On the 14th of July 1789 the peasantry rose up against bourgeoisie and stormed the infamous prison fortress of Paris, the Bastille. It marked the start of the revolution that led to the rolling of heads before the infamous Madame le Guillotine.
The scaffolds erected for that bloody orgy may have macabre significance, but they became the scaffolds that propped up and stayed the new institution of democracy, until the structure was able to stand on its own. The revolution paralleled similar, though less gruesome, upheavals in the new world, resulting in the independence of America and the emergence of constitutional liberalism.
The blood shed by the maternal and condescending world of elitism, marked the birth and infancy of a new world order. It was a very significant chapter of human history that finally gave power to the people. That same thrust led to the industrial revolution and the greatest ever surge in human development. The world finally cast off the yoke of superstition, religious control, the sway of kings, the predispositions of birth and the restraints of a controlled society, thereby freeing all souls everywhere to find and stake their own respective places in the bright sun of that age.
It was an age pregnant with possibility. The people had risen up and cast off the yoke, because they were ready to take their rightful place in the emerging world – and did they just. Democracy brought real consensus to government, power to the people, energy to industry, health to a sick world, vitality to a stilted society and new horizons to science.
But the people are grumbling again. The issues of our world have led to such significant global issues that our success has become our failure. We have been enslaved by our freedom, weighed down by the chains of materialism, indebted to the world that we freed – to walk in the shadow of man’s displacement of God. We have lost our way, just as Israel so long ago stumbled at their river then rallied, fought for their inheritance and tamed their land, only to regress into bankruptcy and exile.
What did we fight for – in the recent great wars? Have we sold our birthrights of freedom, justice and equity to another, power-hungry, corrupt elite who, through their insatiable quest for wealth and power have even turned our mother against us? Her breasts are cracked and her skin wrinkled, but as she writhes in the pain of our collective neglect, she imperils us all – for she that once suckled our humanity and comforted her children is at risk of becoming the greatest threat to our existence. We have gone too far and now must pay the ultimate price for our folly.
Our dreams lie writhing on the ground, truth stumbles in the streets and the once brave and unstoppable force of humanity now shivers in rags as the food queues grow and the money trees dry up. What a mess we have made with the much we once had?
(c) Peter Eleazar @ www.4u2live.net
No comments:
Post a Comment