Looking forward to this newest of years, 2023, ensures that our reflections upon ’22 leave us hesitant, fearsome in many respects, but most of all, uncertain. Ironically, it’s exactly half a century ago that similar uncertainties left many of us bereft of confidence, looking ahead with understandable reservations, much like today...
The Paris Peace Accord finally saw North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the United States, and the Viet Cong, all sign a peace agreement that was to end one of the bloodiest wars ever known to man. The formally titled “Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam,” was signed on January 27th, but it is a little-known fact that there were two separate documents to the treaty, as South Vietnam refused to recognize the Viet Cong, and it took some shrewd diplomacy by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, to rescue a peace that had appeared forlorn.
International hostility was never far away, and 1973 saw the Yom Kippur War, as Egypt and Israel came to blows yet again, not happy with their 1967 war. This conflict eventually deteriorated into a Russia versus American event, with the superpowers airlifting billions of dollars’ worth of armaments in support of the protagonists. This was, I’m sure, when we tired of this super-posturing and antagonism and when peace movements became global, spanning societies, not just campuses.
The world was to awaken on October 19th to a new weapon, as the oil producers announced an oil embargo. The upshot was a 300% rise in the price of oil in the ensuing months, as the price rose from $3 per barrel, to $12, and oil pricing has been politicized ever since. Again, in my opinion, we deserved that shake-up, because whether it was naivety or what, the commodity had been under-valued for decades, a resource that many in the West felt the Middle East had an obligation to share with everyone, for a pittance. Well, we sure got our hubris handed to us bigtime, and to excuse the pun, have been paying ever since.
The UK was busy with its own dramas at the time, with a ‘Cod War’ breaking out between Icelandic and British fishermen. However, worse was to follow with the National Union of Mineworkers' strike led by the intractable and dishevelled Joe Gormley, paralysing the country’s energy production, at the same time as a ‘cold snap’ was forecast. Anxiety levels sky-rocketed, the Bank of England interest rate reached an unprecedented 13%, and even three-day working weeks were implemented. Prime Minister, the immaculate and gormless Tory Ted Heath, was ridiculed for his leadership and was voted out the following year.
Across the Atlantic, ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon may have overseen America’s exit from Vietnam, but he was lying his way through a scandal, Watergate, that would see him impeached by the Senate and lose the presidency the following year. During ’73 though, his Vice-President, Spiro T Agnew, resigned following allegations of bribery, corruption, and tax fraud. Bobby Riggs and Billie-Jean King played out the ‘battle of the sexes’ in tennis, Secretariat won horse racing's Triple Crown, the Sydney Opera House was opened, and Roe v Wade made abortions legal in the States.
Take a good look at today’s news... The Ukraine War, gun control, gender issues, ‘royal’ petulance, rail, road and NHS strikes, hackers, fraudsters, and an intransigent China. We haven’t come very far, have we?
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