The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869 billion, while the world’s poorest 60%, almost 5 billion people, have little or nothing to eat. The world’s five richest men, LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffet, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have seen their wealth double since 2020 and are earning $14m an hour, Oxfam’s report said. Source, (Aljazeera)
But while the world’s few rich elite piles up wealth, world poverty has increased for the first time in nearly three decades, Oxfam said.
Isn’t it so interesting to see how things play out in life? That one man can make close to $14 million in an hour in a world where million others live on less than 2 dollars per day. Just five men, I mean men who run the world. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about these men.
Let me welcome you here, to South Sudan and if you are new here, it is not always the South Sudan you have been told. We have good people everywhere. If I can take you to the hospital, you will find men and women who are doing great jobs there, saving lives and putting smiles on people’s faces.
We have universities, and professors who are trying their very best to change the narrative. We are not badly off and we are proud of all the good this country has blessed each one of us with but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that we have our problems and of course we have found ways to make them better problems.
There is one thing you will never do and it is to change your past. Yes, our history was written with blood and so bad to remember the innocent lives we have lost doing so but we have a shared future and because we are so young, the journey there is going to take time.
If you still don’t know, there is no perfect government but our government should not take this as an excuse for anything. There is still something not done and it is going to cost us in long term and it is growing inequality between the haves and the have-nots.
No wonder, this country having gone through its hardest phases of its younger life has seen people going to bed with empty stomachs and has also watched others amass wealth of great proportions until there was nothing left for others.
The economic gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening every single minute and it is not because we don’t have enough to satisfy every man’s need, it is just that we have men who think that they are more South Sudanese than others, which, among other reasons has been one of our greatest problems.
You don’t need don’t need to know someone with a leg ahead for you get something out of life here. This country should give every man the opportunity to showcase their potential and give them the space to thrive with dignity.
If I had it right, why would a man in his right senses with a University degree buy an expensive car amounting to $100,000 and on top of that eat the money, which was meant for road. Where will you drive the car if I may ask? The truth is, our blessing is our curse if we still don’t know.
In our pursuit for wealth, those at the top of the pyramid finds it harder to allow others to climb and those at the bottom finds it pretty hard to get there. The wealth, with the little population that we have has been unequally distributed and cause of social and economic problems. What happens if those on top and below drifts further apart every day as it has been happening?
The world has never been equal and it is a sad reality we must accept. There are those who get richer because others are getting poor. I take the story of two men who led two different lifestyles. The two lives in the country but with different income levels. One lives in plenty where there is no lack. The other second citizen languishes in extreme poverty.
The country, where these two men came from is imaginary but it is rich enough to provide and improve the lives of the duo but because one is more powerful than the other, he uses his power to take everything for himself.
For the first man, the richest, each day is a blessing to him because it is a testament that he has another day to make more money, for the second citizen, the poorest, a new day starts with a prayer request, he gets down on his knees to ask his God for many things.
This man doesn’t ask for much, only two simple things, the next meal and of course his own life. For him, it is not God who controls his fate but the man next door, his richest neighbor. He can decide to wipe him off from the face of the earth and there is nothing he will do about it.
Just few days ago, this man, the richest man around bought a villa abroad with millions of dollars. But his friend, the second-class citizen was beaten up when he asked for his three-month salaries. For someone who has lived with these two men, I have seen their lives and I have known what it means to be a second-class citizen.
I have learnt that, the richest man or the super is rich because his friend, the second-class citizen is poor. And as one gets poorer, the other keeps getting richer. The second man represents millions of other people who are still not sure where their next meal would come from. The other man, the super rich, represents thousand others who are so rich that; they forget what to do with the money.
Thanks for reading “Nothing Left to Destroy” Peace.