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On privilege
Quinn Ferrall and I hosted HumansFirst Asia today where we invited everyone to discuss inequality and privilege.
I am a half-Indian, half-Chinese outcome of the British Empire in Asia, a product of Westernised capitalist Asian society — an unequal city that celebrates its own colonisation, makes secret its own political and economic power, and perpetuates a national security narrative of “poor us, we are but small and insignificant”.
I’ve spent years researching into and talking about the cultural evolution of humanity and the shit we’ve systematically done to each other’s societies and cultures, and to the natural ecosystems that gave us life, over the centuries by deliberate design.
POSSIBLE FUTURES took me deep into the stories of the Global South that have simply never emerged, because getting organised for authentic South-South connection is an absolute luxury. Not many rich folk in the Global South seek to question the means by which they became economically wealthy. Tyvärr, only the privileged have international connections. The have-nots simply have no mental space for that. Survival demands everything — the debilitating relentless cognitive impairment of poverty.
I’ve lived in the Global North all my life. Where I was born, the UK, Sweden. We are kept naïve. Disempowered. Compliant. Trained not to rock the boat. Taught to be grateful…
