How fast do we want to get rich?

We all yearn to be well-off for having a comfortable life. In the past, this was achieved through time and toil. Now there is a major shift towards getting rich fast. This is a necessary consequence of our capitalist world where industrial production is carried out without conscience -- as to whether there was a necessity for all that production. We deplete our earth, our seas, and pollute our environment without conscience. Proponents would argue that the more that is produced, the more the have-nots will have. Opponents would argue that it is not true; the industrialists' concern is the bottom line. At the end of the day the motive is to have the maximum income for the producer, at whatever cost to our environment; the vision is surely only for the short term. Our politics too is no different, destructive and vision short term.

Thus in this rush for production and wealth generation through the market mechanism, and in the groping for power in politics -- pandering to the ego of the human being - we lose sight of the old adage "necessity is the mother of invention" . While this has its vestiges still relevant but ever since the invention of the capitalist model taking hold, the motive has always been to maximize profit and get rich quick -- by selling the products mostly to those who don't really need these. Thus the birth of the "throw-away" culture of our modern times. The marketing profession has made it their perfected art to sell to the gullible customer what they don’t need – through the sweetness of the marketing jargon and images they conjure up to deceive the buyer. We see this every day on our television sets, on the bill boards outside and at social events that draw mostly the youth, whom the industries see as most gullible. Who needs the killer cigarettes or the expensive coffees and cars or the designer clothes?  What would happen to ourselves if we don't have them? Certainly we will be healthier in mind and body. We will be less competitive and divisive and be a more sharing community. But the ego doesn't listen to all that. It makes us believe that the competitive spirit within us is legitimate and best for us. The little voice inside us of the primeval conscience we were born with has the "chance of a fireball in hell". That means absolutely no chance at all! 

So the advert on television wins our hearts. We want to be the Marlboro man or take that exotic trip on the Camel to ill health or death. How foolish we are is realized only too late when death and destruction meet us in the end. 

So this getting rich quick is the source of the evil that we see in our world today and no doubt in our Maldives society too. It has upset the whole apple cart of our mind and we are seeking to blindly find our balance again but not finding it in this turbulent sea of materialism, selfishness and greed. We yearn to get rich quick and then live the rest of our lives in hedonism. What is then the future of the next generation?  Will we give space for it to grow or will we – those who control the power strings of our lives --strengthen the vantage further? Aren't we thus short circuiting the cycle of human social development?

Our nation has been thrust into this tumult headlong. And in Maldives, as a small nation of people, these new ideals which were hitherto alien to us, catch on like wild fire and it can burn our house down only too fast to be aware of what is happening. Let me tell you that this sinister process is happening even as we sit ensconced in our luxury and asleep to these socially toxic vibrations that are ever growing. In the absence of a vigilant public, the Trojan horse of promises we make to our gullible public has the potential for sweeping damage in what we are attempting to call a democracy. We need to be thinking of capacitating ourselves for a sustainable future as a nation; not just be overjoyed at the presents we are being promised or receiving. Please, we should not be sleeping in this present state of social inebriation.