No Champagne

Life is full of vicissitudes and 2014 was a year that we kept asking, “what’s wrong with people?” as there is nothing actually wrong with world other than the fact that we, humans, have somehow made it our home!

… Talking of humans, this year saw us lose a few that we called friends but it gratuitously replaced these with some marvelous new ones which makes our address book gleam with joy and decency!

… there is plenty to be done yet – thousands of voices still await our amplification and to those naysayers who may have placed bets on our rapid demise ... “here we are chaps, still batting on!!” 

From Kiritimati to Baker Island and all other cities between, as the clock winds down to 2015, we take this opportunity to covey our gratitude to all of those friends who have steadfastly stood by our side. The ten months of operations and seven of dissemination of information have sometimes been bumpy… we truly value and appreciate your association and for that, we simply say thank you.

How better way to reflect on the subject of true friendship than revisit words of South Africa’s multi-award winning investigative journalist, Mzilikazi wa Afrika. Who wisely commented in his book, ‘Nothing Left To Steal’; “In this helter-skelter world, you will never know whether your friend is a snake or a snake is your friend until one of them bites you.”

Our warmest thanks goes too to the hundreds of thousands of people who have visited our platform since our launch mid this year … to us you are not mere traffic but rather friends whom we have yet to meet, and our work would not have been possible without you ... and to those who might have found offence in our respective reports, we have no apology to make; if they had wanted us to disseminate positive things about them, they should have behaved better.

If our content has made us some enemies then please fasten your seatbelts for 2015 as this fast approaching year ahead is bound to lose us even more. With our forged global associations and collaborations, uSpiked is not only going to cross borders and oceans and seas but NO location shall be too hot, too cold or too far for us to access and investigate then explain and advocate for social justice.

Our gratitude further goes to our selfless uSpiked team – from the data analysts and processors, to those journalists who have contributed their valuable time to bravely supply reports so often written whilst working in the shadows. [We are also indebted to that nameless super sub-editor, who has always made our reports more consumable; to her, we say a BIG THANK YOU, and would whisper, ‘you are irreplaceable’].

To our legal eagles who have continued to take our calls at ungodly hours ... thank you and thank you! Please rest up well as “ the rides, sails and flights” are about to get much bumpier !

Huge thanks to our talented young techno geeks who have kept the super highway of information flowing regardless of our 3 am calls and who have managed not to sneer at our sometimes techno incompetence.

Bullies, corporate thugs, shady landlords, human and sex traffickers, government officials, doctors, bankers, lawyers, teachers and auditors who have flouted the rules of fairness and ethics that in any way whatsoever have hurt or offended or negatively affected the public ... stand back ... we will not be cowed, we will find and repeatedly expose you. Nothing and nobody will stand in our way to provide our public with information that we believe is in their best interest and should and will be made available to them.

Already within our radar are various international and national non-governmental organizations. Nothing personal, but when a body like the UN, despite previously giving us an undertaking to look at instances of abuse by its contracted employees, sits back and wish the public would forget, the soft warning from uSpiked is that we shall ensure the public never forgets.

As 2015 approaches, wherever we are, uSpiked calls on its friends, associates and collaborators from across the world to, instead of popping that champagne, spare some thoughts to our professional colleagues who have lost their lives in the line of duty during the last twelve months.

Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy and the seventeen – YES 17, as in ONE-SEVEN - Ethiopian journalists currently being detained

We also call on all freedom-loving citizens of the world to remember those journalists in detentions around world for doing their work…  such colleagues as Al-Jazeera’s Peter Greste, Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy and the seventeen – YES 17, as in ONE-SEVEN - Ethiopian journalists currently being detained (Temesghen Desalegn, Eskinder Nega, Woubshet Taye, Reeyot Alemu among others); their freedom should be unconditional.

No New-Year Resolutions from our end other than a simple undertaking to continue to strive to authoritatively advocate for a just society while approaching our work with due diligence, responsibility, passion and fearlessness.

Happy 2015, and let us not forget the wise words of Anne Lamott; “You own everything that happened to you… If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”