National Boundaries - a Solution
Virginia Woolf said something like ‘As a woman I am not a citizen of any country, I am a citizen of the world.’ This is something I agree with, and want to write about today.
The dominant civilisations through human history, especially the last 2,000 years, have been patriarchal, and these are the guys that created national boundaries. Why? Well, before that they were fighting a lot over who controlled what bit of land, and eventually they had to get down and talk about it, and the solution they came up with was a fairly arbitrary system of conceptual boundaries. Presumably these made sense at the time, but many were, or have become, unfair systems of keeping poorer people away from richer people, and keeping their hands off their wealth. Did women get a say in all of this? Probably they were exerting pressure from behind the scenes, but most of the meetings consisted of men. Boundaries were drawn up on the basis of men’s issues like race, religion and political persuasion, but womanhood can and often does transcend all these dimensions, leaving them largely irrelevant to womankind. If I sit down with a woman from another race or culture for more than a few minutes we find a lot in common. We share issues with our bodies, our relationships with men and with power, and childbearing and rearing. We swap ideas and perspectives, and we gain strength from hearing about each other’s struggles for recognition, love and justice. In short, we don’t fight about it. So national boundaries for us are false and meaningless.
People often accuse me (yes accuse me) of being idealistic, as if it’s better to put up with everything just as it is, as if none of us have any power to change anything at all. I say if we all just sit on our backsides complaining then nothing will ever change. I say that there’s only a few people who hold all the power in this world, and we let them have it. I say there’s more of us who are poor and powerless, than those that are rich and powerful, so we do have the strength to change things, just by our sheer numbers. But if we sit quietly, or refuse to dream of possible solutions, everything will stay the same, or get worse, and the kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers – the world aristocracy – will continue to treat us as unfeeling unthinking pawns in their self-centred game. Do you really think these people have our best interests at heart? Do you think they are altruistic beings who seek justice and equality? I don’t. I think they might like to think of themselves that way, and it stops us going mad to think of them like that too, but in reality they’re self-centred individuals who would do anything to hang onto their power. That’s why they’re so happy for us to fight each other, man against woman, adult against child, race against race, religion against religion; at least we’re not fighting THEM!
So, back to national boundaries. If we got rid of them all overnight we might have anarchy and lots of murder, so a more sophisticated plan might be needed. I propose a world government which would evolve out of the United Nations. Kofi Annan for World President! This world government would restrict itself to a few simple and basic tasks, for example ensuring everyone has food, clean water, shelter and vital medicines. Seeing as how this UN hasn’t been able to arrange a piss up in a brewery this is quite enough work for them to be going on with, although I’d quite like them to be peacekeepers too. I say this about peacekeepers because it looks to me as if President Bush has elected himself world president and his army the world police force. There hasn’t been any international input into these decisions, whereas the UN is supposedly representative of many nations and is ‘democratic.’ Therefore any kind of army or police run by the UN is more representative of the world at large and less likely to be serving the interests of the world’s richest most selfish nation.
I know I’m only a lowly blogger, but I think deeply about world politics, and I care about the planet and the human race, of which I am a well-connected part. Us little people can make changes, but only by sharing views and discussion. All I hope is that the seeds I cast into cyberspace meet some water and sunshine….
The dominant civilisations through human history, especially the last 2,000 years, have been patriarchal, and these are the guys that created national boundaries. Why? Well, before that they were fighting a lot over who controlled what bit of land, and eventually they had to get down and talk about it, and the solution they came up with was a fairly arbitrary system of conceptual boundaries. Presumably these made sense at the time, but many were, or have become, unfair systems of keeping poorer people away from richer people, and keeping their hands off their wealth. Did women get a say in all of this? Probably they were exerting pressure from behind the scenes, but most of the meetings consisted of men. Boundaries were drawn up on the basis of men’s issues like race, religion and political persuasion, but womanhood can and often does transcend all these dimensions, leaving them largely irrelevant to womankind. If I sit down with a woman from another race or culture for more than a few minutes we find a lot in common. We share issues with our bodies, our relationships with men and with power, and childbearing and rearing. We swap ideas and perspectives, and we gain strength from hearing about each other’s struggles for recognition, love and justice. In short, we don’t fight about it. So national boundaries for us are false and meaningless.
People often accuse me (yes accuse me) of being idealistic, as if it’s better to put up with everything just as it is, as if none of us have any power to change anything at all. I say if we all just sit on our backsides complaining then nothing will ever change. I say that there’s only a few people who hold all the power in this world, and we let them have it. I say there’s more of us who are poor and powerless, than those that are rich and powerful, so we do have the strength to change things, just by our sheer numbers. But if we sit quietly, or refuse to dream of possible solutions, everything will stay the same, or get worse, and the kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers – the world aristocracy – will continue to treat us as unfeeling unthinking pawns in their self-centred game. Do you really think these people have our best interests at heart? Do you think they are altruistic beings who seek justice and equality? I don’t. I think they might like to think of themselves that way, and it stops us going mad to think of them like that too, but in reality they’re self-centred individuals who would do anything to hang onto their power. That’s why they’re so happy for us to fight each other, man against woman, adult against child, race against race, religion against religion; at least we’re not fighting THEM!
So, back to national boundaries. If we got rid of them all overnight we might have anarchy and lots of murder, so a more sophisticated plan might be needed. I propose a world government which would evolve out of the United Nations. Kofi Annan for World President! This world government would restrict itself to a few simple and basic tasks, for example ensuring everyone has food, clean water, shelter and vital medicines. Seeing as how this UN hasn’t been able to arrange a piss up in a brewery this is quite enough work for them to be going on with, although I’d quite like them to be peacekeepers too. I say this about peacekeepers because it looks to me as if President Bush has elected himself world president and his army the world police force. There hasn’t been any international input into these decisions, whereas the UN is supposedly representative of many nations and is ‘democratic.’ Therefore any kind of army or police run by the UN is more representative of the world at large and less likely to be serving the interests of the world’s richest most selfish nation.
I know I’m only a lowly blogger, but I think deeply about world politics, and I care about the planet and the human race, of which I am a well-connected part. Us little people can make changes, but only by sharing views and discussion. All I hope is that the seeds I cast into cyberspace meet some water and sunshine….
posted by Firegoat @ 4:25 pm
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