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| You should see it covered in ice!! |
Apart from this very important issue, today was a good day for a walk on the mountain. A beef stew was cooking in the oven, the birds were singing, many were out to look for flowers and signs of spring.
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| I took a walk yesterday as well, while visiting a friend some miles away!! |
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| Our small mountain , going down!! We went up to the top and sat down for a while. In absolute silence, one solitary crane came gliding right over our heads. One! In a month they will be gathered in thousands!! |
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| Treetrunks. Sturdy, beautiful in every season!! |
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| Along the trails on our mountain cows, sheep and goats also walk. Today, however, cows and calfs have a nice rest in the green pastures. Not so much to eat as yet, the farmer provides what they need until the meadows are covered with goodies!!! This walk today and some serious thinking about todays gospel and what matters in this world and in my own life, have cleared my mind. We are having some very heavy burdens right now, but so have many more. Since I started to blog, I have come to know and appreciate many bloggers around the world. Some of them are having a hard time right now, and my thoughts and prayers are with them. Now I hope that springtime will bring light and hope to many. The state of the world is alarming, so much to be done. But so much is actually BEING done, so many brave and caring people working round the clock to rescue and encourage. Evil is always present, but good is the stronger opponent. Jesus speaks of the truth being the key to the chains holding us. Once every crime and every hurting action against a fellow human being will be confessed and reconciled , evil will fade and die, loosing it's purpose. I spoke of monsters yesterday, I realized that was a bit confusing but I used the term only as a metaphor. Lent and easter have lost most of it's deeper values in society, leaving only candy eggs, yellow tablecloths and porceline chickens. That is of no importance really, it's not in our hands anyway, Easter will live it's own life!!! |
Trump says immigration is a privilege and not a right. And I as a person privileged to live where I do have to agree with him.
SvaraRaderaUnfortunately the politicians have lost all sense of reality.
Erdogan wants Austria's Turkish population to have 5 children per couple.
In 2015 I saw a presentation by a German architect who was tasked with planning homes for 12 million immigrants.
You can't have your cake and eat it. It's time to make up your minds.
Gwil, please, you can't compare being an immigrant, free of choice, seeking new views, new opportunities and a new life, prepared to accept laws and regulations because you are in no danger and can go elsewhere if the timing is bad, compare that with seeking asylum because there is nowhere to go, your country is in ruins, your life is endangered and you have been running for ages. Freedom of choice and no choice, surely that is not to be compared? I agree, it's no right to settle down anywhere you fancy, taking everything for granted just because I wanted a new view from my windows or a better salary or a good challenge in life. It is, however, a human right to be safe, have means to survive, freedom to get an education AND a human and moral right to get help when I am in need and there is help to get.
RaderaPrivileged are those that have a choice. If the choice is bad or worse, survival or death, I wouldn't call for the term privilege when such a person reached my borders.
Seeking asylum and escaping war and terror is no luxury travelling. But we have to be wise, we should have been better prepared but we didn't take heed to the warnings and we didn't seek knowledge while there was time.
So now we have to take what action we can.
Terror must be broken and forced to yield, wounds must be healed, people must be given their lives back.
So, yes, immigration for the sake of trying new options, free of choice and will, is no "right", it's a privilege and you have to follow rules and laws, but seeking asylum when you are in grave danger and your world is on fire, that is a right!!! Surely you must agree, Gwil?
You live in Austria because you want to, right? And you like it, as far as I know. I am glad that is the case, I am dreaming of living in England or in Greece, but that is no right I can take for granted, we will have to see if it's at all possible. Meanwhile, I am safe and sound here.
Millions are on the run, the only thing to do is to help out where we can, and learn as much as we can on the way!!
Millions on the run trying to escape a war. So they need to run half way round the world! I think it's more to do with demographics and exploitation. NGO ships are meeting people a short distance from Libya and transporting them to Italy. I've seen them on Italian TV, and mostly they don't look very much like refugees. Nigetia, Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia . . . these people are coming because we killed Gaadafi. The others from Pakistan, Afghanistan, can find shelter nearer to home. Iraq - that's because we killed Saadam. We owe them a favour. Syria? That's an enigma. A real mystery. Who knows the real story? We have to sort the sheep from the goats if we do nothing else. An open door to the world is not the answer to anything. It will not work. There's a lot of history. You cannot ignore it. Or maybe you can at your peril.
RaderaOkey, let's have it this way then!
RaderaHans Rosling, the departed, very talented swedish professor, had his own solution to this . He said and very much believed, that if the refugees could have been looked up much closer to the borders of their country, much trouble and damage could have been avoided. He thought that the control of ID and a persons needs were much easier to decide on spot, before travelling all those miles. Then, when the interviews and paperwork was done, they could be tranfered directly to a place where they could be safe. It would of course take a whole lot more of sacrifice and hard work from the officials and the politicians of EU f.i, but mr Rosling believed we would all gain from it in the end. I believe so too, it's hard to sit and be the judge of someones fate, when you have no idea whatsoever of the real circumstances. This method would have an enormous impact on the entire situation and many that really needed to get out would be able to do so, without walking for weeks or drowning in bad boats. It would also be easier to identify those who cause trouble, I know very well that there are those who are not at all endangered but are themselves the danger. If we got the chance to speak to and meet refugees very early and very close to the core, there would be lot to gain. But really, the major part of the refugees never even reach Europe!!!
I have no clue the details of his system, but he was very often right about things, in spite of what others said. The situation in the world is no easy task to solve, Gwil, but I still say there is a difference between refugee and immigrant and I must ask: How does a typical refugee look? Dirty, bloody, crying, clothes in stripes, shoes long gone, no money, starving? I'm not ignoring history, Iam simply saying that there is more to it than we can understand because mankind is unfortunately it's own worst enemy. Let's be wise about this, Gwil, but not cunning.
I think Mr Rossling was right on the mark. His suggestion, which I completely agree with, would have dealt with the situation in a civilized and humane way. The nearest to it as far as I am aware was the British evacuation of 20,000 children from Syria, all documented, checked and verified before boarding planes to England. Why didnt Germany send large cruise liners capable of carrying tens of thousands of refugees and sail them to Hamburg instead of having them wander en mass through the Balkans an area still in the process recovering from recent wars and racial hatred of its own. Was it by design? Was it an EU power statement from Berlin control centre? Or was it just a schnapps idea dreamed up by idiots? Who knows? But what we know where I live is that women have stopped riding the trains at night on lines that pass through certain areas. It even got so bad that the police advised women not to go out unaccompanied after 8pm. It could be that this is all deliberate manipulation to be used as an excuse to limit our freedoms by increased need for security. Watch this space.
RaderaThis morning's paper in Vienna. Just another story. Page 16. "One School. 29 Languages"
SvaraRaderaThis is not unusual.
Europe is fast becoming the Disunited States of Absurdistan.
Having read your blog post and the question on how to treat the those young men who fought in Syria. Then my answer is this: talk to them, find out their thoughts,their beliefs, if their experience has changed. Offer them counselling in other words de-brief them using the best of human qualities.
SvaraRaderaI agree with you. The only thing is that we had no measures or knowledge for this. In politics we seldom see that there is any planning ahead. Many saw it coming but there was no real political effort to meet up. These young men carry burdens that we don't understand. I think we can take help from those young men that return and actually regret every second of their stay in Syriah. Their experience and their thoughts could be a valuable contribution for getting these men out of their thinking. We must however realize that some of them have no intention of stopping, they are so deep down that it takes very strong efforts and very good knowledge to even reach them. We have to try though, for our sakes and for theirs. Thank you, Mel, for this comment.
Raderaif their experience has changed their former beliefs/outlook.
SvaraRaderaIs what I intended to write
Sinn Féin has a process called Uncomfortable Conversations
SvaraRaderawhich is in their words "An initiative for dialogue for reconciliation" it's a process that was I think has origins from talks between Gerry Adams and Nelson Mandela when he became President of South Africa.
ref http://www.anphoblacht.com
During this last week I have heard a couple of men now working to unradicalize young men. They have themselves been out there, strongly believing it was the only right thing to do and now looking at themselves with horror and doubt. Prevention and serious talk is badly needed they said, otherwise we will be in deep trouble. Uncomfortable conversations calls for the truth, however painful.
RaderaDen här kommentaren har tagits bort av bloggadministratören.
SvaraRaderaThank you!!!!!!
RaderaFrom what I have seen on the news etc., Sweden is doing a good job with young asylum seekers. In England there is a certain section of society who are angry about it, whereas in Scotland there are more people who are tolerant, recognising we need others to help make our country work. Is it something to do with more northern climes I wonder. Blessings from Dalamory.
SvaraRaderaHello Freda!!!
SvaraRaderaBirthday today!!!! And yes, totally agree with you. In Sweden the absolute best integration efforts that have been made have taken place up north!!!! The tiny villages have been working all in to make ends meet and people happy, glorious!!!!
Blessings indeed, brexit , exit or whatever, there is the spirit of the human heart, unbreakable !!!