Friday, February 27, 2009

Misc. Feb 09

If you are a native of a land standing inside the airport of any nation on earth and observing the stream of people who are coming in you may come to some wrong conclusions.

For example, if you see many people from a certain country or region coming to yours because of a certain attraction be it geographical, religious, economic or culinary, you will probably exclaim- see, all these people from this region (or these regions) of the Earth are coming in because a) our country has the best ( insert the attraction) and b) just about everybody abroad is interested in this attraction, that is why “everybody’ is coming here. Any number of people that seems bigger than usual will be equated with ‘everybody’ and will fill the native with patriotic pride and even haughtiness. This also refers to immigration of poorer people into the country. See? Everybody wants to settle here!

In reality though, such provincial natives have no idea what other airports looks like and how many people are arriving there. Those who are bragging about how everybody wants to immigrate into their country also confuse immigration with “worldwide migration” which involves hundreds of millions of people. Some 200 million are now living an expat life, as emigrants, immigrants, temporary laborers and retirees. A huge part of the traffic is from poorer countries to richer ones, but there is also tourist traffic that is not necessarily economically based, as well as retiree traffic, from richer to poorer countries or shall I say, from more expensive to cheaper ones.

However, it still keeps the natives of many a place proud and, at times, arrogant as they mistake any stream of people migrating in with “everybody”. You will be able to witness such arrogant citizens who think that their country is God’s gift to man in so many places in the world just because they have seen so many foreigners coming in.

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Animals do not seem to have nation states, do they? Yeah, they are territorial, in a way but do they conflate a strange combination of their quacking, their subspecies and then a certain land area that they occupy into a holy abstraction of a country or do they? They do not have nationalities in our sense. Do they organize into protecting a swamp, a field from invaders? In way, I guess but they do not seem imbued with the same sacred idea of nationhood that we do. They do not have a brain for it, and it is just as well. They travel without passports and visas and do not need to get extension, green cards, etc.

Do birds have nation states with borders in the skies? Do fish and mollusks have nation- states at the bottom of the ocean? How does it work with them?

***

There are many places in the world where there is a big queue in front of a US Embassy with people lining up to get visas. Many an American will gloat and say- see? How come there are no such lines in our country with Americans lining up to get visas to go to their country? Well, the reason is basically that US Embassies in poorer (and even not so poor ) countries require a personal interview to let those people in. Americans, on the other hand, for example those going to Saudi Arabia to work or Kuwait (which number in tens of thousands) get their visas by mail through a visa agent or even upon arrival into the country. So, no personal interview is required from the host countries for most of the 6,000,000 US citizens living and working there. Hence, you do not see Americans standing in the rain to get visas to go to another nation state.

***

Those alpha males who think they will escape from Feminism and leftism in the West by moving to the Arab world are in for a big disappointment particularly if they work in the educational field. Huge numbers of teaching and administrative positions are now occupied by ill tempered middle aged Western females who are feminist and often socialist. Many have a chip on their shoulder and they will unleash the bile of their life’s past bitternesses upon your head if you happen to work for them. Many of them are extremely cruel, nasty and they can report you at the drop of a hat for the smallest infraction and even file abuse charges against you. Being fired by them for the smallest, most capricious pretense is a common occurrence

Where are the Arabs doing about all this? Do they allow this to go on in a traditional male environment? Yes, outside of Saudi Arabia, they do. At universities many an Arab rector and dean delight in having middle management positions staffed by middle aged Western women with an attitude. It lends certain modernity to their institutions and shows how much they appreciate diversity. It also attracts Arab male students many of whom enjoy having a female Western teacher- it’s is just so exotic and novel to them.

Many of these females end up having Arab admirers and even boyfriends with almost total impunity all the while Western men working there often do not get any female companionship to speak of.

The only country that does not allow this is, again, Saudi Arabia. There, you can be sure that your boss will be a man and there will be no Feminism at work. However, I the countries around Saudi Arabia, you may end up working for much more vicious feminazis that even back home.

Fortunately, there are also some kind females around who will be a pleasure to work with but do not expect to run away from the modern man hating female despots by moving to the Gulf (outside of Saudi). So, be careful.

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