Five centuries ago, Austrian laborers built the 1,411 room Schönbrunn palace to house “the royal family,” the Hapsburgs. Today, in our world, there are still emperors and plebeians; they have just been assigned new names.
Today’s global order of refugees and right-wingers, the refused and the ravagers, the confined and the benighted is but a continuation of the epoch of empire. OXFAM (Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) released a study this year revealing that 62 individual billionaires now own as much wealth as 3.6 billion people, or half of humanity.
The social implosions and explosions are pending. Revolutionaries prepare for the eventuality of a class showdown, redirecting both destructive and constructive energies into the channels that will bring peace to future generations. What we are living today is not peace; it is its diametrical opposite; greed.
Mark our words: the day will soon come when the Schönbrunn palace is reopened to house the refugees of imperialist-fueled wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and beyond. The uprooted families will find a home here until they can return peacefully to their homelands and reparations can be restored to tune of billions of dollars. Reparations are merely the returning of what was stolen over the course of centuries from Africa, the Arab world and the rest of the “third world” to fund empires of a bygone past and build decrepit, soulless artifacts — such as the Schönbrunn palace.
Interesting prophecy! If we see things only from humanitarian point of view, you might be right, but the things should be understood in their historical context. Equality is a nice concept, but from the beginning of our life we are not equals, and countries neither.
Also, the history has proved that Marx’ ideology is not functional on long term and the revolutions only changed the “emperors”. The existing leading class was changed with the communist leading class, with the same habits and greed. So I think the peace you are talking about is just an ideal that will never be achieved due to the human nature.
With the refugee crisis, it is an important issue that needs to be talked about because it shows that people are afraid if other people don’t look like them or share the same background. Whether that is religion, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. When it comes to this post, the author expresses his concerns over the fact that Austrian laborers were exploited in order to benefit the wealthy by suffering and not be taken into consideration. It is the same thing that happened with the Syrian refugee crisis because the people were looking for a safe place to get away from the horrific events that happened over there. Women and children were affected the most in the process. Instead of receiving refuge, the people were turned away due to xenophobia. This was also the case for the Jewish people in WWII, since they were denied access to the US until 1945 when the war ended. In the end, it is inhumane to not offer help or resources to people who are in tough situations.
It’s like the most common expression used today “the richer get richer and the poor get poor”. As sad as it is, this world always been about power and money. Those two go perfectly well together.. Great things can be accomplish if use the right way and if used the wrong, it can also destroy us. If they were to rebuild the palace for the refugees to settle there, it would be a blessing from the sky. However, what would the catch? What will these poor people have to do or give up to actually have peace in their life?