UK v the Tropics

I have a lot of friends from tropical regions of the world who complain of British weather and how long to be back home. However, they stay in Britain.

I have a lot of British (and other Northern European) friends who whenever they go to the tropics complain of British weather and say how much they would like to move there. However, they don't.

I have to conclude that weather, after all, is not that important. If all of them were really so troubled about the weather here, they would either go back home (the "Tropicals") or emigrate (the British / Northern). So why is it that everybody in this country speaks about it all the time?

Je ne suis pas Charlie, après tout...

Since I wrote my last post I received some emails with Charlie Hebdo's cartoons that made me change my mind. I have to apologize to that one reader who comes here every three months for this schizophrenic attitude of declaring I am someone one day and declaring that I am not that someone a few days later. I'll try to justify this change.
To start with, I stand for everything I wrote in that post, namely for the need for mutual respect. But precisely because I stand for that, I cannot say that I am Charlie Hebdo or that I am anything like Charlie Hebdo. After seeing their cartoons, I understood that what they did was not humor - they aren't even remotely funny. What they did was pure insult.
Far from being a politically correct person, even I was shocked at some of the cartoons. For me humor needs to be... Funny! But when it is so insulting it just becomes awkward. The kind of awkwardness you feel when you say something really wrong and don't know how to justify it.
I still stand for what I wrote before. I am still shocked about what happened in Paris. Nothing justifies violence. And yes, the people who died in Charlie Hebdo were victims of an irrational and absurd radicalism. But these are victims I don't want to be identified with. So, to make it quite clear: je ne suis pas Charlie!

Moi aussi, se juis Charlie!

There is a thin line between religion or philosophy and fanaticism. And in this clear the need to remember John 8:7: “he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.”
Christians raged religious wars against each others for most of the XVII century. Atheists found in ideas like socialism and the building of a pure race the excuse to commit the worst genocides in the history of mankind. And lest us forget it is good to remember about the millennium of wars between Muslims and Christians for the control of the (not so) "Holly Land", of the gold trade in Africa, of the spice trade to India... Any excuse was good to make a Jesus V Mohammed call for war.
So why are we so shocked about what happened in Paris with the slaughter of 12 people who worked for Charlie Hebdo? Or, by the way, about what is happening in Syria and all over the Middle East with the ISIS?
Basically because we thought we had found in mutual respect for each others' religious or philosophical convictions the tool to better develop them. Nowadays most atheists refuse the idea of sending Christians to gulags (unfortunately not yet in North Korea and China) and Christians refuse the expiation of sins of heresy through fire. We also refuse the idea that violence of any sort should be the mean to convince others of the righteousness of our ideas.
Now what happens with fanatic Muslims is that they are not only bad to non-Muslims, they are bad to the really God-fearing Muslims. To start with the obvious, the majority of the people killed so far by the so called "Islamic Caliphate" have been Muslims. Of course hundreds of thousands of Christians and others were also killed and had to leave their houses, but they are still outnumbered by Muslims.
Besides being killed, the real Muslims also have to fear their reputation tarnished. A bad minority is always much more visible than the invisible good majority. In the same way, as a Catholic I know many truly good priests but all I see in the news of Catholic priests is about the pedophiles. So now all the Muslims have to bear the shame of the fanaticism of some of their brethren.
Having said this, there is one more parallel one can draw between pedophile Catholic priests and terrorist Muslims and that is the silence complicity of their peers. There was in the history of pedophilia in the Church many priests and bishops who, although disapproving the actions of the pedophile few, did nothing to stop them. In the same way there must be around Europe many good Muslims who would never shoot at a cartoonist (or anyone else) but who, knowing of the fanaticism of those few brethren, keep silent. How could the Kouachi brothers buy shotguns and nobody in their inner circle know about it, for example?
Muslim fanaticism can only be vanquished from the inside. It must be the majority of good Muslims going to the mosques around Europe who actively do something to stop the fanatic minority. They must both try to convince them of their wrong ideas and at the same time denounce them to the authorities so they can keep an eye on them. 
Hopefully this good majority will also be Charlies now...

Vincent Lambert and euthanasia

I've read in more than one newspaper (for example in Le Figaro and The Independent) and that the case of Vincent Lambert which will now be decided by the European Court of Human Rights is a case of euthanasia. Well, in my humble opinion it is not...
Vincent Lambert suffered an accident in 2008, is in vegetative state and only lives artificially through medical support. If the machines supporting his artificial life were turned off, as his (natural) widow requested, his artificial life would cease.
The press sees the struggle of Vincent's parents for keeping their son artificially alive as based on their Catholic faith. Well, I am Catholic as well and I can recognize the immense diversity of opinions on many issues within a Church of more than one billion people. However, one practical advantage of the Catholic Church in relation to many other faiths is that it has a hierarchy of people who can clarify matters of faith and morality about these dissenting opinions. This hierarchy consults on not only renown theologians but also philosophers and scientists to make its decisions. And this is precisely what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith did when it issued a Declaration on Euthanasia. In this declaration, the Church considers that euthanasia may be understood as "an action or an omission which of itself or by intention causes death, in order that all suffering may in this way be eliminated."
This is clearly not the case of Vincent Lambert. He is not suffering because he is already naturally dead in a vegetative state. As such, his widow is not fighting to put an end to his suffering but merely to stop providing his body with artificial life.
Vincent Lambert's case is not about euthanasia. It is about the distinction between natural life, that should be protected, and artificial life, that may cause, as in this case it does, suffering to other people. Mrs. Lambert is suffering not only because of the death of her husband but because his present state does not let her overcome his death. I hope Vincent's parents have this in mind in their prayers...

Starting the year with a provocation

Everyone is faced from the beginning of their lives with questions of identity. These questions tend to be formed by opposition to those surrounding each individual. As such, in the first human community, the family, one will identify oneself as a child as opposing to the role of parents. In school one will alternatively be identified as part of a certain class or year of study, as part of a team of sports or other hobbies, as students in relation to teachers and staff, etc.. Outside the school, however, one may even choose the entire school as its identity, the entire city, the entire country or even an entire continent.
I could go on and on about different forms of identity in different contexts. However the point here is that it becomes almost impossible to find anyone on earth with whom someone else would not find at least one identity point in common. In the worst case scenario, if one happens to meet someone with whom no common identity seems to exist, there will still be the obvious common feature: being human.
Now, to be human may seem as the minimum common denominator but it is a huge minimum common denominator. It is the single most important characteristic of any human… This brings a lot of La Palice truth in it. This truth is so obvious that one may question any other form of identity but one may not question humanity. One may mistake a Briton for a Norwegian, a man for a woman and a lawyer for an architect. However, only as an insult can one mistake a human being for a dog, an ostrich or even a monkey.
Being human serves not only as a common minimum denominator between all humans (La Palice again) but as their most important characteristic. But why on earth am I writing this? Should this not be obvious? So obvious that it should even not be mentioned? Well, it should, but apparently it isn't. I realize this whenever I read about supposedly human rights based on different identifications such as “indigenous rights”, “women’s rights”, “minorities’ rights”… Quite frankly, if they are not applicable to all humans, they are not human rights. If any human right is denied to any group based on their identity, than it’s not a human right. In those cases we’re talking about a privilege (from the Latin “privata lex” because it is applicable only to a group).
So, a request to all those who write about these subjects: learn to distinguish between a right and a privilege. After learning this distinction, start using the latter term whenever that is only applicable to a group: indigenous privileges, women’s privileges, minority’s privileges, etc.. If for some reason you have a prejudice against the word privilege, than you should rethink your choice to write about the protection conferred to only parts of humanity.

I knew it!

BBC is telling the world something I knew all along, that Mediterranean diet is best way to tackle obesity. They also say it's good for the prevention of heart attacks. What they don't say is that it also fights sadness. What can make people happier that a meal of good food with a glass of the best wine in the world? Yes, those who insist that wine from the New World is just as good as the wine from the FIPS (France, Italy, Portugal and Spain) is because they need a nice Mediterranean meal to go with wine to notice the difference.

And talking about immigration...

After yesterday's post, today I came across the curious (or not so much) fact that "immigrants from the 10 countries which joined the EU in 2004 contributed more to the UK than they took out in benefits, according to a new study."

Immigration and EU

This is at the moment one of the most contentious political issues in this country. I am not exactly an immigrant, as I study full time, but I am still a EU foreigner. Therefore, this issue is particularly interesting for me.

The first question is, why are British so worried about this issue?

There are those who say foreigners will destroy the British way of life and are, therefore, unwelcome. This argument would make some sense in a country that has been closed for a long time. I wouldn't agree with it, but it would make sense... Now Britain has been home to waves of immigration since as long as it exists. Cultural diversity is part of the British character. To stop this immigration is to actually harm this specific feature of this country.

There are also those who say that EU citizens are here to take advantage of British social security system. I am sure they do not contest that British do it as well, it is just that they are okay with the fact that "their own" do it but not foreigners. That is a perfectly fair point, but why not just make the system fairer to everyone? Anyone can have benefits, even if they've never work nor try to find work! This is open to a lot of abuses anyway. Just be pragmatically British about it and change it.

At last, there is always the argument that foreigners come here to steal British's jobs. That is when I say: stop moaning and be British about it! To me being British is about having a sport's culture of fair game and open competition. If you are better, nobody will give your job to a foreigner. Just the fact that one is a foreigner is always a disadvantage anywhere in the world being lost in the culture, loosing time to integrate and know how things work... Foreigners will always have these disadvantages so they will not even get the jobs of British in equal circumstances. Besides, sports spirit would say: fight back! Take your own EU citizenship and go to other countries - salaries in Sweden and Denmark are higher than in the UK, for example. Taxes in Luxembourg, Ireland and the Netherlands are lower. There are many economic advantages for you to relocate, not to mention the cultural ones. Besides, if nothing else, you always have the advantage to be native speakers of the Latin of the XXI century: the universal language of business, trade and politics.

So, just be British about the subject and welcome free movement of people. To start with, be a sport and buy a pint of lager to the next foreigner you see in a pub. 

And now I must end this and go to a pub expecting pints from the crowds reading this blog.

The wonders of North Korea

Imagine that the Prime-minister of UK did not appear in public for one week. Hard to imagine, right? Even if he goes to a fish market, that comes in the news.

Now, the Supreme Leader of North Korea disappeared one month ago and nobody knows where he is. Nobody knows if there has been a coup (let's pray and hope) or if he's sick. Nothing! The entire world obviously wants to know where he is. However... It is certainly ironic that the person that most people in the world would dread to meet, is now the one everyone is wondering about.

And this is why...

And this is why I love Hong Kong!
The people from Hong Kong act on their ideals. They see something that does not make sense: the fact that it is the central government and not themselves choosing their chief executive. And more than seeing that it doesn't make sense, they act on it.
Every year in the handover day hundreds of thousands (millions even) take to the streets to protest. This year they refused to go to University, boycotted the national day's celebrations and show the entire world that there is at least one territory in China that wants what makes sense: to choose their rullers.
Seeing this made me miss Hong Kong...