People are People…

Did you chose the place where you were born?

Ive always been a bit thrown by narrow nationalism. A persons pride in their place of birth. I mean, its not like its a great achievement in your life, the dice were rolled and you were born where you were born.

Do you celebrate what size your feet are? Your eye colour? What your parents work at?

All this talk of migrants, immigrants, refugees. People debating and arguing over the difference. Why?

Look at the person next to you… where were they born? The person sitting next to me is my wife, she wasn’t born in this country. Beside her is my daughter, she was.

In work today I had lunch sitting with people from Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, England, Canada and Germany.

Did any of these people chose where they would be born? Do I judge the because of the country they were born in by total choice and through no choice of their own? Fuck no.

At a time when many mainstream media and politicians are spouting bile about migrants and refugees maybe we need to stop dehumanising people. A migrant, immigrant or refugee is not a different species. Its not an invading alien from another world. Its just some dude or some girl that happened to be born somewhere else. Somewhere that maybe isn’t as good to live as the place you were born. Maybe there is war there, a famine, a totalitarian dictatorship. Maybe they look at places like the UK, Ireland, the USA and think… “wow, that looks pretty nice, I wish Id been born there”

And maybe some of them try to move, to leave the hardship from where they were born and find a better life for themselves on a lump of rock, mud and grass somewhere else. Just like one of my workmates moved here from Canada, or Germany. Just like my wife was born in America but moved to Northern Ireland and is now stuck here with me.

Its a roll of the dice where you’re born.

The colour of your skin.

Your religion.

Your gender.

Your sexual orientation.

Maybe we should stop seeing anything different from us as the enemy and just as us born in a different place or in different circumstances.

Maybe you should look at the person next to you, the person in the next office, the person you’re seeing on TV and think… thats just what I would be if I had been born where they were born, in their circumstances and lived their lives.

Im not going to post the pictures… But how fucked up is it that it takes photos of a dead child on a beach to spur us to action.

Its fucked up.. but at least take action.

Im going to try and organise some collection points for aid here in Newtownabbey. I’ll hopefully have this sorted tomorrow and I will post when I do.

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and lets try and help the person that could have been you if the die had been rolled somewhat differently.

The title of this post was inspired by this…

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