Wednesday wisdom ~Country, Language, Borders

No matter what country you live in or how desperate you wish to defend your borders. The language you speak is as much about you and your fellow countrymen as it is about the people who live among you that do not have the same language.

Sometimes we might forget that we all had to start out in life somewhere. Our parents or grand parents were people who made a choice in their lives to travel to a new culture and begin a new life. Their choice may have been out of poverty or for reasons of conflict beyond their control and the only option for them was emigration.

For them to leave and move to another country had to be a very difficult thing to do, as the travel options were much less back in history.

A mighty story of our time which does high light the risks and dangers of such emigration has to be the tragic tale of the Titanic.
So many travelers looking for a new life and basically died a frozen death in the north Atlantic ocean. Horrific is an understatement. There are a number of historic journeys of emigration around the world which also carry high risks to the people of their times.

The reasons? Who really knows?

Perhaps the ideas of high risk ~high reward were the same driving force that led so many to move around the world and make their new home in lands that were foreign to themselves.

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What about the resistance from the residents of their new land? An immigrant to any country wishes to work and make money and increase their own new opportunity and that of their children and grandchildren. This would have been the basis for their emigration and so why not receive all who wish for a new life with open arms?

Welcome such immigrants with a thousand welcomes as they are providing usually a cheaper work force?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone who wants to work. They are usually more willing to learn and create new wealth in their lives.

A funny or perhaps peculiar thing to note is how the natives of any such “new land” type of country may have become lazy or more arrogant and they will only work for higher wages. They will only work for higher positions and higher paying jobs. The void then exists for the immigrant to begin at what may seem a modest level in the new country but can often be much much better than the land they have just left behind.

Racism and the notion that all immigrants are “no good” or are “ignorant” is an awful tragedy.

The immigrant seeks to learn new ways in his lifetime.

The racist native of a a land is what?
Scared to be taken over?
Ruled one day by the immigrants or completely over run by the new cultures and new people in their lands?

Then how can the immigrant survive or do well in a land that the natives wish to keep them down and hate on them so much that they wish to keep opportunities out of their reach, saving only the basic poor labour jobs for the immigrant. “let’s allow them in to do the hard labour jobs and nothing more”, like all theories, sounds good in theory but terrible in practice.

How do we learn as a nation or a society if we do not allow the great aspire and accept all of our fellow humans as being good people? How do we learn anything about other cultures as we are not willing to mix with the new immigrants. If we are not willing to learn in the same ways that the new immigrant is open to learning, then the native person of their land is possibly to the true “ignorant”.

Borders are a way in which we can slow the influx of immigrants to over load any particular country.
Country, what is nationality anymore? New people are moving around the entire world. As a good friend used to tell me, “live for the country you are in” so basically when there, live by their rules and laws. Makes sense really.

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My own personal travels have seen me do legal immigration to two different countries other than my own native “Mother Land”.

I have been received openly and without prejudices. Perhaps because I am Caucasian?
I have received some tidbits of resistance and have experienced such “snobbery” as natives who look down their nose at me, just because I am not the same as them. I have been the immigrant, which then in turn must mean, I have been the emigrant also.In a conversation with a family member the topic arose.
Their take on things,

          “you left and left the rest of us to deal with
things, so you have no dog in the fight”A polite way to ask me / tell me to, shut up!

My retort,

          “If you are not open to the ideas of the returning
emigrant then how has any land learned
anything of new ways? Those who have
remained do not see a new way. The only
answer is to complain as nothing new has
been learned”

You could say it didn’t go over too well, as I was seen as arrogant while I was claiming my relative was being ignorant. As an immigrant I have been involved in conversations of similar, one such with another immigrant from another country and a native of the land we both emigrated to,

          “You didn’t grow up here so you wouldn’t
understand, (you have no dog in this fight)”

My answer, again almost a repeat,

 

“If you are not open to new ideas, then how
can anything be learned. You must open your
mind a little bit and be willing to receive new
ideas, even if they come from an old land”

 

I guess the point being, the emigrant and the immigrant can be one in the same person as I have found myself in this position. We do not know more or know less. We are people who thought it good to learn new things and new ways. We wished to prosper in our journey and gain much understanding in our lives. Though, we also have created a position of limbo for ourselves. A country where we once came from, we no longer are a part of and a country where we went to not fully becoming a part of there either. Immigration and immigrants have a tough time to adjust. The emigrant has a tough time to leave behind their nation and a tough time adapting to the new world. In both scenarios they become the ignorant.

 

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In both scenarios of immigration and emigration, there remains a gap of “the misfit”.
In both scenarios the individual is happy to try, happy to learn and happy to adjust.
Those who have not ventured and who are the up holders of their own “language & borders”, I suppose they will just never know.
This has been my own experience and so due to my own travels, I hold the position of experiencing both.

Does this then offer to me an appreciation of the position of the immigrant?

Am I the ignorant?

Once upon a time many of the world’s population have been immigrant of some sort or another, not all, though many.
If we can learn from our immigrants then we stand a great chance to advance and do better.

Example,

When I lived in the United States I found myself using terms / making statements like this,
“In my country we would…..”
“Back in the mother land they do…..”

When returning to Ireland I found myself using terms / making statements like this,
“Back in the states they do this…..”
“In the US we would…..”

Funny how it works isn’t it.

The wisdom I wish to share for this Wednesday
.
Be happy with the immigrant.
Be happy with the emigrant.

 

We can never know enough.

 

Stay safe & wash your hands.