Let's get on board
8th August, 2020
Once again we face a high summer of inflatables, awash to the gunwales with refugees, trying desperately and at the risk of their lives, to get to Britain.
Here, in the country itself, everyone is exhausted by Covid-19. No-one wants to talk about it. It's all been said anyway. And if it hasn't, no-one wants to hear it. Pretty much the same can be said about Brexit, politics generally, the economy, government, and so on. No-one wants to know any more. We are hunkering down inside our castles, pulling up the drawbridge and sitting down in front of our televisions and drinking beer from the bottle. Our bellies increase as our bank accounts decrease. But we can't be bothered to deal with it.
It is mercilessly hot. We have all the curtains closed to shut out the appalling heat. We slurp in a sweaty lassitude drinking cold things hoping this will change everything: Covid, the refugee problem, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, China, USA, the murder of the innocent everywhere, Africa, Yemen and Chestnut Grove New Malden. We don't want to be bothered with all that crap. Let's just watch Netflix, adding as we do to the indoor temperatures, and slop around in next to no clothes frightening the wildlife when we wander into the garden for an instant to spray some water on parched and burning plants.
The unseasonal temperatures are the result of global warming which we are responsible for. We collectively. We, the citizens of world. But actually it's we, the citizens of the Western, developed world. We're the ones who are still driving around in savagely polluting vehicles and will defend to the death our right to do so. We don't understand that rights apply beyond ourselves. Our own rights are the only rights we are willing to die for. Other people can die for their rights. That's fine. But not us. I read somewhere that half a billion creatures died in the Australain wildfires of January and February which we have entirely forgotten about. Oh, and lots of people. But we're not responsible for that. Hang on while I rush out in my gas-guzzling, air-polluting car to pick up some more beer.
And when it comes to responsibility, aren't we the ones who have been in charge of the world for the last forty years, our parents for the forty years before that? Isn't it our fault that we have produced this world? Or failed to change it? Or, actually, aren't we innocent of that charge which we don't really want to think about? After all, although we haven't done anything to change things in that time – we just inherited a system that doesn't change anything and passed it on with a pat of encouragement – we're not responsible for that because, er, because, er, our responsibilities cease at the end of our noses. We can just about survive ourselves and keep our families alive. We cannot be expected to change the entire world. Not even our little bit of it.
We are all, entirely fed up with everything, but we are all, entirely not responsible for any of it. Not one inch. But there must be somewhere that's more just, less crime-ridden, less Covid-ridden, less corrupt, less unfair, less horrible, less hot.
I don't know about you, but I'm going to plunge my life savings into an inflatable at the end of a long chain of people-smugglers (who, after all, have to make a living too) and go in search of it.
I thought Antartica might be a good start. At least it will be cool and there will be no Coronavirus.
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