- as seen on a sign-post in Naples. Which had me to pause for a while, as I was trying to figure out which category do we, as a couple of travellers, belong to. And my conclusion is: we (kind of) defy first-sight categorization. Well, to a local we might look like tourists, but we might also look like shocked and desperate refugees. It also brought up some questions: do I agree with this statement? What would I do if those were some things we had the opportunity to influence, to have a word in? What is my stance on new persons coming to my neighbourhood/country? And then I realized: these are no hypothetical questions. We already can influence, so don't underestimate the power of social media.

So my say in this is: both refugees and tourists, welcome! I don't see a distinction between these apart from that one group got into a rather unfortunate (perhaps that is a soft word, but so be it) situation.

Tourists are usually, if not exclusively, privileged persons from first world countries who are paying agencies to 'guarantee' them a safe trip to other countries so that they can experience the places in detachment. It is like a safari, kind of. In Naples, this contrast was made even more visible since tourists were boarding these tour buses, available in every larger city; while all around them, the inhabitants of the town and the traffic moves as a pulsating, noisy, chaotic flux without rules.

However strange this behavior might appear to me as a pedestrian wishing to blend in, it is so. They have their reasons for travelling and getting to know the world the way they do, and unless they're being harmful, disrespecting the locals' privacy and rights etc., then so be it.

Refugees are simply persons running away from their previous homes that have been ripped apart in massive acts of violence, homes that they will likely never have the chance to return to. They are stuck between two fear-instilling forces: behind them, there are persons sworn to hurt them, persons looking at them as betrayers; in front of them, there are persons also sworn to hurt them, persons looking at them as threat, as the war they are running away from. They are not being looked at as individuals, each and every one, they are being looked at as the ideological stickers that have been put on them.

So to repeat it, everyone is welcome, and accepted in this ‘yard’ (which means both the physical space which we live in, and the online space that we manage) as long as they don't perpetuate harmful/violent views and acts. Racism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism, speciesism, and other kinds of oppressive -isms (not going to name them all, but they are all interrelated) and bigotry are most unwelcome in this 'yard' since they are very harmful.

And they will be dealt with appropriately.

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4 komenty k blogu

1 
fotka
lenkaska1  9. 7. 2016 03:19
preklad?
2 
fotka
goodk  9. 7. 2016 07:41
@Lenkaska1 Píše tam, že aké problémy majú s imigrantami najmä v Nemecku a Švédsku a že takáto vitajte-politika nasadená Európskou Úniou je neudržateľná.
3 
fotka
thrwtchr  10. 7. 2016 20:23
@Lenkaska1
@Goodk klame.
4 
fotka
lenkaska1  12. 7. 2016 00:51
@3 hej myslela som si zas ja viem dačo anglicky, len sa mi to nechcelo prekladať

ale suhlasim s @2 D
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