Slavery in the 21st Century

We live in the "enlightened" 21st Century. The time many of us dreamed about as the age where man would have matured and become just a bit more noble, caring and responsible. How wrong we were!

As I watched "Blood Diamonds" on CNN two days ago I was dumbfounded by the enormous greediness that has replaced the age of idealism we who are a bit older, grew up with in the 60's and the 70's. The report started my mind to meander back into the definition of slavery and look around a bit to find how Slavery in the 21st Century is being handled.

I found this well-researched but quite disheartening survey by BBC that I believe everyone should study thoroughly. The following paragraph stuck in my mind and darkened my soul:

"Forced labour affects millions of people around the world. It can be found in every region, in almost all countries and in every kind of economy, according to the UN. It is defined as work which is exacted under the menace of a penalty and undertaken involuntarily. Forced labour can be imposed by the state or private agents and takes different forms, including debt bondage, chattel slavery and prison labour. A growing proportion of forced labourers are victims of human trafficking."

Very sombering thoughts.

I can no longer look at the few pieces of jewelry with diamonds I own, without remembering the image of the diamond buyer, who offered one-third of the low price the African was asking for. Only ten thousand dollars for dozens, maybe hundreds of carats of the coveted stones - stones that will sell at four to eight thousand dollars per carat to the starry eyed couple who will want to buy that eternal diamond ring for their engagement.

And that is only one way man is exploiting man and keeping him in slave-like conditions. Modern day slavery takes many forms as the BBC survey shows. It exists right next door, no matter where you live. Men and women are being exploited for gain, for sex, for slave labor and probably for a host of other reasons I cannot fathom.

My thoughts went to another kind of covert slavery very few people realize exists yet in which most of us participate. I am talking about the type of slavery we are inadvertently pulled into in the modern day consumption oriented society. The type of slavery that arises from the urge to buy, buy, buy in combination with banks eager to loan us the money to feed our buying habit with, until we end up owing the value of everything we own, plus almost our entire life's earnings to the banks that so cheerfully gave us those credit cards and loans.

We live and work solely to survive and pay our bills. There is very little opportunity for the majority of people even in the so-called developed countries to actually save or invest. Saving and investing is limited to the small percentage that keeps getting richer by exploiting the rest. You don't feel exploited? When was the last time you bought something you didn't really need? For me, it was yesterday!

If you get up every morning, go to work for someone else, and your paycheck just barely covers your basic needs [and your loans] until the end of each month, then you belong to that nameless, faceless mass that falsely considers itself free. If you have not borrowed money yourself but your government has borrowed so much that each of its citizens would have to work for 30 years to pay off, you too have been indentured.

A few days ago I discussed the Mutable Multiverse. I proposed that we can change our reality by simply focusing on what we want. I still believe this. In society, however, there are group dynamics that interfere. You may be focusing on a good life for yourself and your family, but there is a whole bunch of other people who are focusing on ways to profit in every way they can from you. Which vision will prevail?

The dream of life

Sorry, you can't take it with you.

Not for lack of trying! The Pharaohs were buried with everything that could possibly make their afterlife comfortable. Ancient Chinese Emperors would take an entire army along, presumably, so that they would yield the same power after death as they had yielded during their lifetime. Even ordinary people were often buried with favorite objects or even pets to keep them company "after they were gone". In some parts of India, wives were sacrificed when their husbands died. Up to their last gasping breath, people still attempt to control their destiny and other people with the real or imagined power of their possessions.

It's not uncommon that parents still attempt to control their children's lives by means of their wealth - even if that wealth is modest. The power play between the haves and the have-nots is endless, relentless and takes no prisoners.

Guess what folks? You can't take it with you. Or, as my mom often says, "shrouds have no pockets". All those things that are of the living, stay with the living. The only coin that may hold any value once that final threshhold is crossed is the love, generosity and integrity with which you lived your life, and with which you paid those around you. Even if you don't believe in an afterlife, those qualities are the ones that will be remembered by those you leave behind.

Aye, there is the rub! Like it or not, we will all go someday. Life is ephemeral, perhaps only a dream we must all wake up from eventually, and like the shadows of a dream, eveything accomplished while living dissipates once the dream-life is over. All that is left, are the feelings we nurtured in others duing that short period. They could be feelings of love, gratitude, awe and grandeur, or they may be feelings of bitterness, anger, hate and misery. And because we are complex beings, these feelings may be of both, different for every aspect of our lives.

And guess what? Once one or two generations after us are gone as well, even those feelings will be forgotten and we will end up as perhaps a name in a dusty, old family album, or at best, another boring name to remember in the history books.

The dream of life is potent, addicting, exciting and we try to hold on to it with all our strength but it is, after all, only a dream. And you, old man, with your fading memory and all the quirks and eccentricities of your personality finally becoming dominant in your old age... YOU, old man who still wants to believe that the world revolves around you... you, OLD MAN who has forgotten that you must live your final years with dignity and affection, YOU will be dust sooner than you think with nothing left behind but the bitter taste of your name in the mouths of those you taunted when you should have embraced them.

I hope you wake up in a better place.