#ziep

photo by Ziep

I have always maintained that the Nobel Prize for Peace, should go to the poor of this world. Having lived in the developing world  for over two decades I have often wondered  why it is that these billions of poorest of the poor go on slaving away at their miserable lives right in the face of so much conspicuous wealth.

How do they keep going at sorting stinking garbage right next door to a 5000 sqf greek style mansion with a 6 car garage and a swimmingpool lined with doric columns?

How can they persevere peddling their cut pineapples and other wares just to be able to afford the shanty dwelling and a diet of one meal a day? And how can they continue to hold up their rag swaddled babies with runny noses to the windscreen of  a BMW, a Hummers or a shiny Lexus without feeling the need to pound at it? 

The answer is: they labour under the impression that they have no other choice; It is because they feel powerless and disposable. But just stop and think about it for one minute - and after what has happened in London and in other British cities earlier this year this is no longer so hard to imagine- that tomorrow the billions of poor in this world would unite and would take their bricks, sticks, stones and kitchen knives and march up to us, in our shiny offices, mansions and cars, and start destroying, looting, burning, raping and killing. There would be absolutely nothing we could do about it. 

Hence they are deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize. Because until now, it has been only the good manners of the poor and nothing else that has saved us from total anarchy and has made it possible for us, a miserably small number of global elites, to maintain our privileged lifestyles and flaunt it too.

The question is: For how much longer they can keep it up ....