Think of it as yet another invented tradition. There are a lot of them about at this time of year, but here’s mine. In recent years, for the last column in this slot before Christmas, I’ve tried to steer away from the gloom and offer, if not quite tidings of joy, then at least some reasons to be hopeful. At the end of 2023, that exercise feels as hard, and as necessary, as ever. With war raging in Gaza and continuing in Ukraine, as the climate emergency bites and as millions grapple with a cost of living crisis and the prospect of a recession, no one needs to spell out why.
Previously, I’ve tried to find grounds for optimism in the realm of world events. Sure enough, 2024 could, at long last, bring an end to Britain’s serially useless, rotten government. It may see the toppling of Benjamin Netanyahu and, you never know, a second defeat of Donald Trump (let’s not even think of the other possibility).
Still, I’m going to narrow the focus, concentrating on those things I experienced for myself, first hand. So, after a year that has too often been enveloped in darkness, here are a few small points of light.
In early October, I visited Wormwood Scrubs prison. I’d been invited by a dozen or so inmates, to address their reading group. They had read my book The Escape Artist, which tells the story of Rudolf Vrba, one of the first, and very few, Jews ever to break out of Auschwitz. (And yes, the irony of a bunch of prisoners wanting to learn more about a man who pulled off one of the greatest escapes of the 20th century was not lost on me or them.)
Now, I’ve been lucky enough to speak to dozens of audiences in several countries about that book, but this was an encounter like no other. These men had read the book closely, even intensely. They recalled very specific details. How come? An older prisoner explained. “The one thing about being here is, you have a lot of time. A lot of time.” He told me he had read The Escape Artist twice and parts of it three times.
Another, younger prisoner was struck by a passage that recalled how Vrba unnerved interviewers by maintaining a constant smile. That, he offered, was clearly a defence mechanism. “I know, because I do it myself,” he said, smiling. “If he stops smiling, he’ll cry.”
A third man noted the way, once Vrba had got out, the world refused to listen to his warning. He was making no comparisons, but that resonated with him too. “The outside world doesn’t want to know.”
That remarkable book club is one of 80, spread across 74 prisons, maintained by Prison Reading Groups, a charity that marks its 25th anniversary next year. It relies on a combination of volunteers and prison librarians, such as Tracy Coombes at Wormwood Scrubs. She presides over an impressive collection – and yet few inmates ever see it. They’re not allowed to come in and browse the shelves. That stopped during Covid, when movement within the prison was shut down, and it has not resumed. (Memo to Yvette Cooper: if you become home secretary, let prisoners back into prison libraries.) None of that has stopped Coombes or the volunteers. They understand that books can be a lifeline – and they’re there for those desperate to grasp it.
Nearly two months later, I had a second brush with the criminal justice system. I was summoned for jury duty. Obviously, the rules are tight on what jurors can say, so I’ll limit it to this. There were the familiar bureaucratic failures that we’ve come to associate with public services in the age of austerity and its aftermath. A crowded waiting room, with would-be jurors sitting around for days on end, because the computer had summoned too many of us. A freezing courtroom because the heating was on the blink. A case that had no business coming to trial, because the police had failed to do the investigative basics.
All of that was ample cause to be downcast. But here’s what happened. I was part of a jury that reflected the capital in 2023. The 12 of us included black, brown and white Londoners; among us could be heard the accents of France, Romania and Poland; and our jury contained an Orthodox Jew in a kippah and a Muslim woman in a hijab. We convened at a time of heightened communal tension but none of that intruded. Instead, we debated and deliberated in a spirit of warmth, humour and collective purpose. Everyone present took their duty seriously, sticking to the rules as laid out by a no-nonsense, impressively clear judge. When our verdict was delivered, I spotted the same look on my fellow jurors’ faces that you sometimes see on people who’ve just voted: the pride in a civic duty done, and done properly. And afterwards, we melted back into the city, never to be assembled again.
It’s a pattern that has repeated itself through the year: seeing the proof that while systems and institutions have too often been allowed to decay, regular people are doing astonishing things. I witnessed it again in the summer, when I visited Cook for Good, a social enterprise just a few minutes away from the Guardian newsroom (full disclosure: co-founder Karen Mattison is an old friend).
It includes a pantry, where for £3.50 members can choose from a selection of items – surplus food that would otherwise be thrown away by supermarkets or restaurants – taking away a basket that might be worth 10 times that amount. Members then stick around in the cafe chatting with neighbours, including people who live nearby but whom they might never have spoken to before. Meanwhile, there’s a professional kitchen, where businesses can pay to hold a team-building exercise for their employees, cooking together with a chef; the meals they make then go to local people in need. It’s a series of ingenious ideas, all under one roof and centred on the one thing that never fails to bring people together: food.
All those encounters were close to home. But far away, and even in the toughest places, you can spot glimmers of hope. The Israel-Hamas war has dominated the headlines this autumn and yet, amid all the death and devastation, there are people striving for something better. I sat with Rula Daood and Uri Weltmann of Standing Together, both in their 30s – one an Arab, the other a Jew – who are part of an energetic movement whose message is simple: they want a future where both peoples can be equal and both can be safe.
And I met Yair Golan, the former general hailed as one of the heroes of 7 October. When he heard of the Hamas attack, he put on his old uniform, jumped in a car and headed south where, with his own hands, he rescued survivors of the massacre at the Nova music festival, which had left more than 300 dead. Golan is a warrior. But he is also an outspoken critic of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and he will run in Israel’s next, possibly imminent, elections. Credible people describe him as the future leader of the Israeli left.
This year has brought much darkness, and there will be more of it in 2024. But there is light to be found, often in the most unexpected places. If only for a few days, we can feel its warmth.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
Join Jonathan Freedland at 8pm GMT on Tuesday 16 January for a Guardian Live online event. He will be talking to Julian Borger, whose new memoir, I Seek a Kind Person, reveals the story of his father’s escape from the Nazis via an ad placed in the Guardian. Tickets available here
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