I want to be a wild beast in the woods like Charlie Brooker. I want to vent my ire, give my opinion on the important issues of the day and give striking insights into the minutiae of our daily lives. But where to start, what subject is most deserving of my scrutiny and insightful comment…
… this Guardian story relating to the litmus test of the inhumanity of out time, the deportation of people who want to settle in a new country, has caught my eye. The British government is carrying out ever more of its inhuman forced expulsions of human beings who want to live in the country. This time flying a bunch of unfortunate people to the war zone that is Baghdad – of all places.
But it seems an actual human being with feelings for the fellow inhabitants of this planet actually asked the poor deportees if the whole thing was OK with them. This human being was an Iraqi Army Officer and apparently he asked if anyone really wanted to get off the plane.
Not surprisingly the vast majority said no, and that they would want to go back to the UK. The officer then told the crew of UK security guards not to force anyone to come to Iraq ever again. That’s so cool. In my mind this guy looks like Sayid out of Lost. A hero, but also a normal bloke fighting injustice.
I might be alone in thinking that deporting people from a country is a bad thing, but to me it reminds me too much of the medieval practice of returning people - “called surfs” - to the villages where they were born. As Wikipedia says, “Serfs were labourers who were bound to the land.”
Serfdom died out, or more accurately people fought to have it ended, at least on the national basis, but internationally we are all, except for a few exceptions bound to the land. I don’t like it. I would like to be able to go live in any country I want, and I would like anyone - who felt so inclined, for whatever reason - to be able to live in the UK. The UK is where I was born, and yet, for no logical reason that I can discern, I seem to be bound to it. Crazy.
OK that’s a nice controversial start, but it’s also what I really think. I’ll be back with more deep thought, comment, analysis, illustration, cartooning, Guardian reading and maybe some rants real soon.
