Why do people Migrate? is it for themselves or for the country that are migrating to ?
Is it a fair question to ask a Syrian fleeing Alep, to go to Germany? Or a Honduran wanting to come to the USA ?
Even a middle class Indian from India migrating to Australia or Canada, is he going there with the primary purpose of the wellbeing of the Australians or Canadians?
Then again, do these people have the luxury of thinking about Karma? Are they not taking their own destiny in their hands?
Migration is a very personal issue, most people migrate these days for economic reasons and that is why the pull is to the Richer Countries.
To be able to travel the world, without migrating anywhere is a true luxury and that does give you a sense of freedom and clarity of thought and compassion.
If you do not think about yourself as OTHER, no one else will think that way either.
How not to think about yourself as the OTHER? In Kerala, does a Cochini think of himself as the OTHER ? He or She feels connected to the land, the language, the food and ambiance.
But they do complain that they are discriminated in Australia or UK or USA..
I have lived in Australia, Brunei, Sweden, USA, Jamaica, Cuba, UK, France and Belgium and know some countries intimately enough to claim residency, that would include Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia.
I cannot say I have been discriminated against, at least in my perception, and indeed I have felt that I was treated extraordinarily well.
Thinking about it, this is my advice to others who may follow this sort of nomadic lifestyle.
I have two:
Transformation
Compassion
Transformation is not a change but complete eradication of ones memory. or at least not let it interfere in a negative fashion. I do not have the luxury of thinking of the various lives in various countries that I have lived. Today I am in Miami on a lovely sunny day and the tranquility it affords me. I am grateful. As regards to the many friends I have made during my travels, but I am not on social media, so the covid pandemic has curtailed my interactions with them. But I always remember what La Petite Poete de Quiberon said to me, when she was about 8 years old?, How can I miss you, when I carry you in my heart? I carry my friends in my heart. I am homeless, metaphorically speaking, but as my younger brother Shimon in Haifa said: but there are many rooms in many hearts of your friends. I do not miss starched tablecloths, but the thought of little rooms in many hearts do comfort me. so if you ask me, where are you from? I can only answer, where is my heart at this moment.
Good Karma
Compassion
His Holiness the Dalai Lama said
If you want to make others happy , be compassionate
If you want to make yourself happy, be compassionate
An individual can be compassionate, an entire country can be compassionate ..
I truly would like my friends to be compassionate, more and more if possible and I have seen the joy in their lives.
You may not be an activist, but in your heart, ask for the justice for other human beings, allow them to be human .
A line from my favourite poet, the Chilean Pablo Neruda come to my mind (now that I have rejected individual starched tablecloths, let us lay out a great white tablecloth!)
The Great Tablecloth
Let us sit down to eat with all those who haven’t eaten; let us spread great tablecloths, put salt in the lakes of the world, set up planetary bakeries, tables with strawberries in snow, and a plate like the moon itself from which we can all eat.
For now I ask no more than the justice of eating.
Let your cultural identity be not like that little starched tablecloth, but a large one, to encompass the entire world.
I work with Indigenous peoples, who for years been exploited by settler colonialists (continues in Brasil), Missionaries (How God forgotten the Indians by that inverterate travel writer Norman Lewis is an eye opener), Anthropologists, Feel good church volunteers in the field of health and ruthless administrators at all levels from the top to the bottom. They have every reason to dislike the outsiders who came to their lands and handed out misery in return for their ancestral lands.
USA. Indians
Canada First Nations
Rest of America. Indians
The Indigenous people of the American continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego are related to each other, if we go far enough into antiquity
There is not a single country in the Americas, that an take credit for treating the Indigenous people well. The worst offenders are: Brasil, Bolivia (pre-Morales), Peru, Guatemala, but no single country or island is without guilt. With the exception of Dominica in the entire Caribbean archipelago is free of Indigenous cultures that flourished before the arrival of Conquistadores.
In Nambia (the african Herrero and Ovambo discriminate against the native San people reminiscent of European colonized countries). India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and many other countries pay scant attention to their indigenous populations.
So choosing to work with groups of people such as above, makes compassionate outlook part of your lifestyle.
Even if you are resident in Miami (not a very compassionate place) or Sao Paolo or Nairobi or Kuala Lumpur or Melbourne, there are multiple avenues within our system of work to be compassionate.
Instead we see our dear brothers and sisters in the West and those who want a western way of life in Asia (those working in companies like Ernest & Young, KPMG and such), unhappy , unable to laugh heartily.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you had a laugh that came from your insides?
We started talking about Good and Bad Karma.. You are in charge of how you are going to spend your life, the earlier you realize this , the better it is .
During the past year, I have not been able to travel, and what I miss most is the hearty laugh of many of the indigenous people that I know and work with.
I cant wait to laugh with them, Miami with individual exception is no place for a laugh, and be part of the indigenous people's teasing of this doctor, who they call, Brown Sugar Doctor and at times Ke se kui te pa, man who walks with Head in the Clouds
