The Right to Dream

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 | posted by Matt_BC
General, Human Rights

Dreams speak to the man
The man whispers his dreams to the stars
The stars wink back and say,
“Come up anytime you are ready”

A beautiful quotation, I think. It captures that primitive longing that most of us have. That most basic element of being human, the ability to nurture and sustain dreams, and to spend most of our lives moving towards realising those dreams or living them out. Except when one doesn’t have the right to dream.

When we talk about human rights like access to water, access to health and shelter; we tend to look at them as an end in themselves. As if once a person is granted those rights the balance of the world is righted because of the “rights” themselves. As if basic human rights hold an exclusive key to happiness; but I see it a little differently. I believe that rights in themselves lead up to and allow people to dream, allow them to realise a potential that a lack of them withholds, allows them to become more than they are, to reach higher than they could have reached when they were thirsty or hungry or had nowhere to sleep. When those needs are covered, the spirit can concern itself with other necessities, can be human.

How many African mothers can dream beyond simply keeping their children alive for one more day, how many Haitians can dream beyond getting a roof over their heads, how many young children can ever dream of solving the mysteries that lie wrapped in the dark secrets of the universe when they haven’t even been taught the alphabet let alone physics? Newton, Einstein, Da Vinci would never have done what they did had they had to worry about keeping food on the table, keep themselves alive or never had the right to speak out their minds. So how can we expect the under developed world to ever develop itself if every Einstein it has is busy worrying about calculating the number of days it will take to earn enough money to buy a cow?

Let them dream of a brighter tomorrow, let them see beyond the conflict ravaging through their countries in the countryside and in the halls of parliament. Let them see above and beyond this present state, this present lack to the future possibilities that lie ahead. Being Zimbabwean this applies particularly to my fellow countrymen but I feel this applies to every person denied each or all of their basic human rights because each right denied, each family, child, person cut off from water, food, the right to speak, to learn or earn is robbed of the right to dream. And what is there that one can do if not dream, not reply to those stars calling your name?

As we fight for rights let us not fight just to get water to A, B or C. Let us not just reduce it to its barest elements but keep in mind that A, B and C are humans just like us, let us fight in the knowledge that we fight to keep them human, to sustain their humanity in as much as our is sustained. The pictures we see on television or the figures we read in articles like these (which is why I have avoided them altogether) do not have names but the people who lack do. And in as much as our dreams are real, let us make it one of our dreams to give a dream to another human being.

- Bongani Ncube