Gandhi, Rumi And The EU

I recently came across this quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

I do not want my home to be walled in on all sides and its windows blocked. I want cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.

A nice, succinct comment on cultures and countries, I thought: how we need a balance between self-determination and equable cooperation, how we should be rightly positive about our own culture but also welcome and celebrate others — all to our mutual benefit. Any lessons here for the EU debate, I wonder?

I also recalled this poem by Rumi:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house. 

Every morning a new arrival,

A joy, a depression, a meanness, 

some momentary awareness comes 

as an unexpected visitor. 

Welcome and entertain them all! 

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, 

who violently sweep your house 

empty of its furniture, 

still, treat each guest honourably. 

He may be clearing you out 

for some new delight. 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, 

meet them at the door laughing, 

and invite them in. 

Be grateful for whoever comes, 

because each has been sent 

as a guide from beyond.

RUMI (Translated by COLEMAN BARKS)

Europe

Amidst all the scaremongering and speculation, it's instructive to step back from the frenzy and consider who wants us to leave the EU and who wants us to remain.

For Brexit: Boris Johnson, George Galloway, Nigel Farage and UKIP, Michael Howard and Michael Gove, Liam Fox and Iain Duncan Smith, Zac Goldsmith, Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen, ISIS, Donald Trump, The Queen, the Telegraph, the Mail, the Express.

For Remain: David Cameron and George Osborne, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, Tim Farron and the Liberal Democrats, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP, Natalie Bennett and the Greens, Mark Carney (Governor of the Bank of England), Stephen Hawking, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, most UK businesses, all EU member states, the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Mirror.

Well, I know what I"m voting for, and have known for a long time.

Most young people instinctively feel part of Europe rather than identify with some archaic, let's-go-it-alone-and-damn-the-foreigners type of isolationism. But many are not even registered to vote. Please, you must do so! It's so important for the future. Even if the European project has its problems and difficulties, it's maintained the peace in Europe now for nearly sixty years.

Mad, Mad World

If, a short while ago, I'd have believed that Donald Trump might be in the White House or that the unlikely, rather sinister triumvirate of Nigel Farage, George Galloway and Boris Johnson might be scaring us out of Europe, I'd have woken up sweating — knowing it was just one of those rancid nightmares you get from time to time. But, unfortunately, some nightmares are not nightmares — they are the living truth. God help us all. Time for me soon, I think, to retreat to a shack in Croatia or a cave in the Pyrenees.