The 8 favorable positive stories the Guardians staff chose to publish are....The international news agenda tends to focus on things that go wrong. Here we present a selection of the year’s good news stories, as a counterbalance to the ravages of war, violence, disease, natural disasters, corruption et al
Climate Change
Women rights in Egypt
FGM campaign
French women breaking gender barriers in sports
Events relating to Germany
Indian waste management effort
Spains health sector and transplantation
Progress in Somalia
Somalia
A blind man traces his finger over braille, smiling as he spells out the words “Mogadishu rising”. A man jogs along a gorgeous coastline, construction workers mix cement and hammer nails, cafe patrons relax over cake and coffee, and hopeful young people repeat the mantra over an upbeat soundtrack: “Mogadishu rising”.
The video was released on YouTube to promote the third TEDxMogadishu, an event with speakers including an architect, business entrepreneur, martial arts teacher, singer-songwriter, women’s rights activist and creator of a video series known as the Mogadishu Diaries. Workshops were also held at four universities.
Mogadishu, once the last place in the world to look for joy, provided some solace during a relentlessly grim 2014. There can be no downplaying the persistent mortal dangers – in February a UN convoy and the presidential palace suffered deadly attacks – but the city’s residents continue to show defiance, resilience and hope.
The Somali capital is enjoying a construction boom, with demand far outstripping supply and rental prices trebling in some neighbourhoods. An apartment in the new Safari complex reportedly costs nearly £222,000. The market is being buoyed by professionals pouring back from the Somali diaspora.
Al Jazeera recently reported that the international airport, once abandoned, “is now a beehive of activity” with 70 flights arriving daily and new terminals under construction. “A can-do attitude is currently gripping Somalia,” the report said. “Mogadishu’s skyline is ever changing.”
Since the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab was chased out of the city in 2011, there have been tentative, incremental steps towards a normal urban life. Cafes and restaurants have opened, embassies have returned and beaches have become popular again. In the past couple of months Mogadishu has introduced its first cash machine, its first independent art fair and the first postal service for more than 20 years.
One of the engines of the revival is Turkey, a leading donor and ally whose firms are upgrading Mogadishu’s air and seaports, and building schools, hospitals and mosques. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the first leader from outside Africa to visit Mogadishu in nearly 20 years and Turkish Airlines became the first international airline to return.
No one is pretending that Mogadishu will be on the tourist map any time soon. Al-Shabaab still controls swaths of Somalia’s countryside and settlements from which it continues a guerrilla-style campaign. But it has been losing ground and in September its leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed in a US air strike. Its hold on the capital is long gone, and in a year of global turmoil Mogadishu could claim, just for once, to be trending in the right direction. David Smith
We, the hitherto decades long indisposed good people of Somalia are grateful to David Smith and his colleagues at the Guardian for sharing in our optimism. If 2014 was an encouraging year, then 2015 shall proclaim our nations renascence.
