> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Fears and hopes
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/fears-and-hopes/
- Published: 2005-12-22T13:12:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-23T00:41:08.000Z
- Description: In the last days of 2005, leading thinkers and scholars from around the world share their fears, hopes and expectations of 2006. As Isabel Hilton asks: What does 2006 have in store? (Part one)
- Author: Neal Ascherson
- Tags: globalisation, #Migrated, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 17:02, #appended-excerpt

For 2006, I fear:

That the hopeful people of Iraq who go out to vote against all the threats of death and destruction will see their country fall apart into new destruction created by foreign meddling and megalomaniac clerics;

That the provincial fools who [rule Iran](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=2642) will betray their long-suffering subjects, by driving the country into follies which will tempt Bush and the neocons to strike at them;

That Israel will press forward with the colonisation of the West Bank, until yet another Palestinian uprising and yet another wave of Israeli military reprisals postpones Palestinian statehood;

That China's growing [demand](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=3136) for energy, raw materials and food will overwhelm all the world's efforts to conserve the rainforests and reduce the consumption of fossil fuels;

That the European Union will fail to replace its abortive “constitution” or to reconstruct the budget crippled – in the fiasco of the British presidency – by Tony Blair's unforgivable obsession with the rebate, and will begin to drift backwards towards disintegration;

That the Blair government, faced with more illegal outrages by the Bush presidency, will once again fail to protest and shame us with another display of hand-wringing servility.

For 2006, I hope:

That the people of China will gradually bring together all their countless acts of[protest](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=2859), in the factories and the countryside, into an unstoppable upheaval of democracy;

That the Israeli government will release Marwan Barghouti, and let him unite the Palestinian factions into a formidable, credible force which can make hard [bargains](https://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-debate%5F97/issue.jsp)but can guarantee that they will stick;

That the European Union will learn the lessons of the disastrous British presidency, and move towards the inevitable: an integrated core Europe which will insulate itself against British reluctance and intrigue;

That Lebanon will complete its liberation from Syrian [interference](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=3121);

That the Turkish people, in the name of a modern democracy, will at last challenge the forces of reaction, controlled by the military and intelligence nexus, which use ignorance and blind [chauvinism](https://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/View.jsp?id=3118) to maintain their grip.

In the last days of 2005, leading thinkers and scholars from around the world share their fears, hopes and expectations of 2006\. As [Isabel Hilton](https://www.opendemocracy.net/author/isabel-hilton)asks: What does 2006 have in store? ([Part one](https://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-vision%5Freflections/futurology%5F3153.jsp#4))