Holidays - Are they a Right?

I have just had two mini breaks, 4 nights in Italy on Lake Maggiore travelling by plane & 3 nights in The Netherlands (Amsterdam), travelling by Eurostar. I hadn't been abroad since 2019 when I went to Romania. I have travelled a lot to very far flung places in my life. I have also been lucky enough to work for charities in Nepal & Malawi. I do think travelling & experiencing other cultures & environments is important. I have benefited hugely from the experiences I have had. I hope that the countries I have visited have not been harmed by by my footsteps & maybe might have benefited from my presence.

My attitude to holidays as opposed to travel has changed over the years. I no longer think that we have a right to "go on holiday". I think that we have to weigh up the impact tourism has on the world & it's peoples, which is often detrimental in many ways.

 

Relatively wealthy people the world over have come to think that they have a right to go where they want & do what they want. They deserve it, they can afford it. We think that we need a break & in order to achieve that we need to go somewhere else, where the weather, the landscape, the food, the culture is different. I think we need to re-think that attitude in light of the many issues that surround mass travel. 

I live in Oxford. I rarely go into the centre of this lovely city because of the huge numbers of temporary visitors on the streets. We have students in the university. We have language students. We have tourists. The University alone has 26,000 students. We have 18 English language schools with thousands of students. The visitor population is approximately 8 million per year. That is a lot of people who often walk around in big groups & block the pavements. 

I accept that they also generate a lot of income too. But they use infrastructure & services & cost us money. They use up accommodation & make Oxford on a par with London for housing costs. Not only is it difficult to walk around Oxford because of pedestrians & bikes, it is also a horrendous traffic jam whichever way you enter or leave the city. 

Then there are the elephants in the room. The Climate Emergency - Pollution, Population increase, Species & Habitat destruction, Water pollution & scarcity, Extreme weather events, Supply chain issues, Food security....

I simply don't think we can ignore this any longer. We humans cannot continue to think in terms of our rights to do what we want. We have to start accepting that we each need to change the way we live our lives. It simply isn't sustainable. It is an existential threat.

Commitment & Country

I have commitment to my family, my friends, myself & my ethics, to trying to be honest, also to the importance of the Arts in human experience. Some people feel they have a commitment to their country, I'm not sure about that. It's too wide a concept. Too nebulous. What does it mean? England, the "United?" Kingdom? Does it literally mean the land, the population, the current politics? If so it's an awful lot of very diverse things & people to be committed to. I can't be committed to everything & everybody.

I feel I have to be more discriminating. I have to exclude things - I'm not committed to religious zealots of any belief system. I'm not committed to Climate Emergency deniers, or criminals. I'm not committed to politicians, (but I am to politics). I'm not committed to the Royal Family, (but I'm not against them). Once you start to think about commitment it raises all sorts of complicated issues. 

It is however, important to have commitment to something & some people. If we didn't have any commitment to anything we would be lesser human beings. If we are only committed to ourselves, our own self gratification & importance in the grand scheme of things we would be very one dimensional people. 

I have recently been in the company of a few people who I found to be completely self absorbed. Conversation was very one way, they told me things with very little pause for breath & no opportunity for me to participate in the conversation. It was exhausting & very boring. I found myself wondering why they thought I would be in the least bit interested in or entertained by the recounting of their lives, often over a very long period.

So I think we should all think more about being committed to being better people. Instead of being committed to our own small worlds we need to develop our critical thinking skills - the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyze facts and information that are available, to form a judgment or decide if something is right or wrong. Instead of just being curious about the world around us, critical thinkers make connections between logical ideas to see the bigger picture. We need to cultivate empathy, interest in other people & things.

Commitment is important, but I think the Western world is becoming committed to the idea that they know best.

Trust & Instinct - The Age of Deception

Trust - "firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something"

Instinct - "the way people or animals naturally react or behave, without having to think or learn about it. A natural or inherent aptitude, impulse, or capacity".

The world has changed significantly in my 79 years. For the better & for the worse. I have overriding concerns now about the Climate Emergency we humans have created & it's very possible outcome for all living things. I am both saddened & angry about all the conflict, famine & inequality in our world, which politicians seem unable or unwilling to really tackle. I could go on, but you get the picture. 

However one of the most important issues for me is the fact that I no longer feel I can trust my instincts as to what & who to believe. I always felt that I had pretty good instincts about people & issues. I know what my behaviour perameters are for myself & others. I try to behave well & tread lightly on this world, but I will not tolerate poor behaviour & I refuse to be complicit in it by walking on by. 

The difficulty I have now is that I cannot trust what I see, hear or read in this "post truth" age. Information is routinely manipulated. Algorithms rule. Images can be manipulated & difficult to spot. Conspiracy theories are rife. Influential people in politics, media & business routinely lie.

If I cannot trust the information I am presented with as reputable, how do I make good decisions? I know intelligent people who do believe much of what they see & hear & don't fact check information. In this "Age of Deception" we all have a responsibility to ensure that what we believe & espouse is true. Deception for ones own ends has become a choice for many people who do influence people's lives. It is widespread & insidious. 

The result of this creeping lying is that I do not trust people that I should. Elected politicians for example. I no longer think that governments act in the best long term interests of the people who they supposedly represent. I believe that many basically want to retain power, influence & money. The same is true of the very wealthy leaders of businesses. Self interest rules. People are collateral damage.

We humans have created a monster. Orwells 1984 has nothing on us. https://bookroo.com/quotes/1984

 

Unless we all wake up & realise that we each have a responsibility to stand up for a decent set of values in every walk of life I fear for the future of my grandsons. We created this mess by passivity. We all need to stop the rot now. We can do it, but we are running out of time. 

 

 

Privacy - Public Figures & Mere Mortals

My mother was quite paranoid, probably with good reasons as she was German. She came to the UK in the mid 30's & had quite a difficult time in the war. She didn't want anyone to "know her business" & wasn't forthcoming, even to me. So I now realise there are quite a few questions I have about her life that I do not know the answers to.

Possibly as a result of that I have gone the other way & do readily answer personal questions about my life & my beliefs to friends & family. I don't think there are any topics I'm not prepared to think about my position on & discuss. 

But there are people who ask very intrusive questions. If a topic comes up in conversation that is different to being interrogated about very personal aspects of ones life. I think my view is that the questioner should respect that some things are private. I don't like being subjected to a "third degree". I don't tend to ask very personal questions myself & think that if someone wants me to know something they will tell me. 

I am very much an "open book".

I am not in favour of the current trend for people in the public eye to "bare their souls" in public. I get very irritated by celebrities & influencers who try to tell me what to think & do. I am tired of hearing personal confessions from these people. I don't know them, so their personal information & opinions mean nothing to me. I actually wonder why they think it is appropriate & am amazed that the public is interested. 

The point of all this is that I have found the press & media treatment of  Catherine Princess of Wales dreadful. Yes she lives a very privileged life in the spotlight because she married into the Royal family. She seems to me to deal with her duties remarkably well, given that unlike William she wasn't brought up to it. Personally, whatever the perks, it wouldn't appeal to me. I don't believe that her position gives the press & media the right to scrutinise her every word & action & speculate wildly on what they have been told. The rumours, speculation & criticism are completely unwarranted & must be upsetting. She is entitled to a private life as is everyone.

I am sure that she has a staff to protect & advise her. I hope that they shield her from the worst excesses of the "conspiracy theorists". I hope that she doesn't actually read any of the rubbish that is published about her. 

We all seem to be living in a "goldfish bowl" where legitimacy is given to an aggressive press & media who want us to believe that almost everything is in the public interest. At any time anyone may be unfortunate enough to be under their microscope & have packs of journos & photographers hounding us. I sincerely hope it never happens to me.

Catherine has been exemplary & is dealing with an extremely difficult personal situation. She is entitled to privacy to cope with it. But privacy is in short supply for anyone in the public glare in the 21st century.

Bridges v Walls

All the houses I have ever lived in have had hedges, fences, or walls marking out my land. We humans don't pee to mark out our territory, but we do seem to need to repel borders. It is very defensive. No moat & drawbridge, but the message is clear. 

The only 3 disputes I have ever had with neighbours as the owner of 6 houses & renter of 2, have all been about borders or noise. On the other hand, we bought one house in Gloucestershire which had a very long line of huge Leylandii trees between us & a neighbour, cutting out their light completely over a huge swathe of their garden. The previous owner had refused to even trim them. We agreed to cut them all down & my husband & the neighbour did all the work. There must have been well over 20. We gained garden & they could actually grow things all along the border. Leylandii are thugs, probably causing more neighbour disputes than other things. They also cause unhappiness, anger & despair. They take up a huge amount of water year round.

That made for a really good relationship with my neighbours, who I am still in touch with, even after moving 3 times. It immediately built a bridge. 

Trump wanted to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. The Israelis have built a wall between themselves & the West Bank. Both have been in the news & have caused huge issues. These two countries are not alone though, as this website shows clearly.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-border-walls

The longest border wall is the India-Bangladesh border wall at 2,030 miles. We Brits don't need a wall. We are an island & have the sea all around us. We are trying very hard to repel all borders though.

In the current climate, I find myself wondering if, instead of trying to stop population movements, the peoples of the world could work together to acknowledge the problems that beset us & solve them together for the benefit of everyone. Fighting wars to defend your territory seems to me to be a very masculine response. History shows us that actually no one wins a war. The cost is always too high.

So shouldn't we be trying to build more bridges? Shouldn't we recognise that everything we have been blessed with in this world belongs to everybody, to be sharded more equally? If you are starving, displaced & homeless, injured, orphaned, shouldn't everyone who has everything they need be doing all they can to help you? 

If more of us were bridge builders rather than wall builders, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we are at the moment.

 

Swearing & Sex

Swearing - "use of language regarded as coarse, blasphemous or otherwise unacceptable in polite or formal speech in order to express anger or other strong emotion". To Swear on the other hand is entirely different - "to utter or take solemnly (an oath)" or "to assert or promise emphatically or earnestly". To swear by - "to place great confidence in".

I was helping in a day respite shelter for homeless people & people needing support yesterday. One of the clients used the f word continuously, but wasn't aggressive or a problem. Like many of the clients he probably has mental health issues. I'm an elderly woman & would normally think that use of the word was a measure of a paucity of language skills & unnecessary, reflecting poorly on the speaker.

In the 15th & 16th C the F word was a familiar word for sexual intercourse, but today it's use is very controversial, but is used liberally by many. The Guardian has even done a recent article about swearing 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/09/is-swearing-still-taboo

 

It is interesting that the majority of swear words are related to sex or the genitals. According to Pinker, an experimental psychologist who combines it with neuroscience, there are 5 types of swearing - dysphemistic, idiomatic, abusive, emphatic, and cathartic.

 https://www.openculture.com/2012/08/steven_pinker_explains_the_neuroscience_of_swearing.html

We each have to decide whether we want to swear & also how we want to react to others swearing. I have been known to swear in extremis, but never using the F or C words. We have to make a personal choice about what is offensive & what is just vulgar. Sometimes a swear word just pops out in the heat of the moment, I certainly don't make a habit of it. There is a tendency to think that men can swear, but women cannot. In the interests of gender equality I would challenge that. However I do think that swearing has become far too commonplace. I don't really want to be in a shop, on a bus or walking along the street & hear conversations liberally spattered with the F or C words. But it does seem to be the norm.

However I do realise that I may well be in the minority, because I also don't see the necessity to see people on the lavatory or graphic homosexual or heterosexual sexual intercourse in dramas. I'm perfectly capable of imagining that & do feel that it demeans the actors who do it. I simply don't see the point, or the difference between drama  & "soft" pornography. It seems to me to be the Hans Anderson folktale "The Emperors New Clothes" for the 21st century. 

The Arms Trade & War

The Arms Trade Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013 and entered into force on 24 December 2014 - https://thearmstradetreaty.org/treaty-text.html?templateId=209884  One of the principles is "The responsibility of all States, in accordance with their respective international obligations, to effectively regulate the international trade in conventional arms"

To my simple mind, selling arms to counties who either invade other countries illegally, or to countries run by despots & dictators, who wantonly wage war on their own people, is immoral & should not be allowed to happen. Selling arms to intermediaries who then pass on arms to those countries & people should also be stopped. What is the point of a principle if it is not enforced?

To be clear, the countries in the arms trade should be supplying Ukraine with the arms it desperately needs, in a timely way, in order to defeat an aggressor, Russia, who invaded the country with no reason other than enlargement. If Russia wins it will directly negatively impact Europe, because Russia will not stop at Ukraine. Conversely, countries in the arms trade should not be supplying arms to Israel because of the illegal way they are behaving in Gaza. The ready availability of weapons and ammunition leads to human suffering, political repression, crime and terror among civilian populations.

 Joint Enterprise is secondary liability, a legal doctrine that applies where persons assist or encourage another to commit a crime. I fail to see why the worlds arms traders are not committing joint enterprise by supplying arms to countries breaking international law or committing civil war, as Syria has been since March 2011, when popular discontent with the rule of Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring protests in the region.

The global arms market, was valued USD 308 billion in 2015. In 2022, the UK Government issued 13,200 SIELs, ( SIEL to make shipments of specified military or dual-use items to a named consignee and/or end user) of which 11,100 (84%) were for permanent exports. The total value of UK SIELs issued was £70.6 billion in real terms (at 2023 prices). Since 2015, the UK has licensed at least £474 million worth of military exports to Israel. The UK provides approximately 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth bomber aircraft currently being used in Gaza. In May 2023 the UK still deemed it acceptable to sell weapons and arms to the Government of Russia - despite Human Rights abuses.

If we do not control the arms trade effectively we are complicit in the death, maiming & destruction of human lives & infrastructure. If we put profit & jobs above the devastation caused by war we are condeming other people to unimaginable horror.