One World, Different Realities

Her liver-spotted hands clinched the burgundy passport as she walked down the aisle, looking for her seat. Her attachment to the booklet issued by her ‘Britannic Majesty’ said a lot about her identity.

She had flamed-coloured hair and an oblong face, and wore a jet-black coat that nearly swept the floor.

Her voice, when she spoke, was firm and slightly imperious. Her accent was nebulous:  it couldn’t be traced to a specific region.

Maggie* was her name, and she originated from Zimbabwee  as she pronounced it, which during her time there was known as South Rhodesia.

 In her recollections about South Rhodesia some thirty-something years ago, she spoke fondly about the opulent luxury that surrounded her life. Life was good before the onset of independence. White farmers went about their business peaceably; pitching Zimbabwe as the breadbasket of southern Africa. The black population was less prosperous, but they bore no grudges. Black and white lived side by side in harmony…or so she imagined.

In a latter narration, she admitted that crossing the border to South Africa and witnessing apartheid upfront came as a shock. She had never been exposed to such realities.

If you have ever read Peter Abraham’s ‘Tell Freedom’, you will get a crystal view of everyday life under the apartheid rule. The reality of ‘European only’ lavatories, ‘European only’ spaces, beaches, restaurants, residential areas, schools…the list goes and on and on.

The labels no longer exist, but the realities do. And the variant realities are not restricted to Southern Africa, or the developing world.It bites everywhere – Europe, America, Australia.

Analysts claim discourses on poverty are no longer the in-thing. The hot potato is now income inequality. 

More working class and middle class people are out of pocket  due to soaring taxes, energy bills, utility bills, insurance payments, living costs; they are neck deep in payments to ensure a living. While the super-rich are getting richer by the minute.

The system supports and maintains the status quo; and I'm not just talking about capitalism; even socialist and communist-style economies suffer the same inequalities.Whether it is America, China, Britain, Russia or South Africa, the gap between the super-rich and others grows wider day by day.

I often ask myself: Is it realistic to try to bridge the gap between the super-rich and others?  Can a fair level of equality ever be achieved? The answer that keeps coming to me is, until we formulate a new system that spells out a more balanced equation, there will always be the thriving super-rich and the rest. There will always be those living in decadent luxury, and those surviving by the skin of their teeth.

Realistically, there will be no new formula. Equality will remain nothing but a myth that we strive towards. We will always live in one world but have vastly different realities. It's up to us to accept the reality or fight to join the premier league.