Of Passports and Human Rights...

The most vocal advocates of human rights is of course the West; and rightly so I would imagine since some one has to carry the flag for some the poor peoples who get either marginalized by their own government as in the case in Sri Lanka or the poor chaps who gets destroyed by a foreign government as in the case of Israel in Palestine or the Americans in Iraq.

The funny thing is the ones who scream and shout the most in regards to equal rights the ones who legally and utterly have destroyed it. What do I mean you wonder? Its just like the passport you carry, for instance since I carry a Sri Lankan passport and need to travel to any god forsaken corner of this world I need a visa. A visa, which usually means long lines in the hot sun, or rain whatever Mother Nature, may throw at you. It would also mean giving up any rights to my own privacy. This of course means that I would have to give up all my bio data to some bugger I don’t quite know if I am single or not? Which I am utterly for the past few years and even my sex, and how much I am worth. There are of course discrimination happening at two very different levels here, I am being discriminated great number of westerners who can travel freely though out the world and of course my own countrymen. The poor fellow who doest have enough rupees in his bank account so it is assumed that he would surely stay once he gets there.

So, when these western governments scream and shout in regards to the human rights violations that goes on in the third world, I would stay it would be a nice place to start at home and take down some of the institutions that have been so nicely created to keep the third world out. Plus, if you really care so much about them make it easy for them to relocate, I mean on humanitarian grounds of course.

The saddest aspect of visas is the fact that it’s purely done on economic terms since we as a society have tried hard to get over the color of our skin discrimination at least on paper. The reasoning is we are rich you are poor and we don’t want you to come here in the search of wealth. So, what it implies is the fact if we are to become rich like them we would get a fair ride like the rest of the privileged world. Here in lies a big problem for the first world; it is only now the first world is realizing the lives that are sustained though the plundering of the world by a few if done by every one we would have high gas prices and global warming in the multiples of ten. So, I guess I am waiting for some world leader from the West to get up and say “ah, may be you guys should not develop us fast as we have, or we would all be royally be fucked.” I say to the ones who shout about human rights and other such novel causes as great as it is, please try to put your own house in order since that’s probably causing the most havoc anyways.