ever more precious! However, it is not at all a bad place to be in, and some would say that that the human being never had it so good!

As you are made up of two different nationalities, and live amongst a third, we will try to give you a snapshot of what the world looked like in the year you were born, in terms of politics, the economy and the social fabric of those different societies.

Politically it is a story of two halves. On one sunny September morning in 2001 two aeroplanes flew into two tall buildings in America, bringing the brewing tension between the Christian and Muslim world to a boiling point! Ten years later the wars that were started after this incident in Afghanistan and Iraq is officially over, but these two countries are in tatters and resentment against the Western World is sky high! This situation is not helped at all by the fact that the Israel-Palestine issue is nowhere near resolved.

On the other hand, Italy and England are part of what your dad sees as one of the biggest political miracles ever! Just over 65 years ago Europe was left in smouldering ruins after the Second World War, now it is more unified than ever with economic unity, a single currency and even a Central European Government!

Down in Namibia it is an equally positive message as the country recently elected its second president (the first president stood down voluntarily!) since independence from South Africa. No mean feat for an African country on a continent where leaders are famously unwilling to relinquish power! Here black and white work together really well, where only 20 odd years ago there was apartheid!

Economically things are equally mixed! During the 1990’s the world economy became more globalised than ever whilst at the same time experiencing one of the biggest “boom” periods in history. The Western world was the biggest recipient of this economic surge with America being the undisputed superpower. It could not last forever though, and in 2007 the fact that all economies are so interlinked, meant that the whole world economy was affected by the “credit crunch” that originated in the American housing market!

The resulting global recession spread all over the world from America to Namibia and was said to be the worst since the Great Depression of the late 1920’s/early 1930’s! It was clear to see during this recession exactly how affluent the world has become as certainly in the western world, nobody really went hungry! Yes, many people lost their jobs but now for most people we knew it meant no more overseas holidays, and having to sign up to social welfare handouts as opposed to worrying about where the next meal was coming from!

Namibia, as most of the developing world, was also affected by the recession, however even in this small African country, people fared a lot better than they would have a few decades ago.

One of the biggest shifts that came out of this downturn is the rise and rise of China! With the American economy hurt by the global recession, eyes are turning towards the east to welcome in the next superpower!

And socially the world is seeing massive changes as well, brought on most by the constant, fast development of new technologies. This, together with an increasing obsession with chasing money at all times of the day, means that society has reached a point where there is just no free time left at all! Almost gone are the days of social visits where conversations take place face-to-face. Instead you now have "friendships" on social network websites like Facebook and "hang out" in internet chat rooms! Television (your dad's family got their first TV in the year he was born) is steadily taking over every aspect of our lives, giving us our news and current affairs information, entertaining us through "reality shows", educate us with documentaries and even aim to give us exercise through "fitness and workout" programmes!

The development and growth of long distance air travel has made the world a much smaller place as well. Whilst your Afrikaans granddad has never been anywhere other than South Africa and Namibia, both your parents have seen nearly a quarter of the world's countries by their early thirties! This hunger to "see the world", together with the all consuming obsession with making money, means that young people now wait much longer before they have (perhaps two at the most) children.

All this means that you are born into a world where, without a dull moment, you will be grown up before we know it, ready to embark on the same adventures of life that your parents, grandparents and greatgrandparents did before you. Who knows what the world will look like by the time, in the far off future, when you write a message like this to your children!