Winning the Geographic Lottery

Isn't it crazy how our greatest privileges are afforded by sheer luck?

The geographic lottery — the silent foundation, that has largely allowed our lives to play out

how they have.

Where we are born is intrinsic to the things we have access to, and in turn the lives we lead,

so intrinsic that we fail to notice its impact.

We tend to remind ourselves how lucky we are to be alive in this time period, but in focusing

on the when, we seem to forget how lucky we are to be born where we are.

A simple post code, a mere coordinate, determines our access to education, whether we are

living under war and famine or even our rights.

It does not matter that we as humans were supposed to be created equal when the country

you are born in can easily diminish as many opportunities as it can create.

A child from Sudan and a child from the Netherlands could be born on the exact same day,

at the exact same hour, even down to the exact same minute, and yet their lives will be

worlds apart. One child will only know suffering, war, instability and destruction and the other

will know laughter, stability, good health and high quality education. It does not matter that

there would be almost no difference between the children, nothing that makes either of them

deserve the lives they have to live. The trajectory of their lives are already set for them.

Much like the regular lottery, something completely randomised, seems to have monumental

effects.

And for how unfair it seems to be, many of us in the west do not seem to care. We turn a

blind eye, because we are the winners of the geographic lottery.

As much as we have our problems, as much as even western countries have their struggles

with income inequality, our slow, but preventable, descent into fascism, and issues with

racism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia and more on the rise, we have still, in the sick

game that we call our world, won.

That is not to diminish all the aforementioned problems that desperately need to be fixed,

only bring light to the chances we have to change those things, the chances that others

across the globe are not afforded.

It is a reminder that you do not earn privilege, you are born into it.

And this sickening lottery is rigged, set up by the very people, the very countries, that want

you forget that the system is even there. For there to be a game, there has to be a game-

maker.Life is a gamble, but that does not mean it is fair.

Written by La’Keesha Stewart