Heroes Not Zombies

Diversity catches my eye. I look across a field and see a multiplicity of plants and colours and I think, “How beautiful!”

Even when I look closer the diversity and beauty remains.

Maybe there is something intuitive, or innate, in us which makes diversity so appealing and beautiful. Maybe we don’t all value diversity to the same degree. However, it’s a strong value preference for me. I don’t find monocultures and sameness attractive. Perhaps that’s because I spent my working life relating to patients, one at a time, and finding that every single one of them was unique. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe my preference for variety and diversity led me into the particular strain of Medicine which required one-to-one working?

It’s funny how the mind gathers various bits and pieces from different sources to create its own connections and syntheses. I’ve been bothered a bit recently by the UK’s new immigration rules, and, in particular the policy of charging “essential workers” who were born somewhere other than the UK several hundred pounds to access the NHS despite the fact they are paying National Insurance and Income Tax. That doesn’t seem a fair rule to me. I don’t see why those particular workers are treated differently just because they were born somewhere other than the UK.

I also have a pattern of waking up some mornings with a phrase or a sentence in my head. I’m not sure if the particular words come up in dreams then I wake with them, or my sleeping brain creates them from my waking amalgam of thoughts and images, but, the actual phrase or sentence is usually crystal clear. The most recent one has been –

Where you live now matters more than where you are born.

When I look at images of healthy, vibrant diversity like the ones in this post, that phrase pops back into my mind. It actually matters little where each of these flowers came from. Maybe some came from this field or nearby fields. Maybe some were scattered by birds and animals which had carried them across great distances. Maybe some were even imported by seed-gatherers from far away lands. It doesn’t really matter all that much. For them to survive and thrive every single one of them needs to adapt to the environment it finds itself in. Each and every one of them grows in inter-dependent relationship with the soil, the other plants, the bacteria, fungi and the climate where it is living now. That, it strikes me, is true for all of us.

I was born in Stirling, Scotland. I went to university in Edinburgh, spent a working life as a doctor in a handful of towns and cities across Central Scotland. But when I retired six years ago I sold up and moved to France, where I live now. I did that because I wanted to spend a part of my life fully immersed in a different place. A different geographical place, a different climate, and a different culture…..a different language even. I thought it would create the conditions for my ongoing growth and development. That is exactly my experience of these last few years.

I am a Scot. I spent my first 60 years in Scotland and can trace back my ancestors to different parts of Scotland over three centuries at least. I’m not trying to become French. But I am now an “inhabitant” of France. I live here. I rent a house here. I buy my food and drink here. I’ve learned to speak French and read French newspapers, magazines and books. I have conversations with French people. I bought and drive a French car. I’ve adapted my diet and eating habits in the light of thriving local markets and a tendency for certain foodstuffs to be presented seasonally here. I look forward to the first asparagus of the year, the first “gariguette” strawberries, the first Corsican clementines, the first “Charentaise” melons. I’m delighting in the harvest of the cherries and the figs from the trees in my garden just now, and will look forward to harvesting the courgettes, tomatoes and pumpkins later in the year. I never did any of those things in Scotland. So what matters most to me these days? The fact I was born in Scotland or the fact I’m living in France? Maybe you’d argue that’s a false choice, and I have some sympathy for that argument because I’d say I am still a Scot, just one who lives in France now.

So what? you might ask.

Well I think this informs my values, beliefs and thoughts. I think every country should treat all its inhabitants equally. Same laws, same freedoms, same rights, same responsibilities, same opportunities.

I don’t think there should be different laws, freedoms, rights, responsibilities or opportunities dependent on where an inhabitant was born.

Note – I am VERY carefully choosing that word – inhabitant.

I think that’s the key. It’s not about “citizenship” for me. Or “nationality”. Or “tax payer”. Or “consumer”. Or whatever other terms are used to set rights and freedoms. It’s “inhabitants” – the people who live in a shared place, a shared community, a shared society, at the same time.

I know, I know, that’s all a bit utopian and there isn’t a nation state on the planet where that principle applies. But I still wish it did. Because where we live now matters more than where we were born.