Documents: To Have or Not To Have?

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7 of this piece..
Or read the whole Ending Statelessness or Ending Statehood?
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* UNHCR: The strongest message to emerge from the consultations with children and youth was that they exist and want to be recognized. “I am a human being;” “It’s a fact, before your eyes, that I exist;” “I am a part of this society;” “We are all of this earth,” were among the common sentiments expressed.

G: How can anyone argue anything about these sentiments?? It's all true. Undeniably true. So it's undeniably and unarguably true that the political order that makes these children and youth feel these things is CRAP and needs to be DISCARDED!

* UNHCR: The nightmare continues today — the woman who weeps that “it is better not to exist than to be without identity papers”; the youngster in the Dominican Republic who was denied an escape from poverty and an attractive career as a baseball player; and the woman in Madagascar who refuses to start a family until she gets citizenship.

G: What a shame that they make you weep saying “It is better not to exist than to be without identitiy papers”! It's such a shame! I agree it's a nightmare to have to live in such a world. Let's wake up and end this nightmare.
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“I never had an official document”, says Nazario who was born in Costa Rica. “Now that I have one, things are a bit different. We feel we belong to this country, we are part of it – with equal rights.” ©UNHCR / Lucas Iturriz

G: He is not aware how free he was and how his freedom is now taken away from him with that official document. Unfortunately, it is true that they don't let us survive without that binding chain, that piece of paper. The irony is... They now feel they belong to one country, they aren't aware that they belonged to the world without that paper. They are happy that they are constricted. That's the way our brainwashing political system shapes our worldview.

34 year old Lucrecia Martínez Abrego could not produce any documentation when she went to the hospital for treatment. Through the UNHCR supported project, she received her late-birth registration documents from the Panamanian Registry Office. “Now we have papers”, she says, “and if the authorities ask for them, we proudly present them.” ©UNHCR / Lucas Iturriza

G: Yes, so proudly! Not ashamed that you need to present papers to someone, to some “authority” in order to be treated humanly. I am yearning to see the day humanity will evolve to the point of holding a human life more precious than a piece of paper.
    I don't know if I'll ever get to see that day...

To Be Continued...