What did you do on your day off?

Thailand is noted for its many public holidays.  This week had two. What to do?  Well, most Thais go to the beach or go home to family or just stay at home and relax.  However, if you are wealthy enough, you open your new road into your housing estate.  So what is so special, you may ask?  It was that, as I watched the simple road opening ceremony, I saw the owner being driven down his new road in his Bentley.  I automatically asked myself - how many Bentleys are driven around my hometown of Brisbane?  None, that I know.  Even if one in Brisbane could afford a Bentley, no one would surely buy one as too pretentious.      

The owner rightly treats his guests royally.  Shouldn't we all?

Social inequality is real.  The gap between rich and poor is a major concern in any nation's pursuit of peace and stability.  Unlike Cambodia or Laos, Thailand is not a poor country with its people having been largely raised out of poverty.  Sadly, this is not the full story, for Thailand knows a growing gap between its richest and the rest of society.  This increasing wealth gap has become its pressing issue.  Of course, Thailand does not stand alone on this as this only reflects a worrying world trend where peoples are becoming more divided, not united, on the basis of shared wealth.

   

This is happening amidst present and eager cries of the pandemic for human solidarity.  They are voiced in "Leave no one behind" and "No one is safe until we are all safe".  The medical experts and global leadership plainly state that this pandemic cannot be fought without all of us fighting it together.  The truth is that our future and strength lie in our coming together.  

Yet the harsh opposite ever raises its head, with division and social inequality being highlighted in so many ways during this pandemic.  What is worse is that divisions are being used in destructive ways for short term gain by powerful forces which are pursuing their own agenda of power and greed. 

  

Despite all, people are reaching out to each other with renewed vigor as never before in recent times.  At the grassroots, people worldwide are showing care and concern for their neighbor, taking time to get to know each other and helping strangers in need.  

Within our mixed reality, a disconnect exists with certain leading elites choosing not to share in a way forward based on a preferred philosophy of human solidarity.  Rather they choose division for the sake of achieving their own meager ends.   Their choice does not diminish the better choice taken by so many, for the real power, the future belong to those who choose otherwise.