I have joined the internet cafe society. My first venture out is to Starbucks in Sainsbury at Nine Elms. This has been prompted by Celia suggesting I have to take a walk for at least 30 mins a day to keep the legs working and generally to maintain some sort of physical ability to remain upright. Not too bad a venue. I sit by the long window able to see people coming and going. There are a couple of other people on laptops, but not as many as I have seen in other places. Our lodger also mentioned, the other day, that this is where he comes on the occasions he is not in the office. So here I sit.
I was also pondering in the night the many appalling situations round the world. My pondering initially concerned the upcoming midterm elections in the United States on the 3rd November and Remembrance Sunday, five days later in the United Kingdom, on the 8th November this year.
Remembrance Sunday has been a commemoration which had taken place in the United Kingdom for over a century, initially to honour those who perished in the Great War of 14 -18 and to promote the idea of world peace and world cooperation and unity. Since the end of the Second World War that Sunday tribute to the cessation of hostilities on the 11th November 1918 at 11:00 am, has become a symbol of hope for an end to hostilities across the world. It is that hope which gave rise to the idea of the League of Nations and the formation of the United Nations. Sadly it is only a hope
It is, however, part of the hope that our new Prime Minister seeks to infuse into the lives of every citizen in the United Kingdom. He runs on a slogan of “We have Hope”, a sort of Obama like ‘Yes we can’. I am all for that, but what is it we have come to when serious numbers of citizens support the likes of Reform and Reclaim, based on separatism and hostility to immigrants of any kind? What has given rise to these mobs who have popped up along our shores and surround supposed places of safety for asylum seekers? The scapegoating and vilification has disseminated across Europe, particularly since the outspoken poison emanating from Donald Trump during the course of many of his campaigns. If the President of the United States can say these things with impunity as well as immunity, then why not join the fray?
Much of the anti-immigrant scenario has calmed down a bit since the Trump War of Choice has pushed the world into a cost of living crisis. The price of fuel and energy engendered by this insanity has of course taken centre stage, and the economic fallout, particularly in the United States may just possibly bring about change and perhaps even hope. There is however no certainty in that. We wait and see, and just maybe Sunday the 8th November will not just honour the fallen, but give the rest of us some hope that ‘regime change’ in the United States is finally at hand.
So far as immigration is concerned it is something that has been happening for some time. There are place across the world where the population have found in intolerable to live or survive. They have accordingly sought refuge elsewhere. They seek a place where they can be free and make a decent life for themselves. They seek places where they have been told, and led to believe, true democracy thrives, and human rights are flowing in the very veins of the country. They are not concerned with possible problems of how they are to fit in. They just want in. They do however cause problems, and some citizens are prepared to work out just how to accommodate their arrival whilst still others seeks to bar them from any entry whatsoever. It is difficult to know just who will prevail.
I have always said that if you do not wants refugees to come to your country it is far better to help people make their own country habitable. Help them turn their countries into places they wish to thrive in rather than escape from. Help them achieve the democracy and host of the human rights they seek.
Of course on the other hand one can make the place they think is the answer to their hopes a place even more horrific, or at least as horrific, as the place they are coming from. Perhaps the alleged fact that immigration to the United States has dropped off to nothing is indeed due to the rhetoric of Donald Trump and the gestapo-like activities of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). If you are faced with the prospect of being hotly pursued and shot down then surely you do not want to go to a place where you will be hotly pursued and shot down. Clearly this is a very effective immigration policy, particularly as it is promoted vigorously and loudly by the President of the United States himself. He certainly seems to have got the message across. Sadly there are those in this country who would promote the same agenda. Push them back into the channel. Destroy their boats and let them drown. They are not welcome here.
So I pondered during the night, weak and weary, about how we have come to this. Those people who died during those global conflicts and who are honoured for their sacrifice to promote peace liberty and human rights - or so they were told where related to King and Country - would probably be turning over in their graves in shame, to look away from the activities of some of their descendants. Have they learned nothing? Have we lost all hope?
I am sorry to use such a cliche as ‘turning over in the grave’ but it holds true to what is going on and what we are soon to remember of the 11th of November at 11 AM. There should be more of an outcry of ‘shame’ to the likes of Reform and Reclaim leaders or anyone who promote this brutal and uncivilised behaviour. What has happened to hope? Good luck Andy Burnham. I hope with you, but it is a hard road you seek to tread.
As regards the cliched phrase, I can recall that when the great actor Ernest Borgnine was asked for his views about the film ‘Brokeback Mountain’, a different kind of western, he said “If John Wayne were alive today, he’d be turning over in his grave”. What better tribute can you give the man? If all those people who we honour on Remembrance Sunday were alive today, it would be a very different world.
It is indeed a different world for me sitting in Starbucks which is now filling up. I have more of less enjoyed the time and the croissant was very nice. The coffee so so but drinkable even if a small white filter coffee is actually quite large. The service was very nice and it was brought to my table as I set up the laptop. Tee hee,
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