I Support Your Regime

Apartheid can be defined as "an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups with the intention of maintaining that regime." I would like to talk briefly about one such regime.

Imagine that there is a place where members of one genetic background outnumber another by a factor of 20 to 1, yet are dominated by the smaller group. The regime identifies itself as being for the benefit of this minority, and rarely even publicly acknowledges the existence of the majority as residents. The majority residents do vital work for the benefit of the whole, but get no respect. Most of them live in a ghetto where raw sewage runs through the main throughway. Sometimes, in the name of putting down insurrections by invaders or rebels, chemical warfare is used, with collateral damage of slaughtering countless numbers of the subjugated majority. The ruling minority rationalizes that this is fine, the majority multiplies like mad anyway, soon their numbers will be restored anyway.

Where is this regime? Closer than you might think. This regime is: YOU!

You probably think of yourself as a single being, but of course in grade school you also learned you are made up of cells. As a adult, you have about 100 trillion cells, each with your DNA. So, we can also think of ourselves as a nation, population 100 trillion, of these cells. But it turns out they're in the minority. Your actual population is closer to 1 to 2 quadrillion -- you have 10 to 20 times as many bacteria as you do your own cells! By a census count, most of you isn't even you! The majority of these bacteria live in your large intestine (and can you imagine a worse ghetto?).

So of the regime that is you, only 5% is composed of... well, you. The privileged few with the "right" genetic makeup to be in the upper class, for whose benefit the regime is run. For that matter, the part of nation-you that I am communicating with is the brain cells. The elite of the elite. Of the 5% ruling minority, about 1% of those are brain cells. Of those 90% are glial cells -- sort of supporting functionaries. Only 10% are neurons, the upper .005% of your population. Of course, of those many are doing other things -- breathing, listening to the dog snore in the corner, remembering what you need to do tomorrow, whatever. The you that is receiving this is the true ruling class, a fraction of that one hundredth of a percent. If you were America, they'd be equivalent by percentage to perhaps a few hundred people. The part of you that is reading this is like the couple hundred most powerful people in the country.

So congratulations! You are the ruler of your own apartheid state. Untold quadrillions toil in your service. You are The Man!

You'd just better hope you can keep the masses down. I mean, if those low-class bacteria in your large intestine decided to revolt, the results would be... well, revolting.