WHAT FREEDOM OF CHOICE HAVE YOU GOT?

WE CANNOT ALL MAKE THE CHOICES THAT WE WOULD IDEALLY LIKE TO, IT DEPENDS ON WHERE WE WERE BORN, DOES IT NOT? Post NO.17/IN (A 9 minute read)  

Having got now within a year of myself, I have got round to thinking that hey, does anyone care about that? Does anyone even know that I am a year behind myself? No and no, of course are the answers to those two questions! Do I even care? Well, time is relative and as there are none holding their breath waiting on my words and actions, what does it matter?

The trouble is though, that my words all belong to the past and could seem to have lost their relevance with the passing of time. My first book I FEEL, is timeless, rather like my Punk Rock and Reggae music songs! Until what we write and sing of changes, they will continue to have the same meaning! I can see that clearly!

In that first book it was COVID-19 that became the modern, ongoing backdrop to my narration and we were still up to our necks in our coronavirus pandemic when I finished that book in July 2021. So, having picked up my pen and paper again just six weeks later at the beginning of September 2021, coronavirus was still troubling me very much.

Having made it through to another springtime, it was the conflict in the Ukraine that took centre stage and is of course, still very ongoing a year later. For the moment though in my writing, I am concentrating on our freedom as world citizens to travel around the world. How do we fare as nations when it comes to travelling and working abroad? 

THE APPROACHING SAHARAN SAND CLOUD OUTSIDE MY WINDOW!

Moving into chapter twelve titled Freedom of Choice now and that title will give you a good idea as to its subject matter. The coronavirus epidemic did nothing to alter the movements of hundreds of thousands of desperate people who continued to leave their homelands in alarming numbers. Where were they all going?

I quote myself from this chapter:

All migratory patterns are conditioned but how many can freely choose how and where they migrate to. Our Northern property owners down here in southern Spain have been able to make a migratory choice, have they not? They have bought themselves a home in their native land and a home further south, as such they have the freedom to migrate southwards as and when they FEEL the need! Wonderful, I am happy for them all. They have earned their freedom of choice!

So too, have their nation´s won a right to have freedom of choice, at least if you can afford it. These are nations who have had enough of war and conflict and wish to evolve out of the cold war eras and leave death and destruction behind.

All through time, his-story is one long succession of one member of man-kind sparring against another member of man-kind. All the rest of human-kind are caught up in the crossfire. The fodder for the cannon, the tools who work HIS machines of life or death!

Wars and conflicts, for all the most foolish reasons, are a permanent part of our life on Earth and will continue to be whilst variant man-kind is in power! Do or die; and all the rest of us get caught up in every ugly slip-stream that becomes ours!

The atrocities of the Second World War are still being revealed and have a power to shock and sicken me, given the knowledge of just what a hideous monster variant man-kind really is! He is a different specie to the human-being, he truly is! End of quote.

And so it is still in today´s world. Depending on the relationships between our respective governmental leaders, we are welcome in their nation or we find their doors closed to us. I am exploring in more detail why it is that we have so many (tens of thousands) young men, women and children, who take the most dangerous option of them all to go travelling.

I quote myself again from this chapter:

Because NO, man-kind was never much good at communication with his own kind, was he? All is well whilst all agree with HIM, disgree once, just once and suddenly HIS doors are closed to you and your nation again! HIS broken buddy-buddy relationship with your leader has broken up! Men will support men and of course, many confidences will have been shared during these times of buddy-buddy!

You can be equally sure that much will have been withheld too! Totally trusting? Man-kind who knows another member of man-kind for what he is, will inevitably measure him by HIS own yard-stick and as such, will certainly never trust totally!

Playing games all the time; sparring with each other! Temporary love affairs whose breaking up and the knock-on effects of that break up and their intensity, will equal the depth of love that was grown and nurtured in the buddy-buddy days of love.

Those dizzy days when we were all in agreement with each other!!!!! They as individual leaders may have been in agreement with each other but I wonder if put to the public vote, the citizens would have been in agreement with their respective leaders! Very few, I can well imagine!

It is our leaders who make the decisions that we all have to live by and therefore, condition our ways of life and the opportunities and choices that we have within our society at home and when travelling further afield! End of quote.

Right at this moment in time, we are seeing a clear change in Arab attitudes within their governments. There is a steady, growing pressure from the Arab citizens for peace and honesty. There are at last a strong set of leaders who are willing to work together as neighbours and friends. They all have a shared ancestry, this should not be so very difficult to do.

Man-made hypocrisy must be put aside. The good guy and bad guy tags must be put aside too. We have never known an honest leadership in any nation of the world! We the people must be honest with ourselves too. We know that our leaders have always been up to their necks in dirty dealings. ALL above the law as I keep saying.

I myself as a British national, had recently found my birth nation ready to put their hypocrisy aside. NO, we do not give a hoot about the greater European Community, NO we do not! Why should we be part of a greater community when WE are such a great community ourselves. BREXIT!!! As citizens we have to live by the decisions made on our behalf by our leaders!

Well, I as a long-time resident in Spain, have not lost or gained personally, I just stay the same. No national vote here or in the UK. A no-no citizen, as we are known. I have lost my right to participate in the decision making of my birth nation but have not got the right to vote nationally in my adopted country.

I do though still have a right to vote in my local elections (WOW!!), which we have coming up this weekend and I shall use the only opportunity that I have now as a human being, to cast my vote. Already though, I have seen a news brief talking of a buying votes deal going off here where I live! So typical of these small rural towns with a low population count!!

Hence why I FEEL that it is important for US, the foreign residents who do have the right to vote in our local elections, to do so! We are around 45% of the local population, so as you can see, if we were all to use that right, we could make all the difference. But once again, what about our education levels? Can we be bothered or do we even give it a thought?

This is more about integration and whether you do become aware and well integrated into the environment where you have taken up residence. Do you actually FEEL anything for your adopted home town? Do you have any idea of the local issues that the local natives have? Herein the two very different sides of the picture.

The poorer locals and immigrant workers versus the monied foreign resident! So, the final count is really based on those poorer locals who do FEEL their town and the few educated foreign residents like myself, who can see clearly that the current leadership really is sitting back on the job. We are familiar with the notion that WE the little people do have a voice and WE MUST use it!

Back to the book and my deep love for Morocco and its people sees me going into detail as to their difficulties in getting prepared for travel. There are so many Moroccan nationals arriving on the beaches of Spain, some stay and some pass through on their way to France! They really do not have many doors open to them as you can find out reading this chapter.

Just as Abd al-Rahman, they take the only option available that does not require passport, visa, hotel reservations and large supplies of money!

In the next post I will review the following chapter titled Mixed Fortunes and I continue this run over the travel options for the Tunisians, Algerians and the sub-Saharan nationals. It makes very sad reading. We are living in a hideously disequal world. The low level economies make the south to north migration so very costly. The contrast in ever sense when going north to south!!!

Lovely to have you looking my way, just to remind you or let you know, all my posts can be found on the Posts Index Pages which are in the left-hand panel of the screen. In those you can find the summaries to each post and links to them all. Until the next post......

Update 25/08/2023, my second book is now available on Amazon here are the links for you: ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT e-book and ON THE INSIDE LOOKING OUT Paperback

There are many INFJ writers out there, some are listed here: https://lifestyle.feedspot.com/infj_blogs