In Japan there is a beautiful story which is taught in schools to elementary students called "100 People". Here is a link to the version posted online (you have to scroll down to see it in English).
This is the gist of it (I am quoting) . . .
If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.So, American reader, picture yourself living in this village with 99 other people.
There would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth
and all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1!) would have a college education
1 would own a computer
You'd have a computer, be able to read, have plenty of food to eat, live in a nice house. How about those others? Look at them. Half of them skin and bones from starving. Most of them darkies or Asians. 4 out of 5 living in hovels, shanties, lean-to structures made out of corrugated metal or cardboard. That would suck. Talk about messing with the property value of your splendid home.
If you found yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to stand in a line with nine others, odds would have it one of them would be a homosexual. Hey! Maybe it's you and you didn't know.
If you are a heterosexual male, things look good. There are a few extra women around. Unfortunately, if you wrote them a love letter, most of them couldn't read it.
Are you the one lucky enough to have a college degree? No. Then it's probably your American neighbor living next door in that tacky McMansion with all of the electrified barb wire on top of the high stone walls. Wonder if they need to borrow your computer.
It wouldn't be very crowded in that Presbyterian church you go to. A third of you would either be on the altar or in the choir. There would be a mixture of languages being spoken, but mostly English and various European tongues.
When you left church, above the filth and human excrement you'd probably smell a lot of incense. Those Buddhists and Hindus really love their incense.
Wait! What's with that guy laying in the middle of the road? Is he the town drunk? It looks like he's barely breathing. And what about that woman squatting over by the tree? There's water on the ground in front of her. Is that a kid about to squirt out from between her legs?
Anyway, you get the picture.
What makes this story amazing is the perspective it offers to us in the West, particularly those of us who live in "Christian" America. It is convenient to think that everybody is the same, that everyone looks pretty much the way we do, thinks the way we do, lives the way we do, worships the same way we do.
I've been traveling for over six years. 21 countries on three continents. Not to sound racist or glib, but from what I've been seeing, most people in the world don't have our "round" eyes. Most do not have our fair skin. Most don't accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior or believe He was the Son of God.
Do we have a right to condemn these folks?
For example, you fundamentalist Christian blowhards and you homophobes. Do you really want to exterminate all of the gay people in the world? Doing the math, you're looking at killing about 770,000,000 people. It seems like your trigger finger would get tired after the first 100,000,000 or so.
Doing more math, are you Christian evangelists and missionary types serious about imposing your religion on almost 5 billion people who seem pretty darn determined to worship whoever they now worship, who just happens to not be God or Jesus? You might want to think twice. You're vastly outnumbered. You don't want to piss off that many people, no matter how strongly you believe yours is the only way to go.
The story line for "100 People" continues and again I am quoting.
The following points are also something else to ponder:What's the lesson here?
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness ...
you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness
of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ...
you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death ...
you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back,
a roof overhead and a place to sleep ...
you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet,
and spare change in a dish someplace ...
you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If your parents are still alive and still married ...
you are very rare.
If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
The obvious one is how privileged we "westerners" and particularly we Americans are. That I am writing this and you are reading this on a computer, using basic instructional tools and intellectual skills which we take for granted, alone puts us in a very small elite class. That we have choices __ what clothes to wear, what car to drive, where to live, what church or synagogue to attend __ and the freedom to make those many choices is itself an immeasurable blessing. That most of us don't have to worry about where our next meal is coming from is a gift which borders on miraculous. Do you know that 33,000 people die every day of starvation?
But there is a dark side to the conclusions we often draw as well.
Many of us view this as evidence of our superiority, or more to the point, evidence of the inferiority of others less privileged. We easily dismiss those who are less fortunate as less deserving. It evolves into the unstated but firmly entrenched judgment that those who are substantially different must be primitive, less than human, or not human at all. In war the enemy is a savage beast who must be extinguished, tracked and killed like animals.
Maybe it's time to grow up. Maybe it's time to reach out to those others in the village, learn about them, find commonalities but respect the differences, and most of all realize that all of this affluence we take for granted is an extremely tenuous arrangement. In terms of the entire historical record, the bounty and excess now shared among the tiny minority of us in America and the European nations represents only the tiniest blip of time. It's really an anomaly and could quickly disappear. We could very quickly find ourselves asking our fellow villagers tips on making a nice lean-to or finding edible roots for dinner.
The vast wealth that we in the West take for granted is a positive thing. It is good fortune and a luxurious road for us to venture our way through our enviable lives.
But it's not a license to dismiss, condemn, or destroy others who don't have what we have. And it's certainly not a mandate to build military bases and more McDonald's wherever our blind ambition points us.
I solicit any and all comments on this article.
[ This originated a the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
