You are so privileged if you belong to poor of the world these days. You are bestowed with benefits, gifts and attention that the rich can only envy. At last, the world is changing.

If you are poor from a North African country, you are offered freedom. At your service are missiles, aeroplanes, bombs, and what not. It doesn�€™t matter that those who are showering you with such gifts are the same who played buga buga with your perpetrators until only recently and appointed their daughters and spouses as envoys for world peace. What matters is that your freedom will soon be celebrated at greatest of the two universities on two sides of a large ocean, whose leading lights once took pride in dining with the sons of your perpetrators. What also matters is that your freedom will be celebrated next January at the annual meeting of movers and shakers of the world, where your perpetrator�€™s sons, their friends and their retinues were treated as heroes year after year by the head honchos of large corporations, heads of governments and Gurus or rather intellectual Gods of these heads. Now your time has come �€“ enjoy the freedom you are so generously offered on the tip of missiles and wings of aircraft bombers.

If you are poor from an Asian country, you are offered nuclear plants. You need electricity so that your children can get educated. It does not matter that the money that is found for nuclear plants is not available for investment in the very, very, very expensive solar energy. It does not matter that more than half of villages in your country do not have high schools. For global salesmen from France and �€œAmrica�€, nuclear plants matter �€“ schools and solar lit homes do not. Their profit is your prestige. Now your time has come �€“ enjoy the great power status you are so generously offered on the plate of fissile material.

If you are poor from a rich city, whether African, Asian or Latin American, you are offered corporate social responsibility, social entrepreneurship, and micro finance. It does not matter that you became urban poor because you were rural poor in the first place where the generous corporations, which are now so proud of �€˜giving�€™, bought your land at absurd prices against your will. But now you are so privileged that you have full attention of young, dynamic, bright young MBAs from some of the top universities in the world who have given up well paying corporate jobs to service you through social enterprises for which they get regular appearances in city tabloids, awards at glittering functions, nomination among �€œYoung Leaders of Tomorrow�€, none of which they would have got had they continued selling you inexpensive shampoo or expensive fertilizers. Now your time has come �€“ enjoy the benefits of corporate social responsibility offered in pretty packages of glossy booklets.

In order to appreciate the value of your privileges, do compare yourself to the rich whose times are bad.

Someone tried to offer freedom to the people in the rich countries, by providing access to information on the behaviour of states, but he faced lawsuits for dating a woman. He made two mistakes at one stroke. He mixed up democracy with freedom of information and he dated ordinary acquaintances �€“ instead of dating celebrity sons of dictators. 

Someone offered nuclear energy to the people in rich, and if I may add, democratic countries �€“ without anyone questioning anyone for years in real democratic consensus tradition �€“ until ordinary people in one of them suffered heavily following a big earthquake. Now others are shutting down nuclear plants. See, how unlucky the people are in rich countries. They are switching to solar and wind energy at the cost of great power status.

As for the urban poor, offers of corporate social responsibility for their benefit are very few in rich countries. The big bosses of large corporations spend money on think tanks (in thousands), parties (in several thousands), art galleries (in millions) and alimony (in several millions). 

So, the poor of the poor countries, your time has come �€“ enjoy your privileges you have been so generously offered. You never know when your luck will turn. Ask the really poor in Sub-Saharan Africa who also suffer at the hands of dictators. At best, instead of freedom, they are offered unity governments. At worst, they have to be satisfied with rationing in refugee camps.