Respect, not race

With the British National Party grabbing a few headlines at the moment, I thought that I'd offer my own take on the issue of nationality and citizenship as my first WoS post of 2007.

Coming from a pretty multicultural city, I’ve worked alongside people from across the world, some of whom I’ve considered good friends. Most of the time, when either bitching about work or sharing a drink, their ethnicity or their reasons for coming to Britain simply hasn’t struck me as important – a brief topic of conversation, at best.

In a desperate attempt to make my English degree mean something, I like to put this down to my love of reading. Bear with me. On my bookshelves sit cherished works by the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, and various other writers from a diverse range of backgrounds. If I’ve learnt only one thing from this esteemed collection of writers (and that’s quite possible) it’s that the character of a person is far more interesting and important than where they come from. Things like nationality or ethnicity don’t define someone, but their outlook on life can.

In his excellent essay on identity, ‘Citizens of the World’, K. Anthony Appiah tells us that one of the last pieces of advice his father left him was that, wherever he lived, he should try to leave it “better than you found it”. A perfect motto for the internationalist outlook. That’s what’s important to me: If someone respects their fellow citizens then, regardless of where they came from, I’m more than happy to live alongside them.

Animal Killing

I respect the Japanese culture. In many aspects they are very advanced and a very respectful society, but coming up with this video I could not be more shocked. It is not the fact of killing dolphins that shocked me, which I already knew that it was happening there. But what shocked me the most was the brutal way that they do that.

I wonder how a society that is so shy it terms of human contact (where a social kiss can be a very stressful event) can support this kind of activity!!!

A simple story

Palmdale, California - USA. The day was April 12, 2005. A person lost his life. Another also lost his life, not physical but social. The full story is here.

What strokes me was how can a society condemned 13 years old Greg Harris Jr. to a 12 years of confinement in a youth detention centre. I know that a kid died because of his actions, but what does a society gain with this sentence?

Nothing done will bring back to life that person, and nothing good will be achieved with this sentence. So why? It was the question that yesterday was in my mind and didn’t go away. It was a tragic event, but not rational, not like the sentence. This sentence will kill this kid life. He will spend as much time inside as outside of the youth detention centre. His values will be gain in that youth centre, not the best place to grow, I think.
One question pops up: “Who condemns the condemner?”

And if you read the story I ask I many of you where close to be in Greg’s shoes? Do you feel like a criminal and that you should be locked away? Sometime it was only luck that separated us from Greg. The luck that we had that this little kid didn’t have.

Final note: His appeal just started. I sincerely hope that the sentence will change.