Our global theater: Ramesh Shrestha

Village or a theater?

We are often reminded that we live in a global village and we are global citizens. People usually express this sentiment especially while referring to the United Nations and the global connectivity people enjoy through development works, communications, ease of international travel, trade and economy.

The reality is that we do not live in a global village, we live in a global theater and we are actors in a global theater, not global citizens. In a village there are traditional rules, customs and systems with moral values, coexisting with civil legal systems which are applicable to all. In a village there is equal application of rule of law; there is respect for the village elders.

Contrary to this, in a theater everyone acts at the direction of the Directors and Producers. In a theater there are rules too for everyone but the Directors and Producers and a select few who occupy the top tier of the theater's ecosystem are exempted from the rule. The rules are bent as and when necessary. Their whims are the rules. Even the authority of the Chief of the actor's union is regularly challenged. We are simply the slaves of the theaters' ecosystem to obey the orders or perish at our own will. Some of the shows focus on promoting democracy to the audience but there is no democracy in the theater itself. We neither live in a global village nor are we a global citizen. It is a chaos.

In our global theater everyone is acting based on a script written by someone else to satisfy the needs of some others. In the grand theater the Directors and the Producers can change the script of the show any time they wish. The actors in the system simply obey the wish. The different backgrounds and the life experience of actors carry no meaning, value or respect; they simply perform in the theater which is collapsing with the weight of super confident, exaggerated values of Directors and Producers and their delusional sicker fans.

Unfortunately, among the actors too there are select groups playing sideshows, within and outside the theater for their self-interest at the cost of collective benefit and security of all actors and the broader audience. Such behaviours are actually encouraged and often also participated by Directors for their vested interest. The scripts for the shows are supposedly for the benefit of the global audience based on local social and global issues with universal values and principles but these are just the marking gimmicks to seduce and swindle the global audience just like selling a hairbrush to a gentleman with a bald scalp.

The global theater has become like a long running TV cartoon series like The Simpsons, sometimes very comic, sometimes euphoric and sometimes sad. The actors are now tired of performing with the same script with different shades with no end in sight day after day, year after year. The actors are seriously looking forward to a new Director, and a new script to regain the flair of the theater that may have existed once. Will there be one?

The script for this global theater was written decades ago by few people with self-granted authority at a time with a limited number of actors and the audience. The needs and the interest of the audience, which has grown large over the decades have changed but the script remains the same with meaningless tweaking now and then.

The invincible Directors thus far managed to keep actors on the line sometimes with threats; this is unusual in a village while talking about equality and equity. Some actors patronised by the Directors and Producers have literally gotten away with murders. In a democracy promoting global theater, there cannot be selective application of rules. Reform of the global theater must start with a new script redefining the roles of Directors and Producers with a unified guiding principle for all for the show to be of any meaning. Is there any hope of reforming this global theater? Amen!

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