“Come on all you big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again He’s got himself in a terrible jam, way down yonder in Vietnam So put down your books, and pick up a gun…” From the I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag by Joe McDonald; copyright Joe McDonald and Alkatraza Corner Music. All Rights Reserved.
If you are old enough to remember the rest of the words to this song from way back in the 1960s, then here is my question to you.
What happened to us? Do you remember what we were doing back then?
We were protesting how things were being run. We were promoting peace, love and understanding. We swore that we would never be a part of the system. We were going to build a new society that embraced people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds. We were going to eliminate poverty. We were going to share the land. We were going to change the world. We were going to stop young men from going to war.
Today, Muslims and Hindus are killing each other in India. Protestants and Catholics are fighting in Ireland. Everybody is shooting some kind of weapon in the middle east. Skinheads roam the streets of London, Berlin, and Amsterdam. We are buying goods and services that are manufactured by child labour. We have anthrax scares, suicide bombers, and religious leaders who outright encourage killing.
We haven’t stopped young men from going to war. We are encouraging them to go. We’ve arranged for young women to join them. We’re at the harbour waving flags as their ships pull out with tears of pride in our eyes.
But too few people are crying tears for the horror of the world.
What in the hell happened to us?
REM’s survey results confirm several others in North America, which show that Realtors, on average, are in their mid ‘50s. So I know that most of us here are on the same street. We were the last generation to actively protest war and promote world peace in staggering numbers. There were so many of us that we actually got some things changed. We were really getting things started.
But nobody picked up that torch when we put it down. In hindsight, we should have never put it down.
We had families. We got jobs. We got caught up in making a good life for ourselves. Some of us accomplished that. Some of us didn’t. But all of us lost sight of the ideals we had about 40 years ago. We should remember them, because after all, we created them. There has not been another generation that questioned war like we did.
As members of the real estate industry, we know more than others that property is at the heart and soul of everyone’s dreams and aspirations. We know the meaning of land and the satisfaction that owning it brings.
We also know the anguish that it can cause. Including war. War is about holy land, historical lands, land claims, territorial claims, international lands, religious lands, worship rights, fishing rights, mining rights and oil rich lands. It is no surprise that wars are waged over holy places like Jerusalem, historical places like Kosovo and oil rich places like Kuwait.
We know fundamentally that all war is about land and property rights. And we’ve have had terrorists leading the way to war many times in our history. Like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. And we have endured terrorists throughout our own lives. Like bin Laden, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and Milosevic. I remember Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium of the U.N and shouting, “We will bury you.” We have been down this road too often.
We will never get rid of these people by shooting the poor folks that follow them. But we can stop this whole cycle by sharing what we have. Food, land, shelter and most importantly, education. When will we ever learn?
We were right in the first place. Forty years ago we got the message through to the old generation. Today we are surprised that we have to get it out to the younger generation as well.
It seems that we all got so busy, we forgot to sit down with our children and teach them that sharing land is more important than claiming it. It’s not too late. We should finish what we started 40 years ago.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].
By: Heino Molls
[email protected]
