What Happened?

WHAT HAPPENED?
An Open letter to the Governments and Governors of the World
Aman Bloom 072 212 4017 amanbloom@gmail.com
Cape Town, South Africa, June 2008
What happened? You were once an idealistic young man fighting for freedom. Your own personal freedom and the freedom of the oppressed. You saw in diligence and incorruptibility the brightest of futures, a united people working together to make a just and sane society, a society that was based on need and merit, rather than greed and connections. What happened?
What happened? You were once a tough-minded, sweet-natured young woman, who saw in perseverance and honour the brightest of futures, for your mothers and sisters and for the daughters who you would bring into a new world, a revitalized world of equality and integrity. You committed yourself to work against a culture that was based on undue privileges and the constant taking of advantage. What happened?
What happened to you who struggled to start a business, a business where you would be proud of your product, a product that people would find worthy and want to buy. You would make an honest profit and people would gain from your labours. Or you studied to become a professional, one whose main occupation would be to be of service, to undo wrongs, to heal, to make things right. Right?
What happened to you? Please answer me that.
Oh, certainly, sometimes wimps get elected president and start wars; sometimes madmen or fanatics get hold of an idea and ride it roughshod into history by butchery and crookery. But, that’s not you, is it? Is it?
Sometimes the privileges of power result in excess, the swagger, the arrogance of leadership. The extra rights that those in power sometimes fall prey to, get addicted to, so that they hurry to use them whilst they can or, worse, refuse to give them up, and these, these ones they spend most of their effort, their grand effort, the sum of their lives, keeping and taking advantage of that power, discovering new ones, being advised of newer ones, ones that would be abusive if they were done by ordinary beings, so that they are swayed from the righteous path that led them here and wander into, what, unrighteousness? That, that is certainly not you. Is it?
Is it?
Were you abused as a youth by a violent step-parent, or have you become disillusioned by the realities of political or corporate means, the demands of advancement, the compromises and negotiations, and then did you become hungry for more, wallowing in disillusion until it became a balm for your ills... Is that what happened?
Are you being held hostage, in fact? Captured by greed. Is that what happened?
Through this fall from grace that you represent and foster, the general culture takes its cue, and thus we have criminality, insolvency, despondency and despair, the very elements that you once sought to eliminate from society.
And do you feel that if you tried to free yourself, that they, the others, would lose respect for you or would seek to harm you and, if so, what happened to the courage and will that you had in your youth? Squandered? Your decency has become victim to your ambition. None of this could have made you happy, or even satisfied.
And so, why, why do you stay where you are? When you could do so much, if you changed...
xxx