The year he turned sixty, Ebrahim Yussuf retired from his history professorship at the Bronchu University in Burundi. That year of 2059 had passed fast on its tracks but he had had nevertheless the time to think about his retirement and also on how his life had run. He believed he had been lucky to be born in 1999 and although the first years of his childhood were difficult and to some extent dramatic, he still thanked the gods for he had survived where millions of his fellow africans that would have been his generation, died before reaching the tender age of five.
Because of the date of his birth he was also given the oportunity to witness the new world order set into place: He saw how the European dream of uniting twenty some different countries fell short of its aim and how every european country after failing to unite, closed its old frontiers in order to protect its nationals from the avalanche of hungry people from the then called "third world". He saw the “real” world-leader, far away in the Americas, surrender to its own cityzens, tired as they were of loosing parents, sons and friends in absurd wars, that were started by pure economic interests in several remote parts of the world.
Mother Earth had taken time to heal the many wounds open around its fragile skin and although the fight to reverse severe climatic change was not over, a few positive signs could be felt. A clear winning point for all those who believed that reforestation was paramount to calm down the mad climate that showed all its might when he was twenty at university.
The years of turmoil had taken their toll on politicians and leaders of all sorts and good people in all countries concentrated on how to improve their situation, focussing their efforts on how to make their meagre means productive. This situation provided a thick courtain to be drawn over the past and many negative happenings were forgoten to give way to the new order in which only actions tending to better the situation were encouraged and really permitted.
As a history teacher, Ebrahim was notified in the early stages of the decision, about a plan to release for public knowledge a series of documents dating back to the beguinning of the century. After all, the global situation was stable and the documents spoke about facts that seemed from another world, so much had things changed. He had access to the bulk of the papers and many, because of their gruesome contents, were difficult to believe. One of them however was very significant because connected to his very existence. As a child, he was told when able to understand, that his uncle and aunt, (his parents died in one of the many ethnic wars that took place at the beguinning of the century), were able to feed him thanks to the food that many active NGO fought to bring in the country then. The paper was a study, by a very active medical society, present then on many of the hunger fronts, that affirmed with figures exposed, that the whole of Africa could have been saved from starvation if a part of what the "first" world spent on feeding, groming and caring for their pets had been instead, directed to feed the humans dying by the thousands every single day for many years in many places of the world.
Reading this gave Ebrahim a very strange feeling. This was something that he had to believe because the sources were hundred per cent fiable. What came to his mind were different ways of asking himself "Why?"
Some days passed by and his initial shock did not turn to anger; too many years of his life had been spent on imprinting positive thoughts to his pupils in order to make their future vision forward looking and not the contrary. He personally had to be rather thankful to some unknown person or group of persons because he survived thanks to their anonymous contribution. All he could think of was, how such a heartless society managed to maintain for so long their life style and how it did not occur to them to put forward a very simple question: -" If I had only food for one, would I feed my son or my pet?-"
Because of the date of his birth he was also given the oportunity to witness the new world order set into place: He saw how the European dream of uniting twenty some different countries fell short of its aim and how every european country after failing to unite, closed its old frontiers in order to protect its nationals from the avalanche of hungry people from the then called "third world". He saw the “real” world-leader, far away in the Americas, surrender to its own cityzens, tired as they were of loosing parents, sons and friends in absurd wars, that were started by pure economic interests in several remote parts of the world.
Mother Earth had taken time to heal the many wounds open around its fragile skin and although the fight to reverse severe climatic change was not over, a few positive signs could be felt. A clear winning point for all those who believed that reforestation was paramount to calm down the mad climate that showed all its might when he was twenty at university.
The years of turmoil had taken their toll on politicians and leaders of all sorts and good people in all countries concentrated on how to improve their situation, focussing their efforts on how to make their meagre means productive. This situation provided a thick courtain to be drawn over the past and many negative happenings were forgoten to give way to the new order in which only actions tending to better the situation were encouraged and really permitted.
As a history teacher, Ebrahim was notified in the early stages of the decision, about a plan to release for public knowledge a series of documents dating back to the beguinning of the century. After all, the global situation was stable and the documents spoke about facts that seemed from another world, so much had things changed. He had access to the bulk of the papers and many, because of their gruesome contents, were difficult to believe. One of them however was very significant because connected to his very existence. As a child, he was told when able to understand, that his uncle and aunt, (his parents died in one of the many ethnic wars that took place at the beguinning of the century), were able to feed him thanks to the food that many active NGO fought to bring in the country then. The paper was a study, by a very active medical society, present then on many of the hunger fronts, that affirmed with figures exposed, that the whole of Africa could have been saved from starvation if a part of what the "first" world spent on feeding, groming and caring for their pets had been instead, directed to feed the humans dying by the thousands every single day for many years in many places of the world.
Reading this gave Ebrahim a very strange feeling. This was something that he had to believe because the sources were hundred per cent fiable. What came to his mind were different ways of asking himself "Why?"
Some days passed by and his initial shock did not turn to anger; too many years of his life had been spent on imprinting positive thoughts to his pupils in order to make their future vision forward looking and not the contrary. He personally had to be rather thankful to some unknown person or group of persons because he survived thanks to their anonymous contribution. All he could think of was, how such a heartless society managed to maintain for so long their life style and how it did not occur to them to put forward a very simple question: -" If I had only food for one, would I feed my son or my pet?-"
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