[sheffield-noborders] no borders discussion

[R M Lambert]

30th Sept 2003
Davids Story
	It was a big day to set out on the journey of a life-time after retirement.
By air to Turkey, and then back-packing and by local transport to some of the
most famously exotic places in the world.  Big places with big skies and big
mountains.  Mountains don’t come bigger than the Himalayas.  The plains of
Afghanistan and Tibet are called the roof of the world.  Kathmadu is just
amazing.  The old Hippy trail through Iraq to India – a very big journey
indeed.  The day David set off with his family turned out to be a bigger day
than he anticipated.  It was September 11th 2001.

30th Sept 2003
	I ought really to apologise to David.  He was so keen on telling his travel
story, and it does sound pretty amazing, that I wasn’t able to offer much by
way of an anecdote in return.  It reminded me of a colleague from university
called Pedro who made a similar trip twenty five years ago.  That’s a quarter
of a century ago. In those days I never considered any danger in travelling. 
Why should anyone want to harm little old me?  I’m not carrying loads of cash;
I’m not significant enough to be a hostage.  I guess I was just like that crazy
kid who got stuck with the guerrillas in Columbia recently.   Today I am no
Candide, believing that the horrors in the world are just an aberration.  
I’ve not been abroad since 1994, when I visited a friend in Berlin.  I was of
course curious to see how the place had changed since the fall of the Wall and
my previous visit in 1981.  Half a century ago the only way to get to Berlin
was to fight your way there.  If you were “lucky” enough to fly, it was
probably in a Lancaster Bomber, with every chance that somebody  over there
would ,quite understandably, try and stop you in the worst possible way.  With
computers and the internet, I can now zoom in anywhere or even nowhere at the
click of a mouse.
 A world increasingly without borders is held up by some as an ideal.  It may
even be technically possible.  Yet somehow I’m having difficulty getting
enthusiastic about it when all is clearly not for the best in the best of all
possible worlds.  Perhaps it is true that the only real borders are the ones in
our hearts.  
Perhaps I should get out more.
   http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/frinje/marks.htm


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