“We live in a world in which there are equal opportunities for everyone. Everybody starts at the bottom of the ladder and then goes up by his/her own merits or by the power of fate. Everybody can get to the top of the ladder, and poor people are poor because they do not make the effort. There are rich countries because their people work, and poor countries in which people only sing and dance. And if there is inequality, it is because fate has decided to favor more to some than to the others.”
We dissent. We know that a just world is yet to come. We have been moving towards it for thousands of years, step by step. First the slaves. Then workers. Then women.
But those who have many privileges want to keep them, and make us drag our feet.
We want to stop dragging our feet>>.
We are not saying to take the powerful people out of their homes and hang them in the street. And it is not that some of them do not deserve it. It is because we are no longer stupid.
We will not stop receiving their money. Because that wealth was the fruit of our work, and we cannot live without it.
But we will no longer believe in their lies. Nor in their ghost enemies. Nor in the moral hierarchy of cultures. Nor in good versus the demon. Nor in a thousands threats that claim for their protection.
We will no longer support their wars. Because these are their wars, not ours. Let them go. Let them put their children forward.
We will no longer believe in their lies. We know that in the ladder not all of us start equal. We see this every day. We are not stupid. And that is not the hand of god dividing the goods of the world. It is the abuse committed by those who can abuse and tip the field against everyone else.
The wealth of the world is the fruit of our work. We want our share. A big one. A just one.
We want to create more wealth and to stop misery, but we do not want to let ourselves be blackmailed for those who ask our blood and privileges in exchange of generating wealth with our work.
We want to receive better education. That will make us less dependent. So we will be able to negotiate our share better. So we will not have to give so much to those who organize us, who give orders to us.
That's why the privileged fear universities: because we are teaching people to organize themselves.
We will not let ourselves be used to exploit and make others suffer, not even in exchange for money, not even if that's the usual thing. We will not be one against the other. We have grown.
We are going to be happy. Illegitimate authority makes us suffer. Seeing privileges unfairly earned make us suffer. Misery makes us suffer. Absurd prohibitions make us suffer. Pollution makes us suffer. Fear and war make us suffer.
We have been selling out in exchange of order and security. We are learning to organize ourselves. We can do it. And we will not pay for protection. We will not repeat the stupidity of a war between continents, between cultures. We will not accept it.
They believe that without fear we will not work. This is not true. We work because we want to be more, because everyone wants to be more. Otherwise, there would not be so many students.
They believe that without prohibitions our pleasures will entrap us. Do not worry for us. We have grown.
We will not allow power to keep on concentrating. And we are not only speaking of official leaders. We know they are there just to attract the bullets in case something goes wrong. We are speaking about those who have the money.
We will not allow the power to keep on concentrating, and to do so, we are going to create knowledge and art for everyone. We will grow by creating abundance, not by creating scarcity for the benefit of a few.
Every one of the things we need, will carry more knowledge and art, and less land and money. The freer the knowledge and art, the less valuable money will be, and the more abundant things will be.
And we will grow together until we no longer need to accept the blackmail of a few.
And we will grow together until we can enjoy that wealth.
And we will do it, we are doing it, in a few generations. We will do it fast, because we can not keep on waiting. We will not drag our feet anymore. We will not let the past prevent us from going to the future.
In a few more years our species will reach a population peak and then it will return to a population level that will be more appropriate to the size and resources of our planet.
In the meantime, we will not let our wealth in the hands of a few. We will do it by sharing with others what we have learned. We will do it without pause, without delay, without dragging our feet.
We will move on together learning how to organize ourselves, demanding what is ours and making ourselves freer. As we are doing now. As we have always do.
Photos: Kris, Caliope, MTSTrading, Fifila: Flickr // Creative Commons.
The Travelogue
