MIGRATION THROUGH LIFE
A threat to the Planet as well as at an individual level is/has been present over the past three months. We have become open to the sufferings of others as well as concentrating on our own survival.
Your worldview depended upon the risk you perceived from the danger.
For a 30 year old outdoor enthusiast, this posed little threat, even though he may not realize he is a threat to others, in higher risk categories.
Our concept of OTHER also defines our worldview.
There was a time in England when they said , the Other starts at Calais.
I grew up in Australia and the idea of racism was only against the Other who was visible and not invisible. People of African Origin regardless of their continents were very rare. Chinese was synonymous with bright students studying under government scholarships, the onlhy middle eastern people you met were those from Israel and Lebanon. The migrants were predominantly Italian and Greek and Yugoslav. And we all felt that we were selected children of humanity.
PS. All these innocence was to be lost when multiracial immigration took place in Australia
Having grown up in such an ambiance has been a privilege. When I became a world traveler later on, people were not distinguished by their colour but by the interest they kindled in me whether you were an Akka in the streets of Yangon or a Kavango just across the border in Namibia.
For majority of the people on this earth, we cannot choose the country of our identification, much like the saying, You cannot choose your family.
But you can choose your friends.
Thus the attitudes towards the other, is a chosen one.
To choose to leave where one is born or raised, there are push and pull factors.
Economic incentives and warfare that destructs your world comprise the majority of the movements of the people. One is PULL factor , such as the attraction of USA to the Central American people and the other is PUSH factor as happened in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria.
But there are a substantial number, not in millions, who wish to migrate. There are people with skills which for reason or another becomes obsolete in their country and in many times incongruous with the country’s sense of advancement. Majority of the developing nations want to concentrate on projects and innovations that are economically beneficial rather than beneficial to the individual and the society.
I cannot think of many governments where the economic developments go hand in hand with the social development. I remember addressing a group of students in Singapore, studying something related to Business which most of them tend to do: How do we become happier? I am surprised how little attention the Asian universities pay to social sciences, many of them dismissing Anthropology as colonial or the luxury of the western nations. The social scientists I have met in Asia, especially the anthropologists in Malaysia, are not impressive in that they cannot liberate their minds from the restraints the society places on them. It is like trying to be vegetarian in Namibia ?
The latest push factors are politics and populist leaders who are elected by a non representative proportion ignorant of dangers of demagoguery. We have had a slew of leaders of such nature, Trump in USA and Bolsanaro in Brasil.
Whenever a populist is elected the disparity in economic status and the neglect of the social justice is augmented. A Prison is a Prison regardless of how beautiful it is. To be happy it is not sufficient to move to a larger prison but you need to leave the prison altogether. A major portion of the educated Malaysian Chinese and Indians have left the country, despite the fact that their country is one of the more beautiful in South East Asia, the standard of living is reasonable and the food excellent. Happiness does not come from what is outside of you but it comes from what is inside of you .
Oh Pobre Brasileiros! A government so much like USA but so far away from the principles of USA democracy..
It has been pointed out that countries governed by woman all have confronted this epidemic with fantastic results.
Jacinda Arden of New Zealand, Angela Merkel of Germany, Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, Katrin Jakobsdottir of Iceland, Sanna Marin of Finland, to give a few names..
Perhaps to heal this planet we need more and more women leaders, young and old.
Women are natural healers.
In the meantime, let us wish well for all the displaced people for one reason or another, within their own countries, outside their countries, within their societies, within their families and within themselves..
