Belonging

I belong to the tribe of comfortably off, middle aged, widowed, reasonably intelligent,women. There are an infinite variety of tribes all over the world. We don't tend to think of ourselves in those terms, but when you see how we all, in some way, conform to cultural mores of behaviour, dress & attitudes it isn't difficult to spot.

Tribes vary according to the habitat they live in. All tribes will show differences & similarities. Instead of valuing that difference & the diversity of human populations, sadly we tend to huddle together in our tribes & be fearful, disparaging or even cruel to other tribes.

We fight over national borders, land & posessions, ethnicity & religion. In extreme cases we go to war. We try to restrict population movements from one "sovereign state" to another.

All of this is ridiculous & completely ignores where we all came from. We are all descended from primitive peoples in Africa who migrated across continents in search of better habitats to live in. Or just out of curiosity about what was over the hill. There is good evidence to support this. All of the borders in the world have been arbitrarily created by "man" - I use the term advisedly. Often arising out of wars & ignoring previous cultural borders.

We are all human beings. We all need & want broadly the same things. Many tribes lack the basic necessities and many have far more than they could possibly need.

At some point I hope that we can recognise this & do something really meaningful to equalise opportunity & make life much fairer. Unfortunately I think we have reached a stage of complexity which means that the "haves" will cling tenaciously to everything & turn a blind eye to the "have nots". It might take a cataclysm to achieve a world in which we truly value all peoples & life.