By Ava Rosenthal
A little girl asked me once “Who guards equality? People try so hard to be equal yet it has never happened. Not once in history has every person been treated the same. Who guards the fortress which traps equality? Who built the wall that divides us?” I was very startled by this enquiry but I told her without thinking “No one guards equality we just have to fight for it, fight for justice…”
“Fight who? Who is the sentry?” asked the little girl. “ And who created the law that told the sentry to stop us from achieving equality and… and … where is the fortress that traps poor equality?”
After thinking about this for a while I told her “I don’t know but I know it’s not downstream.”
“Why?” asked the little girl.
“Because where equality is trapped, there is no freedom and where there is no freedom there is death. But the river brings life. The river of justice.”
Then me and the little girl stood a while in thought. As I was thinking, I looked at the little girl. I started to think deeply about what she said and wondered why I had been so oblivious. I had taken her questions so lightly as if someone talking about inequality, and consequently death, was a usual casualty of life. As if a priceless life was just a casualty of war and discrimination, as it has become. No one takes much notice of that child that was killed in that war, why must it take a population to be slaughtered for anyone to react? And when we react why do we do so with more discrimination or more war or nothing at all but a sad sigh? WHO GUARDS EQUALITY THAT NO ONE CAN REACH IT?
This question rolled around in my head and holds a position in my brain to this day. I looked at the little girl’s eyes; they were full of wonder and hope for the world and its people, curiosity and youth. Then I saw myself, my very own reflection perched inside her hopeful eyes. Who was she? A sudden trill landed inside my heart and I realised that the little girl was me. A younger but wiser me, who met me in a daydream. As I realised this, I saw the old and new generation. I saw the symmetry of how the old were once new, and how the young would one day be old. How the old guide the young, and how the young bring hope for the old. I saw humanity’s mistakes and our triumphs. And I saw human nature; not perfect but fundamentally good, the young and old, the strong and weak, the traditional and the radical joining together in the hope of a brighter future and upholding it.