Grim breakfast: Two boys salvage rotten eggs from a mound of garbage outside Harare, Zimbabwe. Trash collection is the latest casualty of the nation’s crumbling economy; waste management firms say they can no longer afford to provide the service because of fuel and spare-parts shortages.
Do you know what I want for Christmas? I want a world in which these children can get a decent meal without having to rummage through garbage piles for food no longer fit for human consumption. I want a world in which these children can dream of a better life, of education, and a way out of the cycle of life-long, abject poverty.
I want a world in which our leaders devote more time, energy, and money to the production and distribution of butter than guns. I want a world in which Americans aren’t hated for their agressive, arrogant brutality and imperialism, but loved for their selflessness and willingness to pay any cost and bear any burden to alleviate the suffering of the sick, the infirm, and the hungry.
I want a world in which the life of a young American soldier counts for more than a means toward an end, where hundreds or thousands of these lives aren’t traded for a policy objective that is both immoral and ill-defined.
I want a world in which our leaders do not wrap themselves in flag and faith in a transparent effort to mask their lies and deceptions. I want a world in which propganda isn’t a serviceable substitute for intelligent discourse, and in which dissenters do not find their patriotism and love of country questioned simply because they do not march in lockstep with the dominant ideology of the day.
Is all this too much to ask for? In this day and age, I’m guessing yes, which is too bad, because in this Christmas season, when everyone is talking about peace and goodwill, that’s really all it is…talk.
