Two Realities, One Future

The last two pandemic years have been like living on the edge of the precipice for many of us and, in fact, millions have fallen over the edge into an endless abyss of misery or death.

I have been fortunate to have been sheltered for much of that time in Indonesia. It is a beautiful country filled with people whom I've found to be generally kind, friendly, and willing to extend hospitality to an often-clueless and befuddled visitor like me. One is tempted to judge Indonesia through the pleasant glow of my own personal experiences, but my journey around Jakarta today presented the reality of Indonesia in less dreamy tones.  

I spent the first part of the day in Pacific Place, perhaps the poshest mall I have ever visited outside of Dubai. My excuse for visiting this mall is that it has a reliable watch repair shop in the basement that I trust and one of my watches needed a new battery. On my way to the watch shop, I passed by the Lamborghini dealership, where, if one has the resources, a person can buy a luxury Italian vehicle if they have $250,000 sitting around.  Evidently a surprising number of Indonesians have this kind of money, because I noticed the dealership had three new cars in their inventory that hadn't been there last month.  Clearly, cars are being sold and moving out to new owners, which I find astonishing.  In my humble hometown in the U.S., the fanciest shop in the nicest mall in town might be the uninspiring Macy's department store.  No Lamborghini dealerships, no Prada, no Tiffany, no Mont Blanc, like there are in Pacific Place, but there are Auntie Anne's pretzels in all Spokane malls.

The richest 1% in Jakarta are as loaded with money as the 1% in America--and enjoy the same reality as the lucky 1% all over the world.  

Then, later in the day, I walked past the squatter's slum adjacent to my apartment building.  My apartment doesn't directly face this horribly poor neighborhood, but from one of my side-facing windows, I can catch a very small glimpse.  

I have never entered the neighborhood because my Indonesian friends say it's a COVID nightmare.  Evidently, they haven't even received their first vaccinations, while the Lamborghini drivers received their boosters long ago.  I have proposed community service projects that we could do on behalf the neighborhood, but my colleagues shake their heads no and tell me that I really don't understand the situation and that I don't realize the trouble I'd be causing on so many levels if I tried to proceed. So, I look down on the shacks from my 17th Floor perch and wonder how it will all end.

Every time I walk past the neighborhood, I notice the cinder block wall that guards the entrance. It is always painted with slogans, graffiti and colorful street art.  Demands for equality and socialism often adorn the wall.  I can understand the calls for socialism from that community as capitalism hasn't worked too well for the residents inside.  Do you think we should have learned by now that a system that benefits 1% of the world, works somewhat for 10%, barely works for 39%, and harms the other half of the world's population might need a bit of an overhaul?  It's the best we've come up with so far, is what people say, but that doesn't excuse failing to attempt to come up with something better, it seems to me.  

The COVID pandemic, as painful as it has been, has served a purpose for those willing to open their eyes.  The 1% and those of us who enjoy the world's bounty think we live in two realities:  one reality is for us and one is for them--and it's not just Indonesia, it's a duality of rich and poor that defines the entire world.  But as COVID has proven, this duality can fall apart when a small aspect of the world becomes completely unhinged.

COVID-19 has demonstrated that a pandemic can merge this dualistic reality into one dystopian whole where anyone can be plunged into the abyss, if the virus manages to break through a person's defenses, rich or poor.  We may indeed survive this calamity and move on, but there are even more horrible dangers on the horizon from climate change to, heaven forbid, COVID-24. And in those future realities, having enough money to buy a Lamborghini might not be enough to save you and those in the neighborhood I can see from my window might decide that painting a cinder block wall isn't sufficient action to bring about change.  Then we all will be partners in a nightmarish future, filled with greater misery than today--unless everyone who cares, works as hard as they can to overhaul today's unsustainable and unjust systems that leave so many of our brothers and sisters precariously close to falling into the abyss.  Our willingness to engage in hopeful action isn't much, but it's our best hope, so let's try.