With the certitude of a true believer, Vellya Paapen had assured the twins that there was no such thing in the world as a black cat. He said that there were only black cat chaped holes in the universe.

The IMF and the World Bank, the most opaque and secretive entities, put millions into NGOs who fight against "corruption" and for "transparency." They want the Rule of Law - as long as they make the laws. They want transparency in order to standardise a situation, so that global capital can flow without any impediment.

It's all a play. Hiroshima and Nagasaki happen, there are hundreds of thousands of dead, and the curtain comes down, and that's the end of that. Then Korea happens. Vietnam happens, all that happened in Latin America happens. And every now and then, this curtain comes down and history begins anew. New moralities and new indignations are manufactured...in a disappeared history.

I never do anything because I'm a celebrity, as a rule. I do what I do as a citizen.

But can we, should we, let apprehensions about the future immobilize us in the present?

Every strategy for real social change - land reform, education, public health, the equitable distribution of natural resources ... - has been cleverly, cunningly, and consistently scuttled and rendered ineffectual by those castes and that class of people which has a stranglehold on the political process.

At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody.