Battery Park City in New York City is shown in this picture, taken on April 3, 2012. (Photo by Anthony Quintano via Flickr)
Previously on A Poet’s World Tour: Norway, Nigeria & Russia, Croatia, and Mexico & Latin America
The words of the young Croatian computer science student echo in my head while I walk the streets of New York, observing a multitude of people who pass me by. There is no apathy in their eyes. Instead, there is hope. So, why do New Yorkers have hope in common, instead of apathy?
Whatever else we might agree on, we have to agree that America (like the European Union) is the promised land for many a visionary and dreamer, and that many dream roads lead their dreamers to the promised land. If we know that ideas and imagination are more valuable than oil and gas, we will realize that America is the leader of the modern world. The founders of the Internet and social networks, such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, or LinkedIn, and other accomplishments of the virtual world that will drive the modern economy, are mostly from America. The top ten universities in the world are mostly American ones, and we all know how important education is for the progress of any society. There is nowhere as much capital financing of ideas as there is in America. But there is still something missing, isn’t there?
The tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance are a major slap into the face of those who had the lack and skills to succeed in life, those who were in the right place in the right time. Still, does it warrant the dreamers’ peaceful sleep? After all, you never know when bad luck might come round to knock at your door, do you?
I must emphasize that there are growing differences between people in other wealthy countries too, and the void between the rich and the poor is growing, which is a defeat for those who look down at third world countries. The multitude of the poor did not choose their shame, did they? Trust me when I say that I have experienced hunger, and that I know what I’m talking about. You don’t feel to happy when someone spares you a dime because, as strange as this might sound to you, poor people also have their dignity.
Once I’ve seen a small child in a soup kitchen, I dedicated one of my favorite poems titled “My Little Cardboard Home’ to him, humbly praying for people who read it to be touched by it, and to realize that this angelic child is our beacon, because our beloved Creator teaches us that when you reach out to someone to help them up, you are helping yourself up too. In other words, you become a better person.
The fact that many dreamers from around the world come to the promised land is proof that America is blessed by its diversity of races and religions. When every American looks at the man in the mirror, they shall realize that there is no greater blessing than to work towards the greater good, to be in synergy with faith and men. No matter how much we chase after glory, money and success, we must never forget that without light we can easily stray in the thick forest of temptation, where no glory, money or power can help us.
When some say that there is no room for light in the heart of capitalism, I tell them they’re wrong. I have traveled many countries and nations, and I can safely say they’re wrong. There, the citizens of New York are holding up the torch, because the majority of them voted for a mayor who is a visionary and a thinking person, as proven by his care for the poor. What’s even more important, Mayor Bill De Blasio is advocating a fair distribution of wealth in the most praised city in the world. When skeptics claim that this is just demagogy in a city with the highest heels and most expensive perfumes in women, and most gold cards in men, in a city of many homeless about whom poets wrote, I must say it again: this is no demagogy, nor is it socialism, because I have seen for myself what this “equality” eventually looks like in former communist countries, always in the pockets of those closest to the ruler’s scepter.
No, it is a call to provide opportunities to all creative people working towards the greater good. It is modern capitalism with a soul. Anyway, regardless of what we call this system, it is important for it to be beneficial to every person, regardless of race, gender, religion or possessions. A system at whose center there will be people instead of mere profit. Only then will America fully become a promised land: a home to creative people who will become torch bearers of light through a synergy of knowledge, compassion and faith, and who will create a new and just world through a synergy of the sun and wind.
And I believe that America, with its visionaries, shall become the leader of a brave new world, and in order to reach the entrance to a brave new world, one must undergo a personal catharsis, because by celebrating the spiritual individual, we celebrate a spiritual nation too. Individuals who spread compassion, love, conscience, knowledge, ideas and faith around the world, and raise these noble values to an elevated altar of humanity. Yes, by having those noble human values, we become pilgrims at the gates of the new world.
We should never forget those values that make us human: compassion, love, honesty, conscience and faith. Let us not forget that a strong spirit is a person’s best ally in times of temptation. In the thick forest of temptation, a man without conscience is like a lamp without oil. To create values for the benefit of society makes everyone happy, including the person who creates them, lest we forget that being alone in one’s happiness is the worst of miseries. This is why it is important to promote these noble values and ethics at the elite universities, not just success at any cost in one’s career, be it politics, law, business or whatever.
Great dreamer and writer, Charles Dickens, once said that it’s the imagination that makes the writer, and I would add that the imagination is what creates ideas, and ideas create visionaries. The more vivid the imagination, and dreams, the greater the visions.
The Internet was created thanks to visions, as well as social networks that connect people, independent electronic bookstores like Amazon who became a beacon for many a writer and poet. I believe that the world’s dictators, greedy bankers and corporations would pay in gold to make the Internet disappear, because it would make them masters of the truth. If it wasn’t for the Internet, this article would never reach the hearts of mankind.
Yes, my dear friends, dreams and ideas are worth much more than oil and gas because visionaries can create a sinergy between nature and man, instead of being an enemy to the sun and the wind, because then mankind will have a much more powerful driving force in the shape of the wind and the sun, than we have in oil and gas now. Let’s not fool our self, global warming is not a natural process, it’s the result of human greed. Oil and gas are monopolized by a small group of people, while the sun and wind cannot be monopolized. Just like us humans, the sun is the work of the same Creator, and thus it belongs to everyone, not just to a certain group of people. This way, there would be much less poverty in the world than there is today.
I believe, like the bravest girl in the world, Malala, and many other dreamers, in the freedom of the individual, and because if this I also believe that no one can prohibit compassion, faith and love, all of which are things that a person either does or does not have within them. Creative people who create values towards the greater good become free visionaries, and those who keep adding to their wealth become slaves to greed. Yes, scientists shall clone the human embryo in their laboratories tomorrow, and they shall reprogram somatic cells, thus creating a human clone, but never will there be a scientist who will be able to create a soul, which provides humans with feelings, and we know that feelings give birth to compassion and love.
However, we must never forget that there are great scientists with religion. Albert Einstein was religious, the physician Sir Isaac Newton too, as well as Louis Pasteur, William Calvin, Leonardo da Vinci, Nikola Tesla … after all, immortal poets and writers like Fjodor Mihajlovič Dostojevski, Frost, Jesenjin, Whitman, Lorca, Charles Dickens … they created immortal works of art through a strong spirit and faith.
Some skeptics will smirk at this, skeptically saying that they only believe in what they can see, but the noblest of things cannot be seen. You cannot see love, but we our self are the best proof that it exists. You cannot see air, but we know that it exists, because we woudn’t be able to live without it. We cannot see the wind, but we can feel it, we cannot see the warmth of the sun, but we can also feel it. This bond between nature and humans is the best proof of the Creator’s existence.
Yes, I was a skeptic too during my youth, believing only those things that can be seen with one’s eyes. Still, now that my life’s ship is sailing faster than it ever did on this ocean of temptation, I can safely say that the human soul is the sacred home to our fragile humanity.
There are many religions, but there is only one overarching faith, and those who respect the religion of others is closest to faith, as are those who respect other people like they respect them self. I have learned to respect other religions like my own because, after all, they all have their roots in the one faith we all have in common. To respect the feelings of the faithful and to respect other religions means that you are tolerant and wise, because you want to learn, and what is most valuable in life, you have peace and serenity in life.
When they ask me about what patriotism means to me, I calmly answered that those who help others are the greatest patriots, and if people in different countries would think along these lines, there would be a lot less poor people, dictatorships and wars in the world.
As a poet, I trust the law of the heart more than any paper law, and this is why my beacon will be people who consider ideas, vision, conscience, compassion, freedom and faith a blessing instead of a curse. Media that are slaves to hierarchy are no different from those who single out the church, because both are serving the hierarchy, and as such they serve their institutions than their original mission, being the truth for media, and faith for the church. Praise the Lord for all those wonderful missionaries of humanity in both the church and the media (for example CNN), who help those in need, thus spreading light around the world. Still, the church tends to isolate itself more and more, unwittingly distancing themselves from the people. Instead of reaching out to that silent majority, who are their followers, and cure apathy, they lock themselves into their buildings.
To provide an example, I must once again return to the small and wonderful Croatia, where 90% of the people are Catholic (which is sadly true for all religions, and it serves to prove my hypothesis that there are many religions, as well as masters, but only one overarching faith, and one Creator). While in Croatia, I wrote articles in which I warned believers that they are increasingly turning into hypocrites, because they go to church during the holidays with an inexplicable aura of kindness, only to imprison that kindness into an armor of egotism upon exiting the church. Apathy is identical with egotism. When they walk by beggars, they turn their heads away, apathetically whispering that these must be professional beggars, oblivious to the fact that poverty is misfortune, rather than a profession. Yes, one has to charitable all year long, not just during Christmas, or else we will become hypocrites instead of believers.
Why is apathy a sin? Although the power of democracy lies in the majority, that same silent majority is killing democracy with its apathy, and so it is not surprising to see a minority made up of the political caste and tycoons dominating that same silent majority, and this is the very betrayal of the freedom bestowed upon us by the Creator. I would like to focus on an important example: when an alliance of corrupt politicians and unfeeling thieves (and that is what they are – plain thieves) bought a company for peanuts, they immediately destroyed it, because it was built in an attractive location in the center of Zagreb, thus creating an infernal plan to make a hundred times as much money by selling the land than they originally invested. They didn’t care about production or creating new jobs, nor did they care about destroying hundreds of lives of honest women who worked in that textile company called ‘Kamensko.’
The company itself had all the prerequisites to continue production with a profit, but all the women ended up in the street being unemployed. Hundreds of brand companies were destroyed in the same manner, before the bare eyes of the silent majority, who never understood that their apathy is what keeps the political caste, that is gradually destroying wonderful Croatia, in power. What happened to the women who worked for ‘Kamensko?’
Well, these brave women never gave in to melancholy. Instead, they went on strike and hit the streets, because they were smart enough to be aware of the fact that their shares were transferred from their pockets into the pockets of tycoon thieves by corrupt politicians. However, the silent majority never joined in. Instead, these people hid in their holes, oblivious to the fact that the same fate awaits them in the future. It is horrible to know that there were more stray dogs than people joining these brave an dignified women in the freezing cold. Does this mean that a dog is more of a friend to men than men themselves? And what about the church? Did the priests and bishops stand up to join these women? No!
I stood by them, but the church did not, and so I openly asked them why they wouldn’t join the women of Kamensko in their protest. It is supposed to be their mission to stand by those in need if they want to be in the prayers of those in need. If the Cardinal can stand next to the mayor of Zagreb, a greedy politician who is lying even when crossing himself, during the Christmas concert in the Cibona arena, then he should stand by the Kamensko women too, this is what that unique faith in God teaches us, lest we forget that Jesus always stood by those who were in need and never retreated into huge buildings made of stone.
He praised his father day after day by going to those in need, never thinking twice before touching lepers with his bare hands, or giving his voice to those who couldn’t speak, proving that silence isn’t golden, but rather rust that eats away at faith. Wherever he went, apathy vanished. He shared his love and his divine spirit with those in need, and he gave us light. This is proof of the fact that people don’t need to visit any large buildings to find God. Doing good unto others is enough to find God in oneself.
Croatian media didn’t do justice to that sad story. HRT, the national television (over)paid for by citizens, kept their silence, and this is their greatest sin, exceeded only by the fact that they never unmask those who rob their own nation, the “reformed” political caste. Commercial TV networks like NOVA TV, RTL, as well as the Jutarnji List newspaper have betrayed the journalist codex by serving those whom they should unmask. That greedy and unfeeling minority, that insensitive and infernally greedy political caste provides no opportunity to creative people who would create something valuable for the greater good. Instead, they are chasing people away with their egotism, to countries that do provide such opportunities.
This is how poverty is created in the world. This small country of Croatia is just a reflection of a world in which there is increasing poverty and a shamelessly small group of wealthy people.
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