Another Day, Another Death

I was looking through a copy of The New Statesman today, and it's got an article in it asking for the readers' selection of the person of 2006. The article was composed of a series of the magazines' writers proposing various people (mostly the usual left-of-centre suspects). Will Self, whom I think is a bit of a pretentious arse, however, had an interesting subject.

The Average Iraqi.

Now, as far as Self's little piece went, he's right. Compared to all the other subjects (whose names I have forgotten), the average Iraqi - "probably a woman ... not an insurgent or in Al Q'aeda" - is indeed the best choice for this typically drivelling magazine poll. But there was a better choice, a more useful choice:

The Oppressed.

Every day, in every country on the planet, the majority of people scrape through their day. They suffer and they labour under laws which criminalise them, which take away what little they have, they struggle against social stigmas, they face death in many cases from death squads, from famine, from poverty, from disease, from a lack of education. They are dealt hands that bring only suffering. They are pissed on from above and ignored by the great and the good. Politicians make a show of aiding them in return for their votes - then promptly forget about them as soon as they enter the halls of power. Soldiers kill them. Militias rape them. Companies enslave them. Gangsters torture them.

And the world turns a blind eye. No-one wants to know, because it's not their child. It's not their mother, father, husband, wife, sibling, uncle or friend. It's someone elses'. In all likelihood, darlings, they don't know their Foucault from their Derrida. They might not even eat vegetarian meals! Even worse, my dears, they're criminals...

Of course, they're not. They're ordinary people trying to live from day to day as best they can with the shittest of circumstances. Generational poverty, drugs, drink, and other scourges blight their lives - and the biggest blight of all is the giant, callous, horrendously cold and uncaring indifference of the capitalist society that has spread from its powerhouses in 'The West' to engulf the world.

We are to blame as much as the ultra-rich and their monkeys. We could and should, no, we must, change the world. It is up to us to decide the future of humanity.

We have a choice, as we always do. We can carry on as we are, or we can dare to dream. We can build a new world. There have been 'experiments' which have, almost without exception, failed or brought about a worse state of affairs than before (Marxist-Leninism and Stalinism for one, Maoism for another, Pol Pot and Hitler for two more).

What is needed now is not another experiment, but an awakening of society. People must be made to know the reality of their world. They must see, with their own eyes, not through the eyes of preaching, ranting lefties like myself, but themselves - and they can then make the choice.

To obey, and march into darkness.

To disobey, and ascend into the light, to the utopia that we can build together.

It's OUR decision. It's not your government's. It's not the decision of BP, of Bechtel, of Nike, of McDonalds, or BAe. It's your decision. My decision. Our decision.

Which will you choose?