Flunk The Elites

Recently on a flight from Nairobi, I was trying to catch a nap when I opened my eyes to realize that there was a row of people stretching down half the plane. I soon realized that the queue that had formed was a result of the basic human need to take a piss.

As is the custom on most flights these days the air hostess had announced previously that there were two toilets on board, the one at the front where business class is situated and one at the back in cattle class.  All passengers were requested to use the toilet in their respective classes.

Now all this sounds rather standard, given the way that we have been socialized and brow beaten into believing that classes are part of our life, a natural reality and burden which has to be carried with a smile, a wink and silent suffering. But when you have half the plane lined up down the corridor desperately trying to control their bladders, waiting to use one toilet, while the other, just a couple of steps away, remains completely empty and un-used, one has to question the logic and motive for such clear demarcation of territory.

Not one passenger was prepared to challenge the clear class distinction and separation. The passengers were made up of women, men, white , black, Japanese, Americans, Africans, Europeans and who knows who else. Not one found the inconvenience of having to queue up to fifteen people long down a narrow isle that convulsed with contractions, extensions, ducking and diving as each consecutive person emerged from the toilet and had to squeeze their way past the hordes that had collected outside the toilet, and back to their seat. It was completely accepted as normal and acceptable that those in cattle class deserved less comfort and convenience to relieve themselves than the couple of people who were able to access their toilet at will in business class. Granted, those in cattle class were not all made up of  the every day working class people, in fact they were endowed with a range of gadgets and belongings which clearly pointed to their middle class status, but this is not my point.

What struck me was the way that money, either the abundance of it, or the lack of it, determines the number and nature of struggles that one has to endure. This has been ingrained into the psyche of the human to such an extent that we do not even blink an eye when confronted with it. Even while those waiting in the queue were dancing on twinkle toes, waiting to relieve themselves,  it did not occur to them that there was something fundamentally wrong with the scene unfolding before them. Perhaps they did feel that there was something wrong with this unequal distribution of toilets (a ratio of 12 people to two toilets in business class, while in cattle class it was 100 people to 2 toilets), but the question is, why did they not feel that they had the agency, right or support of their fellow passengers to demand their right to use the available toilet in business class,  and instead feel that it was their lot in life to stand  like cattle waiting their turn, dancing on twinkle toes, enduring the humiliation of having to stand in a queue, while an elite toilet was available just a few steps back?

It is quite probably the same effect described by Henri Poincaré (1908) When he famously said, " When people are in close contact they do not act randomly and independently of each other; they react to each other. Many factors come into play, and they perturb people, and move them right and left, but there is one thing that they cannot destroy, which is people’s tendency to act like sheep. And, it is that which is conserved"

But people's tendency to act like sheep does not fully explain the complete lack of will to challenge the status quo. It does not fully explain why people accepted the status quo and thought that it is acceptable for those who have less money to spend, to deserve less convenience, facility and service.

The answer lies in the way our society has developed from a society that should value human dignity to one that values human wealth. Those with less money are less human and thus deserve less dignity. The more "menial" your work, the lower your wages,  the less you are able to consume, the more undeserving you become, the less you are treated like a human, the more you are shoved into cattle classes. The further down this ladder you are,the worse your predicament becomes.

I refuse for my worth to be determined by the amount or value  of commodities I consume, I refuse to accept that I have to stand in a line of 15 people in a tight airline corridor waiting for a chance to relieve myself while there is a perfectly good one standing empty just beyond the curtain, I refuse to be a sheep led to the slaughter.

Flunk the Elites. Flunk you for thinking that your money makes you better than me. Flunk you for trying to make me believe that my lack of money makes me inferior, or that I deserve less. Flunk you.