Diaries of change: when dreams take flight

From shaking ground to soaring sky, a new generation of imaginative children is starting to make waves. The Earth is trembling. Revolution is in the air.

Somewhere between Amsterdam and San Francisco, 14/06/’11

When Dreams Take Flight

A deafening roar resounds from her wings of steel as the iron bird takes off to kiss the sky. In an epic battle with the forces of nature, she defies gravity to claim her rightful place among the clouds. Her gaze transfixed upon the future, she thrusts herself forward and carries us across our little corner in the universe.

As I look down upon the beautiful blue marble that’s spinning by below us, I try to remind myself of what’s brewing beneath it all. From afar, our planet looks so serene. So peaceful. Yet I know that, when seen from up close, the Earth is shaking. The global tectonics are shifting. Pressure is building up beneath the surface. From Cairo to Wisconsin, and from Madrid to Athens, something incredibly big is happening. The people are starting to make waves, and somehow, it feels like all of this might just come to an eruption very soon. Revolution is in the air.

As our iron bird continues to plough through the sea of clouds, I’m suddenly struck by a realization. For millions of years, our feet were glued to the ground. While I’m sure our ancestors gazed at the birds and wished that they too could one day learn to fly, this remained little more than a dream for generations of imaginative children. Yet one day, after enough persistence, dedication and determination, humanity did it: we took to the skies. We broke the laws of nature to write a new chapter in the history of mankind. The dream took flight.

But even today, the feet of many billions of people remain glued to the ground. Stuck in an intricate web of social relations that holds them down like gravity, the vast majority of humanity is still to escape from the political, socio-economic and cultural shackles in which they have been cast.

And at the same time, as the engines roar right next to me, I can’t help but think of the fact that this bird is powered by generations — eons! — of life, extracted from the bowels of the Earth and transformed into the same noxious substance that’s threatening to shackle many billions more to the vicissitudes of our increasingly chaotic planetary spaceship. In one of the greatest ironies of all, the very tools that once set us free are now threatening to imprison us on an ever more inhospitable planet.

Then my attention shifts. From the engines on the side to the cabin in front of me. A curtain blocks off the view, but every time someone passes through the aisle I get a chance to peak inside. Apparently, our steel bird is segregated into two separate ‘classes’. And what an appropriate term that is! In the front, wearing fancy suits and sitting in spacecraft-like chairs are the champagne-drinking first-rung citizens of the ‘business class’. These people have been told all their lives that the sky is the limit — and so it is. In the back, kind of crammed together like sardines, are the second-rung citizens of the ‘economy class’ — that’s us, the fortunate global middle class. Those who managed to land a decently-paying job with one of the oozing stretched-out folks up front. Down below, with their feet still glued to the ground, is the vast marginalized majority of mankind. The sight of our chem trail is the closest they’ll ever get to the skies.

But it’s unmistakable now that  the Earth upon which they stand is trembling. Outraged at a world that perpetuates injustice and that steadily leads itself to ruin, the people are starting to make a stand. If you listen closely, you can hear their roar emanating from the streets down below. If you look hard, and you are willing to see, you will witness a powerful benevolent force rising up from below, spreading its arms like wings of fire and crying out in indignation at the out-of-touch business class above. They are ready to reclaim a long-lost childhood dream and take to the skies — breaking the laws of nature to write a new chapter in the history of mankind.

And so, as our iron bird slowly starts its descent, and the first-class citizens up front are diving nose-down towards the Earth, the dreams of a new generation finally begin to take flight. Revolution, it seems, is in the air. Let’s hope it will be a peaceful landing.