Birthright

A friend of mine wants to get on the property ladder. She is currently renting a three bedroom house from her father, left to him by his late mother. She wishes to buy the property. It’s in a low-income, working class part of the city where crime and vandalism are fairly common. She wants to get a mortgage.

She was thinking of finding a house in another part of the city; a few miles away that has been developed and is more upwardly mobile. It would have cost her more to buy a property there, of course. In the end she decided to stay put. She knows the people in her small street and the price of buying a reasonably spacious house is within her means. But will it be a home or a millstone?

It seems to me that our birthright, our heritage is crippling debt. Get on the property ladder. Borrow hundreds of thousands and be tied to that lender for most of the rest of your life. Watch property prices fall with fear and trepidation. Oh no, another slump in the market!

My friend was upset a short while ago. She felt she hadn’t achieved anything in her thirty years of life. But she wasn’t talking about publishing a book or discovering something; she was talking about owning a house and getting married, followed as soon as possible by a baby.

So, this is my inheritance as a child of the West: debt, fear, and acquisition. You’d like to know which country I’m from? Sure, it’s the one with an ‘a’ in it.

But is the capitalist west worse than any other system in the world? No. There is no system of government or economics in the world that actually works.

Communism failed for very obvious reasons. It was run by human beings. It grew out of a sense of injustice and frustration; a few people had all the wealth and the majority lived in poor conditions. Hey Presto! Revolution! But, and this is a big but; there is always an aristocracy, even in socialism. The members of the party get better jobs and housing; there is always someone on top – the party chairman. The leader helps his friends and rewards those who are loyal to the ideals of the party. The party becomes god. Even when the system is clearly failing, the party faithful (and faithful is the right word) begin to silence decent. The system is now being protected from its own inevitable collapse. Religious faith is outlawed or strictly controlled because it teaches that god is above all things and the party is god. Believers are imprisoned and even executed. Anyone who speaks against the intolerance and absolute domination of the so-called democratic government are also imprisoned and tortured. Control must be maintained through whatever means are necessary.

So, the revolution that began out of a sense of injustice becomes a bigger monster than the one it attempted to slay.

We live in a fallen world and anything created by man is inherently corrupt. It may come out of the purest of intensions but it will soon become sullied and misshapen. We look to new leaders hoping that someone will lead us into a golden age only to be disappointed.

But am I downcast? Have I written off the human race or planet Earth? No. What I’ve come to realise is that systems and governments fail and dissolve; yet there is a lot of good in people. I can not change the world; but I can change the world around me. I can treat people with respect – Do unto others as I would have them do unto me. I can form relationships, friendships, and influence and be influenced.

We all can…