IN THE WORLD I IMAGINE
(no rifles, no paragraphs)
In the world I imagine – and stand for, nobody gets executed for using drugs, hell, not even locked up! Nobody gets burned or stoned for being gay, lesbian, lover, transvestite, man, woman, black, white, atheist, communist, anarchist, Jew, Catholic, Evangelical, Agnostic, Buddhist, Umbandista, Candomblecista.
Nobody is shot, electrocuted, sawed, quartered, hanged, crucified, lynched. Nobody is an owner or a beneficiary (not even the State!), but everyone is a user, an inhabitant, in equal measure and proportion. Nobody turns a profit off another human being, but everyone cooperates, produces, consumes, parties, sings, dances, celebrates.
In the world I imagine nobody pays tribute to any entity, religious or administrative. Nobody is condemned for worshiping their gods and keeping their sacred books, but, then again, nobody is condemned for blaspheming against the gods or ripping up sacred texts.
In the world I imagine there are conflicts, plenty of them, but nobody settles them in courthouses before “Authorities” who don’t know the first thing about the reality of the Villages and Towns, before “Authorities” carrying “handbooks” and codified, uniform “rulings” for everybody, because there is no everybody, there are individuals! Nor, by any means, do they settle their conflicts before distant tribunals or in those courts locked away, out of reach, in Capital cities (there aren’t even Capitals in the world I imagine): conflicts are settled right in the Village, in the Town, with everyone sharing a spot around the table, with coffee and bread laid out for anyone there.
In the world I imagine there is no Authority; there is Solidarity! There is no Power, any Power, not even symbolic! Nobody studies to serve the Market, yet there is a Market, a People’s Market; one studies for – and through – Knowledge, Emancipation, and Individual and Human Growth.
In the world I imagine there is no Stock Market, no Banks, no anonymous Shareholders. Nobody has official tax numbers – they have a Name. Nobody is discriminated against for wearing (or not wearing) long hair (natural or dyed), being bald or wearing wigs, growing a beard, a mustache, or shaving it all off, wearing makeup, piercings, tattoos, pants, dresses, bras, flip-flops, shoes, boots, shirts, ties. Nobody is humiliated for being heavier or thinner, for being a child, young, or old.
In the world I imagine there is no divide between manual or intellectual labor, rural or urban, between carrying a hoe or a book, between scrubbing toilets or writing on a blackboard, between seed-planters and singers of love’s refrains. No woman is prosecuted or condemned for having an abortion. Nobody is pried into and slandered for being separated, divorced, for eating meat or veggies, for drinking coffee or cognac.
No man bosses a woman around, in fact, no man and no woman boss anyone around. There are no military police – nor paragraphs! No flag-bearers, no rifle-toting guards! No zoos!
In the world I imagine, Love is Free, totally and absolutely Free. There is no Fidelity, no Morality, but there is Ethics!
© Pietro Nardella-Dellova, Manhattan, 2016