Someone has to do it with the ultimate motivation to improve the lot of our people.
There is too much suffering in the midst of plenty and there is an ever widening gap between the hoi polloi and the bourgeois.
We fail to realize the fact that the greatest security for the middle and upper class is the growth (albeit perceived) of the lower class and the belief that they can grow out of poverty. Once that hope is gone or believed to be beyond their reach, they fight (self-preservation instincts) to get out of the rot (aspiration death). And guess who they prey on? The “haves”!!!
Sainthood is not just religious, and injustice is not only in legal matters.
It is unjust to deprive people of appropriate living by poor policies and leadership fuelled by selfishness, corruption, cronyism, unfair taxing models, deprivation due to misappropriation, and destitution by lack of development and social amenities, molestation with wealth both ill-gotten and legitimate.
You ask yourself: – for how long will the ostrich model work for us, (our society and me)?
What will I tell my maker I have done with the endowments he sent me to earth with when I meet Him?
How do I explain to myself and live with my conscience that I knew what could have been done better and differently but didn’t do it?
How do I reconcile my soul to the fact that I had something to give but chose not to, had talent given to me but ended up not using it, saw someone I could help and didn’t.
It comes down eventually to choosing to live for mankind and not self. Choosing to pay back society for a sense of oneness with mankind and not one-up-ishness. This eventually defines our being and life when the world looks for us and doesn’t see us (the body). Our body of work, virtues, impact and thoughts we leave behind is what shows our journey here (foot-prints).
The judgment we seek in the hereafter will look at the evidence and who better to give it than the people we lived with.
Today, our society has left itself open to certain definitions that has skewed our values to the physical and material.
It is now more important to us how much wealth (irrespective of the source) a man has acquired, how much power and intimidation a man can wield, how big a man’s house is, how long the convoy and whether he has a siren or not.
Values such as education, attitude, behavior, integrity, uprightness are attributable to the mundane. How foolish have we become!!!
To continue to tread that path is definitely leading to doom as a society.
Leadership is required to not only reverse the dark, slippery slide but to right the wrongs committed on this path. We are not given any more because we have trained many, or lifted many out of poverty except widely publicized poverty.
So next time we cross paths and you ask why I am in politics, remember that it is about all of us, our today, tomorrow and hereafter. It is not just about the infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools, and rails), laws, and institutions but also about the intangibles – our way of life, dispositions, character, behavior and most importantly, our sense of justice. If and when the task is done, the wheel stops turning and there is no more injustice in our land – “I will hang my boot” and look back, NOT with derision but with the smile of an old man who has done his part for mankind.