Afternoon in the bay and I walk home from work under the warm sun. People pass me, walking, jogging, running in either direction around the lake. It is a day to be enjoyed. Yet here I am, drifting where others are basking, feeling as a troutlet must away in deep water when the current is too strong and there is nowhere a haven to be found. My headphones deliver to my ears the BBC world service from my phone. The host is speaking of the recent murder of a Ugandan opposition leader ahead of an important election. I cannot help but be reminded of the scenes in the film “Lumumba” showing the leader's capture and assassination. Regardless who the perpetrator of this recent murder is- and we may all entertain our suspicions as to whom this party is- my mind lingers on the probable anxiety that this man must have felt in the weeks, perhaps months leading up to his death. He, along with members of his party, had received threats in a political environment where the worst case is always as probable as any scenario to occur. What must it have been like, living with such fear? How did the acrity of his fear change when he was facing his attackers?
I saw 'City of God'-the film- for the first time yesterday. The images it portrayed and the knowledge that these were merely transposed from reality- our reality- my reality- threw my mind back into a space that it has often visited. It is a space where desolation, hopelessness, fear, stress, and incredulity coexist. The desolation of course is understood. One cannot but empathize with the downtrodden upon learning his story. Feeling hopeless may or may not be understood as coming from knowing of the persistence of such problems despite our civilization's apparent 'advancement' (technological, economic, and -some might think- moral).
**Note to self- keep an eye out in future reading for descriptions of class differences in history**
**ok, so if you are reading this, I should inform you that I hold the World Digression Trophy, and have held it since I began thinking and expressing myself coherently. Here's the subject of my digression: my note to self reminded me that I have had exposure to reference after reference, especially in economics related reading, pointing to the fact that the wide differences between today's rich nations and poor nations is a fairly recent development having taken off with the industrial revolution. While no specific references have been made (that I recall) to the differences between the rich and poor within the same country, one can extrapolate that whatever gaps existed before would have been exacerbated by the advent of the industrial revolution and its ensuing wealth creation (since the wealth was very unevenly divided both between and within nations).
Ok. Back from digression land.
The fact that the crime (yes I am calling this a crime, bear with me) of economic inequity is so great as to enable some to live lives of extreme excess while others have so little as to fester conditions ripe for crime (here I mean what we generally term crime, synonymous with illegality)... is one that I cannot justify with logic. Is it a misplaced sense of entitlement? Perhaps it is. However, is it not logical for any aristocrat, self entitled or not, to want a more stable environment? One in which no one is so poor as to wish to shake up the system? One in which no one is so poor as to feel the need to rob and kill? One in which people are comfortable enough with their situation- so that they would be risking too much by creating the sort of scenery portrayed in City of God?
Now, I may sound like a doll eyed little girl who has yet to see the 'real' world for what it is. Sadly I have- seen, heard of, read about, lived in that world. I experience it everyday when I walk by the homeless on my way to mingle with the wealthy. And while I am fortunate to not live in any of the many Cities of God which exist today, the simple fact of my existence in this world where such cities exist while others live in opulence troubles me. Just as my existence in and awareness of this world where people would rather insult, attack, mutilate, denigrate, kill each other than communicate for the advancement of a common purpose troubles me.
And maybe what I am doing now is an example of why these things persist in spite of our awareness of them. After this brief moment of reflection, I will go to sleep, work, look forward to my days off, rest, worry about how to accomplish my dreams and satisfy my wants... and life will go on, even if often interrupted by reflections on this and related subjects.
