Kirk Boyd is a guest blogger for The Intelligent Optimist and secretary of the International Bill of Rights project.
When I started blogging here a few weeks ago I suggested that I would be talking about how to build a bridge from war and want to peace and prosperity. I guess I’ve decided to build that bridge with movie reviews. Earlier I pointed out how the movie Elysium portrays humanity as having developed the ultimate gated community with the rich living in outer space while Earth goes to hell. After Earth portrays environmental ruin causing a human exodus en masse from Earth, and The Hunger Games portrays a planet were people in the “Capital” live grotesquely lavish lives while the people in 12 surrounding “districts” scrape by in squalor.
Unfortunately, real life is moving in that direction. In the United States kids grow up in gated communities only to later go to gated universities – all while wealth consolidates into the hands of fewer and fewer. The most recent recession followed by the biggest boom in the stock market in 20 years has actually caused the redistribution of wealth to swing further to the extremes.
So on to our latest film, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. How does this bode for our future? The vision embodied in Mandela is more likely to occur than the other three. We’re coming to an international breaking point. The growing disparity of wealth is no longer just race-based because its impact is more heavily felt by people of color. It is reaching down into the white middle class where the average American 35-year-old is a serf with less than $3,000 in net worth. More than 60 percent of all Americans are living hand to mouth on a month-to-month basis. Something is going to give, and it might be violent.
The same is true for the environment. The true terrorists are drilling the Arctic, not floating around in ships protesting that drilling. At some point the devastation of the environment is going to bring violence against the forces causing it. So how is this all optimistic? Because I think that people will reach for a pen or a keyboard before they reach for a rock or a wrench. An International Bill of Rights provides an alternative to the violence that will ensue on this present path, just as it did in the movie Mandela. It took a change in law as well as leadership in South Africa. So take a moment, certainly not more than 3 minutes, to read, sign and share an International Bill of Rights. Choose the right ending.
Photo: herr.g/Flickr