My song today is ’Across the Borderline’. This the fortieth studio album by Willie Nelson
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Although freedom of movement has never been greater in any previous century than exists today (outside current pandemic Covid-19 virus spread), there will always remain borders between one country and another. Ever since mankind built their own house and placed a picket fence around it to define their own private territory, borders have gradually grown in direct correlation with the price and expansion of land across the world.
Initially, geographical changes created natural borders between one landmass and another by the separating divisions of seas and oceans across the globe. As the human population grew, each nation was prepared to defend its territory by any means necessary. The more powerful world tribes seized the land of others by declaring war on them, and after defeating them, they re-drew and redefined borders, acknowledging their newer and more powerful status.
All patriots within every land across the world prize and love their country as a most precious thing; something splendid enough to risk war to defend whenever necessary. It is thought by politicians worldwide that if a country cannot defend its borders, it becomes vulnerable to invasion by other countries, other customs, cultures, and outside controls. Indeed, the very insistence by Great Britain upon maintaining its own red-line areas in its negotiations with the European Union before 1st January 2021 centred upon this very issue of sovereignty, and the right to govern one’s own waters, currency, laws, and borders. On the other side of the dispute, the European Union holds the view that the sovereignty of every country within the continent of Europe is less defined by their borders, and more by the commonality of their laws, institutions, and trading agreements within an area of free movement.
It is no surprise today that the greatest businesses in the world today have made their increasing wealth year-upon-year because of the growth of the Internet. The internet is so powerful that it knows no national borders, and yet it acknowledges the power and influence of every nation which is capable of influencing its profits. Such power of countries like China and Russia enables them to influence powerful sections of social media in not applying the same social conditions to them as is applicable to democratic countries across the globe. Facebook social media is just one example of new selective borders being operated across the world in uneven practice. Indeed, as the spread of social media becomes a more powerful a force of influence and persuasion in society, we can observe all manner of governments across the world seeking to harness this power on their own behalf.
National borders are in many ways a macro reflection of individual behaviour. Just as each country establishes its own borders which must be observed by other nations, then so individuals behave comparably by establishing personal boundaries which influence and dictate the parameters of socially acceptable behaviour and mixing.
Changes in land borders and boundaries in social behaviour will, from one generation to the next, be resisted or welcomed with equal dislike by different sections of the world and society, and for different reasons. It is healthy for the advancement of civilisation that the young and the old do not think alike, and it is natural for one society and another, one country and another, one culture and another, one religion and another, and one race and another to discriminate in favour of one’s own side and beliefs. Your opinion will reflect the march of time; either taking a step back or pushing ahead in a forward direction! As far as I am concerned, there is no limit to genuine progress, and that the only way to define one’s limits is to go beyond them wherever possible.
The young person today is more universal in outlook than any older member of society, and it is right that this is so. It was with no surprise that during recent referendums, the younger voter saw their future as being more closely aligned with Europe than did my own older generation who voted to leave. Who is to say that they are wrong, and we are right? If my studentship of history over a lifetime has taught me one thing, it is this. Prosperity brings with it the greatest prospect of peace. European wars in the past were frequently fought over free access to trade. The lesson of history is that when goods no longer cross borders, soldiers and their military will.
At some stage in every nation’s development, we are all prospective migrants. All national borders on maps are artificial constructs, and as such, they are as unnatural to our young today as they are to birds flying overhead. The only legitimate border is one of love, light, air, and hope. The love of one’s country is an admirable and splendid thing, but there is no earthly reason why love should stop at one’s border; light and air don’t, and neither should hope! Once a person’s mind and heart are open to the possibility of any idea or notion of love, there is no limitation to their body of travel, no darkness to prevent passage as they walk into the light ahead. That is how I imagine the final steps towards heaven to be like, where the only signposts are those of positive human traits which lead inexorably toward ‘The Land of Love’.
Love and peace
Bill xxx