Barack Obama, former president of the United States, assured in an interview on CNN that one of the great threats hanging over democracy is “obscene inequality.”
He was referring to the topic that this week has fascinated the world: the rescue of the Titanic submersible, a toy for millionaires (at least $250,000 per ticket) that was destined for the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. The matter has become an obsession for the media and at least four countries (the United States, Canada, France and the United Kingdom) have turned to the deployment to locate the five crew members, who are now taken for granted. dead after parts of the submersible were found on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean, some 700 migrants are believed to have died in one of the worst shipwrecks on living memory. The case of these poor people, who were fleeing violence and misery, was buried by the wealth of the five from the Titan.
“Right now we have 24-hour coverage of this submersible that has been lost to the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “And in turn we have the 700 dead off the coast of Greece, which have been in the news, but not in that dominant way,” he added. “In some ways, this is indicative of the degree to which people’s life chances have become so disparate,” he continued. “It is very difficult to sustain a democracy when you have such a massive concentration of wealth,” the former president stressed.
Although his denunciation may be the most significant, more voices subscribe to the same criticism. Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, issued a statement criticizing the different government reactions. “Governments put all these resources to save five millionaires who were exploring the ruins of the Titanic – he stressed – but when it comes to immigrants in precarious boats, only the Greek coast guard makes efforts to save them. This is not accidental.”
