Lungiselwe Mbingo Receives 1st Place (17 to 24) in the UN Resident Coordinator's Essay Competition

To the United Nations,

I would love to continue this letter using the flowery language and friendly tones that schools teach you to use in letters. However, I do not have the time for unnecessary pleasantries, and would like to file a formal complaint against The World. The service here is simply terrible, and how much longer do I need to wait until I get my order? It seems as if I'll have to wait another twenty-five years.

I arrived here on the 16th of May 2002, and was given my menu of human rights. I browsed through the delicious options, and decided to order all of them. After all, the sign on the front door ensured me that I was entitled to them. It said that all the customers were.

So can you imagine my surprise when I looked around the room to see that so many rights were not being served? It was at that exact moment that the waiter, a tall, well dressed, but ugly man named Capitalism announced that the bistro was undergoing a process of rationing. So some people would get their orders late, while others would not get them at all. To my left, I saw seats filled with young women who had been waiting for their ‘right to education’ since before I entered this place. I saw the modern day slaves look hungrily at the sizzling platter of ‘no torture’. And I saw them shake with heartbreak and fear as the waiter said “This one’s not for you”.

I saw all sorts of people, but do you know what I also saw, UN? Do you? I saw our trusted waiter take piles of food to the people at the far corner of The World. He ignored the plights of the suffering, and continued to entertain the wealthy. And that is the biggest problem in The World. The rich get richer and the waiter laughs in the face of the struggling. How do we expect universal health and satisfaction when those who have are given more attention than those who have not? How do we trust the leaders of The World  when they do not help the people, but aim to eat with the rich? The biggest problem with this establishment is the gross inequality that is spiralling out of control. I have a mild hatred towards our waiter, but I know it’s not entirely his fault. His only job is to follow the greed of human beings.

Total equality is impossible on planet Earth, I do understand that, but isn’t there just a small part of you that believes that if we aimed to share more, the inequality gap would close? If the human race abandoned this narrative of self interest, wouldn't corruption in our leadership regimes cease to exist? And governments would be able to slowly but surely provide adequate and more reliable public facilities to ensure that human rights are met. This would not eliminate all of the problems humanity faces, but it would surely be a step towards healing. Because according to your sustainability goals, 700 million people still live in extreme poverty.

Yes, it is bold of me to trample on the ancient rituals of selfish ambition that we as human beings hold so close to our hearts, but change needs to happen. To avoid all ambiguity, I am explicitly asking that you be the force to catalyse such a change. How? The simplest answer I can give to that is the painful cliché, education. I encourage you to continue the conversation of countries investing in quality, holistic education for the youth in 2020. If we encourage this generation to have a holistic overview of life and remove the seed of greed that the older generation has tried to plant within us, then in twenty-five years it will be possible to have governments and systems in place that can do better for everyone. Not just for the deep pocketed.

Don’t get me wrong, it is lovely to self indulge and sit at the table of privilege, but we as a people need to get to a place of consciousness where the aim is to uplift each other.

All I want to see, even if it has to take twenty-five more years, is equal opportunity in The World. I want it to be a place of unity. I want it to be run by highly effective and empathetic leaders who care more about others than they do themselves. I yearn for it to be a place where I can feel comfortable bringing in my own children, and it has so much potential to be such a place.

But for now, it gets a one star rating from me.

Regards,

Lungiselwe K. Mbingo