The American dream
The rest of the world will now steer away from the perverted version of the new American dream. Good-bye, Statue of Liberty -- you no longer symbolise the beacon of Hope.
Life is different in the 21st century. The slide or change will continue, beyond a single nation's stand, or sit-down strike. The rich, isolated Americans have started realising that the rest of the world is different -- very different. Probing humanity is more than cosmetic appraisal. There is variety in life, and human, personal individuality exists in all the six billion humans, regardless of the similar limelight seen in the developed countries: although the DNA difference is only one tenth of one per cent.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. The deeper reasons for the 9/11 strike on the US have to be faced and analysed openly -- simple denouncement are not enough. Human motivations, aspirations, dreams, (singly or jointly), cannot be quantified and categorised into cold emotionless numerical data. A human being cannot be judged statistically. Even in the animal world, there are unwritten codes for killing (for survival). There are Brownian movements in societies. Where are the social physicists?
The Americans have lost the international leadership in several areas: higher education, credibility, sympathy, and empathy. Further, the virus is eating inside the mighty dollar, controlling the global economy. Utopia is beyond the horizon between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
But today the choices available abroad for self-improvement are eroding, as the West is facing sunset years after two centuries of exploited affluence. On a personal level, I had hinted to my son (then at university in Dhaka), that he was free to go West after getting a local degree (keeping one foot planted in the matri-bhumi), and not before, that is during the critical years known as the formative years. The entry into the global village has to be guided by the national leadership. Has the latter gone mazloom?