Best wishes to all those who’ve done something - anything - in 2016 to deserve a happy New Year of 2017. And worst possible wishes to all the others for the decidedly unhappy New Year that they’re due for having deliberately done wrong or else failed in their duty to do right by their fellows over the past 12 months, or in many cases far longer, and have no intention of changing their ways.

Of course in the former category I include a whole spectrum of people ranging from those who’ve strenuously striven to be outstanding human beings in their ordinary, everyday lives on the one hand, to heroic humanitarians and ferocious fighters for justice and human rights on the other.

I’m conscious that I should be careful in naming any of the people or organisations I have in mind here, lest I cause offence to some by forgetting or not having sufficient space to include them, or else embarrass or endanger them through public exposure.

Suffice to mention, then, by way of example, such friends and former colleagues as ‘Chemical’ Ali, Alice and her husband Stephen; fellow-travellers in the quest for truth, integrity and transparency in government, like the management, staff and most of the readers of Malaysiakini; literally countless fellow pro-democracy writers and bloggers like Azly, Din, Mariam, KJ, S Thayaparan and Zan; and, last but as far as possible from least, the inimitable and unquenchable anti-regime cartoonist and lampoonist, Zunar.

Some of the similarly countless organisations I can’t help thinking of as well-and-truly due the happiest-possible wishes for this and every other New Year include Malaysia’s Sisters in Islam, Sarawak Report and now sadly inactive Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia (SABM), France’s Médicins Sans Frontières, Reporteurs Sans Frontières, Syria’s non-government civilian volunteer rescue workers, the White Helmets, and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

As for all those who are not due a New Year at all, let alone wishes for a happy one, the first lot I can think of, as long as I’m concentrating on Malaysia for this column, are the members, cronies and supporters of the ever-ruling Umno/BN regime.

As of 2017, this cartel of ‘criminals’ posing as a coalition government has enjoyed an unbroken run of 60 years of allegedly happily robbing Malaysians of their rights, freedoms and protections and their nation of its natural resources. Thus these political ‘predators’ deserve to rot for years in prison, not to be wished, let alone allowed another happy year in power at the public’s expense.

All the signs are there, however, that they have every intention of celebrating in 2017 as happily for themselves and as unhappily for the people as they did in 2016 and for decades before.

Continuing to avoid and evade the fact

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak continues to avoid and evade the fact of, let alone his responsibility for, the massive 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) brouhaha. And his cabinet ministers and other sycophants, supporters and apologists are still solidly behind him in his campaign of denial and deception.

Meanwhile the regime has even more daylight robberies in train. Literally, as in the case of the allegedly monstrously over-priced MRT rail system currently under construction.

So rather than yet another happy year, I, along with the majority of Malaysian citizens, I suspect, hereby wish Umno/BN a decidedly crappy or even accursed year.

In the fond if admittedly faint hope that the US Department of Justice will finally bring criminal charges against Najib and his accomplices in the 1MDB imbroglio; or that Najib will call the 14th general election (GE14) and that Chinese numerology will come to the party and make sure that for Umno it turns out to be truly ‘forever die’.

And then there’s always the chance that the RAHMAN prophecy will come true, and Najib’s fall will finish off BN forever.

But of course it’s not only Najib and Umno/BN who are well and truly due, in fact way overdue, for a deservedly unhappy New Year.

There are also Bashar al-Assad, his murderous regime and its brutal Russian allies, for example, who are due endless retribution for five years of slaughter of the Syrian people and destruction of their homeland.

Then there are the likes of Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and all the other similar death-squads, many of which have been happily getting away with their crimes against humanity for far too many years.

And finally, who knows whether to wish the US and its citizens a Happy New Year? With president-elect Donald Trump just weeks away from being sworn-in to office, it’s anybody’s guess how 2017 will turn out for ‘God’s Own Country’ and the rest of the world.

Given Trump’s stated intention of greatly beefing-up the US’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, chances are that rather than a Happy New Year we could well find ourselves facing the unthinkable horrors of a Happy Nuke Year.

In which case the displays of fireworks on which Sydney and so many other cities squander such a fortune for the sake of celebrating the New Year could this time around portend the possibility that far more serious and deadly global or regional fireworks, or at least a decidedly dangerous arms-race, may be due in the very near future.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.