"EXTREME VETTING" - euphemism of the week

Donald Trump has had a busy first week. The culmination of it is now his executive order on migrants which is "not a muslim ban". Of course, extreme vetting is not a new idea. The Spanish had it in place as a means of creating a purely Catholic state. It was called the inquisition and it was pretty effective. It resulted in the almost complete expulsion of Jews from Spain, and several European wars. Perhaps the Americans have read their history books. The Ottomans did rather well out of it at the time. "Come to us," said the Grand Turk, "bring your skills and money. We will find a home for you." Thus was created the category of Sephardic Jew. Many of them later migrated into central Europe, later to be vetted again. Along the way, however, they contributed quite a noticeable amount to European culture. Different countries take different stances and some profit and some lose. Of course, judging from young Trudeau's response, Trump may soon need a wall on his northern border as well as the southern one, though whether that will be to stop refugees getting in or American's getting out is still an open question. I'm told that Canada and New Zealand are the destinations of choice for the new pilgrim fathers.

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  • WALLS

    I remember visiting the Berlin wall with my daughter when she was 13. I thought that it was important that she see it. It was a hideous thing - a place for killing people. I have also seen the wall in Israel/Palestine - very high and forbidding. But it has been going on a long time. In Britain we have Hadrian's wall which was meant to keep the Picts out and the Celts in and Offa's dyke which strangely ran down the middle of Mercia - the king built it because the two different ethnic groups in his country were often fighting each other - perhaps they should build walls between the Democrat states and the Republican ones. In India the British also built a fence down the middle of the country the purpose of which was to collect a tax on anybody who went from one side of the country to the other. Then I was a child in Cyprus, but before it was divided by a barbed wire fence between the Greek and Turkish parts. While I was last in Cyprus I tried to visit the power station that my father oversaw the building of - he was a civil engineer - but it is surrounded with barbed wire and I was not allowed in, though as a child I used to go and play there while he was working. My time in Cyprus was very formative for me. My parents had friends of many nationalities, but now a good deal of "ethnic cleansing" (there's a euphemism for you!) has rid the Middle east of all those colourful places that Victorian travellers used to write about. We are poorer for it.

  • Funny thing, before this extreme vetting happened I was listening to a song (not Buddhist, but a really good one) about building walls and it says "I'm building a wall, a fine wall, not so much to keep you out, more to keep me in". When I heard it last time, I had the same thought you did. Are they really building it to keep us out or the keep them in? For me, with his ultra protective business schemes, it seems to be the later one.

    Many people in the world still remember the many different walls built, where most of them only caused suffering.

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