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Dreams of equity

Fozia Akhtar
***That, after all, is the point of dreaming, (^remind ourselves that alternate realities can be imagined, and if imagined, can be realised. That someday people may tire of a world ruled by giant corporations and their friends — the World Bank, IMF, WTO. That people may stand up and demand their rights and the rights of their brothers and sisters of all colours and nations and religions. That people may realise that the divisions we create through race, religion, and social standing serve only to make things easier for those who seek to conquer us. That the possessions constantly being advertised will not make us happy, but that a higher state of contentment can come about when we are living in a more equitable world, no longer faced by human suffering and misery, no longer forced to deny the humanity of the poor in order to maintain our own equanimity.***
I have a dream. No, not a dream of owning a fancy home or a fast car. Not even one of romance or fame. My dream is far more immodest. I dream of a world where people are valued more than possessions, where nobody goes hungry and nobody is inordinately _ rich, where basic needs for all are
met, and people of all religions, skin colour, and both sexes get fair treatment because their common humanity is more important than their other qualities.
In such a world, respect will not be a matter of income but of contribution. Those people will be respected who do the most for others, in terms of the work
needed for society to function, such as farming and looking after children, and in terms of their qualities (generosity, kindness), rather than their big incomes.
So it's a crazy dream, but I suspect I'm not alone in dreaming it. Martin Luther King had a similar dream, though more about overcoming racism, which
he spoke out famously in Washington, DC on August 28, 1963. He was assassinated almost five years later, proving that having a dream -- and speaking about it publicly, and working for it - - could be dangerous.
Leaders of various countries have had similar dreams, and have worked for equality in their countries, for decent conditions for everyone. Some of them have been assassinated. American leaders tried to topple Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, without success. In other cases, America has used military might, or the loan programs of the World Bank, to prevent such dreams from becoming reality.
Dreams must be scary things, when they threaten the power structure. Why this dream? Call me funny, but I find it dehumanising to pass people on the streets who don't know if they
will be able to feed themselves or their children that evening, who lack proper shelter, who themselves had no access to school and can't send their children either, and who know that if they or their family members fall sick, they will have no access to decent health care. Call me funny, but I don't feel happy that I have so much and they so little.
I find it wrong.
Sometimes I get depressed thinking faraway thoughts about people dying of TB in Russian prisons because the government, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, can no longer afford their care. About indigenous Guatemalans still getting kicked off their land, partly because in the 1950s the CIA assassinated the one leader, Arbenz, who tried to institute land reform. About children orphaned by AIDS because the pharmaceutical companies see nothing unethical about making
large profits selling the drugs that could save people, drugs that are almost exclusively used by the very poor.
It hurts me to think of the G8 nations spending more on a conference to discuss poverty than it would cost to forgive the debt of a few African nations. To know that the flow of money is not from wealthy countries to Africa, but the other way around, with debt servicing amounting to far more than "aid." To know that much of what is called aid goes right back to the country giving the aid, in the form of highly paid consultants, foreign SUVs, and foreign equipment. To know that so much misery and suffering in the world could be overcome so easily, if people only prioritised other people over profits.
A funny little thing happens to me when I get depressed. I start to envy those who don't care or don't seem to notice. Those who
don't believe that the poor, the ill, the oppressed are fully human, that their suffering matters the way that the suffering of a rich person matters. I almost wish I could be like them, believe that I deserve better than others simply because my family had light skin or is well educated or has money. That somehow I've earned my privileges, and others should stop complaining and do the same.
At times like those, I remind myself that a bit of depression is the price I have to pay for having a soul. That it is better to feel the bonds of humanity, and suffer for it, than to live a free and empty existence. That in feeling, I have the possibility of acting, and in acting, 1 may help to bring about change.
That, after all. is the point of dreaming. To remind ourselves that alternate realities can be imagined, and if imagined, can be realised. That someday peo-
ple may tire of a world ruled by giant corporations and their friends -- the World Bank, IMF, WTO. That people may stand up and demand their rights and the rights of their brothers and sisters of all colours and nations and religions. That people may realise that the divisions we create through race, religion, and social standing serve only to make things easier for those who seek to conquer us. That the possessions constantly being advertised will not make us happy, but that a higher state of contentment can come about when we are living in a more equitable world, no longer faced by human suffering and misery, no longer forced to deny the humanity of the poor in order to maintain our own equanimity.
Dream it.
Live it.
Foaa Akhtar is a freelance contnbulor to The Daily Star.