A nation without a soul
Here I am, quite lost in this crazy new world, stranded in an urban megalopolis of traffic and pollution, searching for some rhyme and reason in the middle of the maze of haste and confusion. I am perplexed and disillusioned, amidst too much noise and stench, and crowded by people with empty looks and seemingly aimless dispositions, hurrying to places in every direction. In each nook and cranny, I see huge malls and fancy restaurants, boutiques of branded perfumes and watches that do not appear to have any social relevance at all, while crippled kids and aged blind beggars stretch their arms out to tourists who look bewildered by this array of blatant contradictions.
There are ostentatious displays of luxuries and open manifestations of a third-world country keeping up with the Joneses; billboards of millions-worth of watches and bags from France that look down on street urchins and prostitutes who, if only to earn a living, do not disguise their candid offering of momentary ecstasy to alien pedophiles and travelling dirty old men. There are foreign-franchised coffee shops that sell expensive aromas in a cup, drinks worth the lunch of two big families who are starving in the squatter area nearby. There are bookstores that sell magazines which, for lack of commercial value, refuse to print the socio-economic injustices and political corruptions. The rich and the famous do not want to read the truth. They would rather be entertained by the fictions of fashions and abstract designs.
There are no museums, no historical landmarks. This city focuses on commerce, and trade and instant pleasures of the flesh and of the stomachs. Casinos and houses of flesh bring more fun and funds for corruptions. Tourism here means the minds and the souls are not priorities, but the urgent call of the bodies. This modern Sodom and Gomorrah is a city without a soul. The churches are hidden between a bar of half-naked pleasure women, men, and transvestites and a massage parlor which are fronts for naked men and women to sell their bodies to aliens for few kilos of rice. Here, the temples, mosques and synagogues are only refuge centers for the poor, who cannot afford the cost of reality. In prayers and chants, they want to hitch their hopes on the promise of salvation. But how could there be any saving of the spirit if the body is starving and sick? This nation does not care at all.
Murders and rapes, drugs, impeachments, and summary executions are being debated aimlessly and without specific purpose, by honorable men and women in ivory towers, far removed from the scene of the truth behind all crime and corruption. Priests and Pharisees denounce the killing, without condemning the hunger and poverty that is the root cause of them all. They point fingers at the police while hiding the skeletons in their holy closets. Meanwhile, TVs and radios, the print and broadcast media all concentrate on the movie idols' latest sexual escapades and entanglements. There is no faint attempt to draw some semblance of social responsibility or relevance. This nation is lost. I hate to stay here any longer.
Somewhere, away from the chaos of it all, I want to rediscover our national soul. If this world were a vehicle, I want to disembark and find refuge in the privacy of my own reflections.
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