Heroes Not Zombies

There’s a tiny little bird makes a tiny little nest, every year, usually in what seems to me to be a precarious part of one of the trees or bushes in the garden.

I don’t know where she goes and lives in the other seasons but she sure likes to come here in the summer, lay a few eggs, hatch a few offspring, then she’s gone again.

Take a close look at this nest. It’s not neat, it’s not even especially beautiful and there is actually a hole in the bottom – look next to the eggs –

However, what I got thinking about when I saw her nest this year was this……

“Free as a bird”. This wee creature does what almost all other creatures do – makes a home where and whenever it chooses to.

We humans have made things way more complicated. We’ve created a whole class of people called citizens who have certain rights and can make certain choices that their neighbours who aren’t classes as citizens don’t have and can’t make.

It doesn’t make sense to me to class neighbours differently. Why shouldn’t the people in no. 16 for example be treated the same as those next door in no. 18?

Why have some who have, say “temporary settled status” (in the U.K.), or who are given some kind of visa with limited rights and responsibilities?

Here’s my preference. Treat everyone who lives in the same street, the same neighbourhood or community the same.

They are all inhabitants after all. All living together, all sharing the same spaces, the same facilities.

I don’t get the added value of these various limited rights classifications. Anyone able to make a case for me? Maybe I’m missing something but this little bird building this little nest just where she wants to every year seems to have freedoms we’ve taken away from some of our neighbours. Who gains from that?