These My Neighbours
The world is becoming a smaller place. It's peopled by a single race, but oh how different the cultures, histories, traditions. Human values, we like to think, are overwhelmingly universal. They must be, since all humans share similar general traits; we all are imbued with emotions which make us human. Some of which are there to ensure our fundamental position in the universe: survival. It is our survival instincts, hailing back to those dim annals of long-forgotten historical existence that are now often our worst collective enemies.
Tribalism is what once kept us tightly together for protection from the great unknown. That unknown being fiercely predatory animals living in close proximity to our ancestors and more often than not, other tribes with needs similar to our own, but presenting in their geographical proximity, a threat to our own survival, since we all required habitable areas, potable water, hunting opportunities and guarded jealously what we had for self-preservation.
This is a world of relative plenty. From mineral deposits to food production, from energy sources to fishing the world's oceans. A greater number of discrete nations now live in prosperity than ever before, while emerging economies in other nations are dragging them forward into prosperity as well. Some nations become bogged down in rigid traditionalism which holds them back from advancement in technology, trade, and amicable relations with their neighbours.
But take citizens of those countries which lack privileges for the many along with the economic advantages offered for personal advancement because of religious tradition which disallows dreaded modernity - and bring them into a more open and free environment and they adapt as readily as native-born. You really can take the tribalism, the illiberal traditionalism, the fanatical religion out of some people.
It is these people who recognize the advantages of absorbing an hitherto alien culture and society into their personal experience, and who become eager and willing citizens, adapting to societal norms, while still maintaining a comfortable affiliation with those aspects of their ethnic and social traditions that contribute to a successful society such as Canada's.
People of the Middle East, with their rigid interpretations of Islam, their tribal angers and angsts, their primitive xenophobia, their seeming inability to accept different as being equal, are conditioned by history, geography and tradition to continue in their mindset hindering social development and economic thrust. The regional and religious sectarian animosities burn brightly. They are at home in their countries' values and denial of temperance.
Take these people out of the geography and place them in North America and they become our neighbours. They are my family physician of 33 years, a Syrian-Canadian. They are my oldest son's medical condition specialist, an Egyptian-Canadian. They are the neighbourhood Lebanese small-shop owners we've known for years, who greet us with affection. They are the two Christian Egyptian families on my street. They are the Muslim Bangladeshi family down my street.
We are comfortable in one another's company, and see each other as humans, as Canadians.
They are not the legion of disaffected, angry, disentitled, miserably-housed and fed they once were; perhaps never were entirely. Then there are those others, whose emigration from homelands for various reasons bring them to other shores and they find the values, mores and public morals wanting in the accepting countries. These are those who should have stayed where they were.
They feel no obligation to their new host country, find only fault. These are not my neighbours.
Tribalism is what once kept us tightly together for protection from the great unknown. That unknown being fiercely predatory animals living in close proximity to our ancestors and more often than not, other tribes with needs similar to our own, but presenting in their geographical proximity, a threat to our own survival, since we all required habitable areas, potable water, hunting opportunities and guarded jealously what we had for self-preservation.
This is a world of relative plenty. From mineral deposits to food production, from energy sources to fishing the world's oceans. A greater number of discrete nations now live in prosperity than ever before, while emerging economies in other nations are dragging them forward into prosperity as well. Some nations become bogged down in rigid traditionalism which holds them back from advancement in technology, trade, and amicable relations with their neighbours.
But take citizens of those countries which lack privileges for the many along with the economic advantages offered for personal advancement because of religious tradition which disallows dreaded modernity - and bring them into a more open and free environment and they adapt as readily as native-born. You really can take the tribalism, the illiberal traditionalism, the fanatical religion out of some people.
It is these people who recognize the advantages of absorbing an hitherto alien culture and society into their personal experience, and who become eager and willing citizens, adapting to societal norms, while still maintaining a comfortable affiliation with those aspects of their ethnic and social traditions that contribute to a successful society such as Canada's.
People of the Middle East, with their rigid interpretations of Islam, their tribal angers and angsts, their primitive xenophobia, their seeming inability to accept different as being equal, are conditioned by history, geography and tradition to continue in their mindset hindering social development and economic thrust. The regional and religious sectarian animosities burn brightly. They are at home in their countries' values and denial of temperance.
Take these people out of the geography and place them in North America and they become our neighbours. They are my family physician of 33 years, a Syrian-Canadian. They are my oldest son's medical condition specialist, an Egyptian-Canadian. They are the neighbourhood Lebanese small-shop owners we've known for years, who greet us with affection. They are the two Christian Egyptian families on my street. They are the Muslim Bangladeshi family down my street.
We are comfortable in one another's company, and see each other as humans, as Canadians.
They are not the legion of disaffected, angry, disentitled, miserably-housed and fed they once were; perhaps never were entirely. Then there are those others, whose emigration from homelands for various reasons bring them to other shores and they find the values, mores and public morals wanting in the accepting countries. These are those who should have stayed where they were.
They feel no obligation to their new host country, find only fault. These are not my neighbours.
posted by Pieface @ 5:48 PM
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