The Grapes of Wrath: A Year That Has Challenged Our Assumptions and Tested Our Resilience
- Yet amid the chaos, there were glimmers of hope: youth-led movements demanding climate justice, communities rallying around displaced families, and artists daring to dream aloud.
What will the year 2025 say about humanity in the year 2075? Not much I’m afraid. As 2025 draws to a close, I find myself reflecting on a year that has been anything but ordinary. Sandwiched between the war in Ukraine and the complete and utter destruction of Gaza, we had the ongoing Sudan civil war, Bangladesh on fire, terrorism in India, the rise of Pakistan General Asif Munir, again, Israel’s aggression against its neighbors including Iran – the news was always about death and destruction. And of course, Tariffs! Money can control empires! Reminds me of history – not recent but of the 16th and 17th century — when the ships of the empire took on refined cultures with guns and cunning; and crafted a world order from which we never really recovered.
Gun Boat Diplomacy
This year has challenged our assumptions, tested our resilience, and offered glimpses of a coming world order that may be based solely on hate, race and brute power. We have started ‘stealing’ oil tankers off the Caribbean, we have bombed boats labeled ‘narco boats’ with no proof provided to the Senate or the House, we are openly calling for a regime change in Venezuela – guess we never did learn our lessons from Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries that we called ‘authoritarian.’
The war in Gaza has ended but at what cost. The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched a deadly incursion into Israel, resulting in 1,200 deaths and 251 captives. In response, Israeli operations in Gaza led to 46,870 fatalities and the displacement of most of its 2.3 million residents. The ceasefire terms required Hamas to release all Israeli hostages, Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. While the Israeli settlers continue to terrorize the West Bank, with zero accountability.
Closer home, ICE is now a dreaded term that is now the new normal on the streets of our cities. Protests began in Los Angeles on June 6 when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents raided several locations across the city. By the end of the next day, Donald Trump federalized California’s National Guard and ordered them to quell the protests, only adding fuel to the flames. In Minnesota, a picture of an ICE agent dragging a pregnant woman across the snow-covered sidewalk, who may or may not be an illegal alien is frightening and the new normal.
Socially, 2025 was a year of reckoning. The U.S. witnessed a decline in its immigrant population for the first time in decades, driven by stricter immigration policies and a chilling effect on new arrivals.
March Towards Totalitarianism
With President Donald Trump back in the White House, we never really recovered from the onslaught of policy changes, daily blast from the bully pulpit and signing of pardons to the 2021 insurrectionists and other political pardons. Two of the world’s largest and biggest democracies, India and the United States of America, continue their march towards totalitarianism and authoritarianism with the continued muzzling of the Press. As I’m writing this, I am hearing of CBS News yanking its 60-Minutes segment (allegedly due to pressure) on the infamous El Salvador notorious prison CECOT when the Trump administration deported a wave of detainees under their new immigration policies, without any court appearances.
Our children can now turn around and tell us good manners are not needed anymore, as they witness an increasingly nasty language and mannerisms coming out of the highest offices of the land. Who can forget the crazy TV moment on February 28, when a televised Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy devolved into a public spat, derailing critical minerals deal and sending shockwaves through global diplomacy.
Let us also not forget the extreme weather patterns across the globe, thanks to climate change and the complete lack of any moral courage shown on the world stage by any world leader. California wildfires, catastrophic floods, deadly earthquakes and cyclones, the year felt like nature was angry – with us and was retaliating hard – at us!
The shifting sands of identity and belonging was challenged like never before, here and abroad. Socially, 2025 was a year of reckoning. The U.S. witnessed a decline in its immigrant population for the first time in decades, driven by stricter immigration policies and a chilling effect on new arrivals. This demographic shift has sparked debates about national identity, labor shortages, and the future of multiculturalism. Refugee crisis around the world has hit critical crisis. Who really can forget the millions of Palestinians, Syrians, the Rohingyas living in extreme and abject conditions, in snow, rain and heat! Citizens of European countries are increasingly voting based on which party is toughest on immigrants. Closing your doors to migration is the policy of tomorrow.
In 2025, public trust in institutions continued to erode. A Pew Research study revealed that 70% of Americans believe the higher education system is headed in the wrong direction, with bipartisan dissatisfaction over affordability and job preparedness. The fact that Trump administration’s assault on higher education institutions continued unabated with various prestigious institutions like Columbia giving in to pressure, while Harvard chose to stay resolute.
Political Assinaations
The assassination of Charlie Kirk and countless other school shootings continued to headline our day, with still no gun-control laws in sight, 26 years after the Columbine School shootings. In Minnesota, a democratic lawmaker Malissa Hortman was assassinated along with her husband and dog, while another lawmaker, John Hoffman, is still recovering from his bullet wounds. But at the public spaces, the talk was not about bipartisan condemnation but of partisan politics.
Yet amid the chaos, there were glimmers of hope: youth-led movements demanding climate justice, communities rallying around displaced families, and artists daring to dream aloud. These moments remind us that history is not just something that happens to us, it’s something we shape. Japan and Namibia inaugurated their first women heads of government — Sanae Takaichi and Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, respectively. In religion, history was made as Sarah Mullally was the first woman to be appointed archbishop of Canterbury, and Leo XIV became the first American pope. And more Indian Americans went for the Allahabad Kumbh Mela this year, than any before!
Welcome 2026 – hope you are better than 2025!
Kuhu Singh is a writer with interest in social justice, cultural and political matters, in the U.S., India, and beyond.