Reflections of Jefferson Tidal Basin

Memorial day on the Mall

A great capital. A great loss. A great pity. A great Nation.

In all my travels I have not viewed such magnificence achieved in such a short period of time! But these are through the eyes of technology, architecture and engineering. I see the dream, I believe in it - it does exist, but that is not the dream of one and all. With such wisdom exists great power, but the power is lost.

I contrast a day in a city filled with people who where sent to kill for an ideology, and kill those who had a difference of option, or to kill because of mineral resources, because of power and greed to wisdom. "...The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." Why are they who kill the ones who have nothing for the ones who have so much heroes? Sadly, as I walk through the masses who have gone to kill for the ideologies of on nation with memorials packed with people respecting those who died for a cause greater than what they understood, I walk a stones throw away to places that stand empty, filled with wisdom. While I walk through the conversations of guns and machines, I boil inside thinking about the world beyond these borders. And then serenity in a nation unjust where words of wisdom carved in stone make no sound. "More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars." Where ever present racial inequalities are hidden and brushed aside because a man who lineage was not of serfdom becomes the leader of the nation. Yes inspiring, but as a foreigner in his own xenophobic community that he has been classified, what progress is that? What subtle hidden problems does this great nation have, what wisdom is being used to progress?

This achievement of violence and it glorification scares me. Where I am used to the marketing of the weapons of killing and war being confined to the technical magazines and targeted and the people make the decisions what will defend a nation, I pass them on my way around town like an advert for a loaf of bread. "We have faith that future generations will know that here, in the middle of the twentieth century, there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite, and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance, and slavery, and war." Have they forgotten already, does no one come to read the writing on the wall!

I always wondered what makes a developed nation? I compare these people to those of places labelled as developing, where the heart is greater than the mind, and human compassion is greater than the government, and have no fear in deciding who is developed. Is it is a great nation still on the journey to greatness. I feel in other parts of the world, by means of great leaders they are leaps and bounds ahead, and still running. Perhaps the greatest strength of these countries is the importance of education in the youth. I had the chance to visit a School on my stay and hear about 3 out 25 kids are in class because it is the first lesson; yet in the valley of a thousand hills seeing kids walking before the sunrise to reach their first class on time. I do believe a great nation waiting to blossom!

I leave you with some last words of wisdom that only education can progress:

"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."