I step out from behind the curtain, spotlight on me, I walk to the lectern. No notes. My eyes start to adjust to the crowd in front of me.
"Good evening Reform voters. I have been asked to come here to speak to you about alternative solutions to the migrant crisis, and so I shall, but first I have a question for you. How many refugees can this country take?"
"None!" shout members of the audience.
"Pathetic!" I shout back. "The answer is, millions of refugees. Our country should be strong enough that it can take millions of people fleeing war and famine."
"It is strong!" shouts someone else. I begin to laugh cruelly.
"At the very least, a country should be able to house and feed all its inhabitants, and still have double left over. Why aren't we doing that? You're going to tell me we can't afford it? That people work so that others get things for free? Are you stupid?" I yell. The audience begins getting restless, some people start booing. I clutch onto the lectern.
"To think that the only way to change a country through politics is limiting. That we only get a chance every few years to vote the next party in. More people don't vote than do. No, it is time we stood up for our country. We do not need permission, nor to be told what to do. The people shall make this country bountiful."
"Firstly, we need to grow our own food. Every garden and piece of public land shall be farmed, market gardens mixing trees with crops with flowers. Place value in the soil, as that is where all food stems. A
street should be able to provide for itself. Neighbours connect solar
panels and share energy. Libraries can loan power tools. Every street
can have a few chickens and a sheep, perhaps." I say. Some of the audience laughs.
"All
of this can be done with what already exists. We are not waiting for a
vote or go protesting or replacing those in power. All of this is agreed
from person to person, face to face."
"There
is the idea of self sufficiency. We had already come up with a better
way back when we were cavemen. Shared sufficiency changes intensive work
alone to lighter work together. This would allow more time to do what
we pleased, with our basic necessities covered through actual work."
"You saying we should go back to farming?"
"Yes! A proper days work. Not sitting bone idle in some office somewhere, all the food you eat being processed, your body getting weaker by the day. A days labour. It doesn't matter if you were born here or you come here, you still put the work in, side by side with the rest of us. Its not just growing food, its building homes, infrastructure, furniture, tools, everything."
"Who's going to make the medicines?" calls someone near the front.
"We are. We already have the knowledge and equipment to make our own drugs. We can grow the sources of medicines from cultivating the right plants." I say. Some people scoff. "Where do you think drugs come from? Most of its plants. Then some powder mixed in."
"I can do all that myself. I built a bunker already. And have a hundred tins of beans." calls the man.
"Similar to how parents who home school their child joining up with other home schooling parents to form shared teaching groups and eventually reinventing the school, being highly individualistic takes more effort than working together."
"At least I got a choice."
"I am not removing that choice, just providing another. Let us think for a moment of the future of this century;
We cannot take for granted things like food, water and electricity. Every nation needs to be able to provide for itself, not this web of global production and transportation. Climate change, warfare, pandemics, whatever, we cannot rely that things will continue as they are. Most of the world already lives like this. We need to return to our roots and be caretakers of this beautiful, unique world. It is so precious that we cannot afford to close our eyes to the impact we are having on it. We can fix it still. If your needs are met and the work you do is meaningful, life is all the more sweet.
How do you do it? One house at a time, one neighbour at a time. You knock on doors and get to know people. You share resources and knowledge. You get them activated so they can continue recruiting more people. Garden fences shall come down and the land be fed. Share cars, share food, share books. Who needs help? What can you do? We do not need to wait for another election or decide on politics or deal with any of that any more. We rebuild the country by ourselves and do it together.
And so to answer the question how to solve immigration, it is that the immigrant works alongside the citizen. That is it. There are those that cannot work, and so the greater labour covers those that can't. What about those who are lazy, feckless and otherwise resistant to work? Actual labour that means something, where the body is strengthened along with your ties to fellow workers, is much different from the way most jobs are. The jobs of the future are builder, forester, gardener, not customer services apprenticeships for adults. Let us build homes from wood, generate our own energy, know that we will be covered should anything go wrong.
The vilification of any group of people is a smokescreen by those in actual power. They want to get away with lining their own pockets and sorting their friends out than doing anything about the average person living in this country. I am not dumb enough to say all immigrants are bad, just as I wouldn't say all reform voters are bad. You get some dickheads wherever you go. What we can do is have closer community ties, get to know each other better, get to do something when problems that come up. Bad things happen behind closed doors on streets where nobody knows one another. We need to get outside. We all just need to get outside and get to know one another.
