More openDemocracy authors reflect on a volcanic decade in global politics - continued from part I

A volcanic decade in global politics ends amid deep unease about the world’s ability to rise to key 21st-century challenges. openDemocracy writers draw breath and look ahead by reflecting on three questions:

1) What was the most significant trend in the century's first decade?

2) What do you most hope for, and most fear, about the decade to come?

3) What idea do you see fading and/or emerging in 2010 and beyond?

Those arrested in Iran after the presidential election join the detainees from earlier moments of repression. The blogger and openDemocracy author Hossein Derakhshan is one of the latter. The anniversary of his incarceration is being marked by efforts to publicise his case, reports David Hayes. (This article was first published on 30 October 2009)

How does the great uprising of 1989 look now, in the perspective of twenty years? Many questions still surround the events when “we the people” became the subjects of history in east-central Europe, the Berlin wall fell, the communist governments in the region disintegrated, and the cold war expired. What did people want, and have they got it? What and who made the change possible? Who benefited, who lost? Was it a “real” revolution (and is that a good or bad thing)? If it was not the end of history what was it the start of? Is it too early to be disappointed, or too late to be hopeful? The fact that 1989 was also the year of Tiananmen, the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Brazil’s return to democracy, and the Iranian fatwa emphasises both its pivotal character and its contemporary resonances. On the anniversary, openDemocracy writers from around the world reflect on 1989 and the world made in its shadow.