The Age of Downfalls

Odd as it may seem, 2011 is proving to be a year of rebirth Something deep and impressive is going on in the new generation who have an innate sense of justice and fairness

The Age of Downfalls, inaugurated when the 74-year-old President Ben Ali of Tunisia flew into exile and a coma, has claimed a surprising number of his generation. And it's not just the toppling of tyrants such as Ben Ali, the 83-year-old former President Mubarak of Egypt, or the 69-year-old Muammar Gaddafi, but also the demise of such men as Silvio Berlusconi (75), the former head of the IMF Dominique Strauss Khan (62) and the variety of threats faced by many Middle Eastern leaders, Rupert Murdoch (80) and the president of Fifa, Sepp Blatter (75).

Obviously, the same forces are not responsible for each man's troubles, but a year ago each of them seemed bombproof. We had no inkling that the world was about to be remade in such astonishingly short order; that history would decide, for whatever reason, that these men have had their time and the pathetic fiction of the dictator's hair dye would no longer work. If neutrinos can travel the length of Italy faster than the speed of light, calling into question our most fundamental assumptions about the universe, just about anything can happen.