Changing Hands

Susan Brannon
17th August 2011

Sometimes I feel like the actress Milla Jovovich who played the part of the fifth element in the movie “The Fifth Element” (1997) staring Bruce Willis.  You know the woman who came down to earth with super powers to help save the world?  No, I do not have any super powers.  I am thinking about the part where she sits down to watch some TV to learn about the world.  All she saw when she switched channels was violence, fighting, killing, yelling, crying and she could not find anything else.  Remember that part?  She was so shocked, that all she could do was to sit there with tears rolling down her cheeks.

For me, the world seems to be falling apart just like that.  As an American expat living abroad for 13 years and counting, I have had the wonderful experience of watching the world change before my eyes.  Headlines screech of the failing economy in Europe, and the United States, with famine in Somalia, protests in the Middle East including Israel and new demands on the American economy from China. 

The news is like switching the channel without finding anything else and I feel that all I can do is to sit in my chair and watch the collapse of an age, the collapse of a “mindset” and the collapse of the way of life as we know it.  The fight for freedom in Syria so far  has taken 2, 354 lives (including civilians and army personnel) it seems that the world just sits and watches.  Palestine stands behind barbed wired walls and army lookout towers with a reported death count of 1,754 and 6,297 injured. While in Libya where there is oil, NATO and the United States decided to join in creating a death count that could be as high as 30,000.  What is in the bargain here?  Is oil really worth the cost of that many lives?  NATO is involved and does that make this bombardment okay? 

What starts as peaceful march can turn into deadly violence.  People need to have their voices heard and citizens can only take so much from their leaders, times change and the old ways do not work anymore. Yet, we can see with the numbers that when other countries bring in their warplanes, the battle front changes, the purpose changes and those who started the demonstrations do not want others fighting their wars.  Imagine, America is still in Iraq and Afghanistan costing a failing economy trillions of US dollars at the expense of their own people and lives of all.

Something in my gut is screaming at me to take notice, to be alert, to be prepared; but to be prepared for what?  I am not a doomsdayer; I am a realist and an analysist.  With the global economical concerns, corrupt leaders, journalist, constant wars and famines at some point the balloon will pop.  What happens as a result we can only guess.  Will the developed countries fall and the new developing countries rise for instance both China and India? This would leave those living in Europe and in the America’s searching for ways to survive because of the change in the standard of living?  In fact, is that not already happening?  Millions are without work; factories are shutting down; high country debts; and the slashing of expenditures that assist the populations; cutting of education and medical benefits while raising taxes on those who cannot already afford to live.

I see this change in Italy, and Spain and I have spoken with those in Germany, the UK, Canada, Mexico and the United States. They all say the very same thing. I see more tourists from China, Japan and Russia than ever before walking through the streets of Rome and Florence.  The balance is changing and I wonder, will the American’s become the new immigrants to developing countries in order to survive instead of being the country of immigrants?
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