Stuck Up!

 









This poster was tweeted by Laura Hammond with the following message:
"Thanks @PrivateEyeNews for clarifying the new EU/Turkey deal. Any questions?"

Seriously? How stuck up can some Europeans be?! Thinking that 75 million Turks would get up and come to live in Europe if they could!
(Just like the Americans thinking/believing the whole population of Mexica is going to invade their country if borders were opened. I'm sorry but such people are so conceited, so arrogant... They put themselves on such a high pedestal. It's incredible.)





I, at least for one, would get up and leave Europe if my husband was not working here. (I have a born Turkish, acquired Italian citizenship.) I'm not sure if I'd go back to Turkey as the climate currently is quite upsetting, but I would definitely spend some of my time in Turkey and the rest in Latin America. Despite everything, Turkey has a lot of good things to offer. I don't need to say it, just ask some of the foreigners who have chosen to live in Turkey and hear them rave about it. (One example I could give is James Taylor who wrote on his FB page after the attacks in Ankara. "Turkey is an amazing country with truly wonderful people. I have never felt more welcome, more happy, more safe than I do here. Ankara is my home, it has been for the last 18 months, and it will continue to be my home." And he is saying this about Ankara! Which is one of the most "dull" places in Turkey if you ask me. Nothing compares to the Bosphorus in İstanbul, the history of Anatolia, the welcoming people and the green of the Black Sea, the blue Mediterrenean waters which unfortunately has now become a graveyard thanks to politicians, the most colorful culture of the South-East, which again unfortunately has become a clashing point.)

Keeping the political situation apart, I find life more modern and "civilized" when it comes to public services in Turkey than here in Italy, a part of Europe. (You may find a detailed analysis here.) You bet there are many people disappointed in Europe, they do not like it here, and prefer to go back home.
         Seriously... You don't have the grounds to be so stuck up. Thinking that your country is so great and wonderful. If people come here, it's only because they believe they can find a job and make a living for themselves, not because they want handouts. As John Oliver of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” says “It's just a little hard to hear these migrants and refugees being called lazy considering how hard many of them have worked to reach Europe in the first place. You want to talk about lazy migrants? I'm a lazy migrant. I left the country by airplane and the only things I was escaping were fog, public indifference and almost certain future as the turtle of Prince Harry's entourage.”
       Seriously... Life is not only about public services either. I have Italian friends, Turkish friends living in Brussels. They say the services are top-notch but neither the Italians nor the Turkish like living there, they complain about the coldness of people. But they are there... Because their livelihood is there. Where to live and what to do with life is a very personal balance that every person, every family decides for themselves.

People discussing migration prefer to turn a blind eye to any other kind of movement in the world. As if migration is only about people coming to America and/or Europe. Some see as if that's the whole world. As if there is no movement in any other direction... Just like Chinese Quarters, Little Italys, there are places in the world that look like English or German villages. And there are many people moving around for business reasons or travelling or just retiring overseas. (That's why there are so many “Best places to retire” lists on the Internet.) But of course these are not immigrants. Even the word they use for themselves is different, they are expats. Immigrants are the poors.

Injustice Starts At Birth

There are 193+2 countries in the UN. Have a look here at "The Henry & Partners Visa Restrictions Index 2016 -Global Travel Freedom at a Glance." Holders of US and European passports can travel to about 160-174 countries and territories visa-free or with visa on arrival. That is, most of the world is open to them. Poor Syria ranks 100 on the list with only 32 countries they can travel to without a visa. Somalia, Iraq and Pakistan follow. Afghanistan comes last with only 25 countries open to them visa-free.
      The babies, babies... I cannot stress the word BABY enough here... are discriminated according to the geographical area they happened to be born in. What is the merit of a baby born in Europe and America, what is the crime of a baby born in the latter countries that there is a huge difference in the portion of the world accesible to them?
       Ahh... It's the womb lottery. Right. I see... Nothing we can do about it. (!) (Note for those who do not get it: The exclamation mark in paranthesis implies irony.)

To have an idea of the ridiculousness of this practice please see "A Visa Comedy- A Case for the Abolition of Visas" and please read all the way down to the "Tragedy Part of the Story."
To see how wonderful it would be, making life easier for both sides if visas were removed, refer here.

People may wish to go some place for different reasons, they go and come back, they move around. Mobility is a natural part of life. It is (should be!) a birthright to go anywhere one wishes on the earth you are born. Asking questions like "Why don't they go to the Gulf countries?" for Syrian and other refugees/migrants is ridiculous. Especially when nobody asks "What is McDonalds doing in Africa? Why doesn't it stay in America?" Nobody asks what all the British in Kalkan, Antalya doing there. Seriously, why don't they stick to x-colonies at least if they're going to resettle? For further analysis, see my "Oh People... Stay Put" article.

Of course, people who have 160-174 countries to visit at their disposal do not care much. They do not care to visit the few that require visas from them anyway. But Freedom of movement is either for everyone or none!

Europeans, Americans, that is the Western world needs to decide on one thing: Either we, I mean you, the leaders in the UN club issue a global decree saying "From now on, everybody stays put wherever they are. People are only allowed to move within a 100 km (or you may make it a 1000 km) diameter circle."

OR
You do the right and just thing. As it should be... You issue a decree saying "We understand and accept that requirement of visas for people to travel from one place to another on the world they were born, i.e. restriction of people's free movement, has been a most unfair and unjust practice. From today on, we put an end to this global injustice. We announce to the world that Visa practices are ABOLISHED!"

And the whole world applauses with a standing ovation.*

* Well... I know the whole world will not applause. Some will curse and rebel. But don't worry. They'll get used to it.**

** We wouldn't need a war to abolish slavery today, we are civilized, aren't we? We are not like some "barbaric" Middle-Easterners or "backward" Africans, we are a part of the civilized world.
     Or are we?

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