Ayoon Wa Azan (2 classes: Rulers and ruled)

I had thought that society is divided into three classes, a high class, a middle class, and a working class. However, that was what I learned in the books I read. Then, I left school and discovered that there are only two classes in reality, one for the rulers and one for the ruled. I have since contented myself with a position in between. In Britain, throughout the past week, the press covered extensively an online survey conducted by the BBC, in which 160,000 people participated. The survey came out with a new division of social classes identified by academics, who concluded that British society had seven different classes. How? First, there is the elite, i.e. the top class socially, culturally, and economically. Second, there is the established middle class, the second wealthiest in society. Third, there is the technical middle class, a new class with high income. Fourth, there is a class of new affluent workers, which has cultural interests and stands in the middle in terms of wealth. Fifth, there is the traditional working class, which has some security despite a low income and cultural level. Sixth, there is the emergent service workers’ class, who is financially insecure but has social and cultural ambitions. Finally, there is the “precariat”, which scores low for economic, social and cultural factors. There are many details in the story, and annual income distribution reflects a major split in society between about 100 thousand pounds a year for the elite and 3,253 pounds for the precariat. But in my opinion, this new division reflects the thinking of academics whose dominant characteristic is that they live in ivory towers and are not touch with society. In Britain, where I live, society is probably divided into two classes: A middle class that pays taxes and a lower class that lives on social welfare benefits from the taxes paid by those who work like me. The survey’s release coincided with the trial of a man who seems to have been conceived in crime and wickedness. The man fathered 17 children with 5 wives and mistresses. He never had a job and lived on welfare benefits. The man then started a fire to receive insurance money or a better house, and killed six children. This week, the man was sentenced to life in prison, which means he may be released in 15 years. The gallows were invented for such people, but I live in a country that bans the death penalty. Thus, I return to social classes, insisting that they are only “upstairs downstairs,” as in the famous British TV series from the 1970s about a family that lives “upstairs,” and the servants who live “downstairs.” The BBC had revived the series during this decade, but it did not last for more than two seasons before it was cancelled, because other contemporary programs were more popular with the viewers. I read all that has been published in the media about the seven new classes, but I was still not convinced. My experience tells me that society in developed Western countries is divided into three known classes, and in the third world into the ruling class and those whom it oppresses, or into thieves and peoples. Indeed, the Arab uprisings did not lead to freedom, justice, and equality, but only changed the names of those who were ruling. Now we have new rulers and new thieves; however, the old helpless people are the same. Yet, we are still better than the Americans. The U.S. Constitution of 1776 proclaimed in its first paragraph: “All men (and I think that they mean all people and not just men without women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, […] among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This would have been nice, were it not for the fact that one of the authors of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, and many other politicians of his era, were slave owners. Slavery continued in the United States until the 1861-1865 Civil War, and the “Emancipation Proclamation.” Today, there are no more slaves, but shackles of poverty, disease, and ignorance – which are slavery under a different name […]. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.