Dragi Zlatan,
"What the hell are they supposed to do with awareness?"
Zlatan does not know who I am. There is no reason why he should. But then, without Football, the world would not know who Zlatan is. Football, genius and valour have granted him an opportunity to catalyse a movement bigger than the game. Bigger than the UN. Bigger than Zlatan.
Zlatan's words and body shine a light on the suffering of an invisible 805 Million people. A gesture far grandeur than his position demands, but in his own libretto, "what the hell are they supposed to do with words?" For awareness alone does not satisfy one's hunger.
What an indignity in today's world of abundance, opulence and progress that we have permitted the insatiable greed of a few to shame an entire generation into complicit onlookers to a modern-day famishment holocaust.
How we have allowed a system to cultivate 85 human beings in accumulating the equivalent wealth of 3.5 Billion human beings is beyond any sense of comprehension. We toil to find a solution for physical hunger while ignoring our personal hunger of having it all and still wanting more.
I simply cannot fathom how inhuman we, as humans, have become to extreme injustice, suffering and elitism. We accept their existence, but dare not burden our soul with their reality.
We can complain. There is so much to complain about. And complain we do. But mostly we play. In football, we are permitted to dream and stand as equals; forever forgotten, briefly remembered as kin. In football, unlike in the world, we are unvanquished.
And so, we created a stage to come together as one. Where every life has equal value. Where self-worth is not determined by net-worth. Where the entitled exalt for a dime.
How do we dare to start something bigger than us, something from the bottom that can ripple the top? Something to unite, like only football can.
Ja te pitam, Zlatno dijete, "What the hell are they supposed to do with awareness?"
Ironic but apt, Malcolm Forbes made the point "When we cease to dream, we cease to live". A time for collective action. A time for football to act. For every child to have a right to dream of being Zlatan or forever forgotten, the next best time is now.
"How much is the cost" - Not very much at all.