In case you've been living under a rock for the last few months to a year, you might not understand the irony that comes from the Chinese proverb/curse 'May you live in interesting times'
If the world were a wheel, we would be half way through a complete turn. What was once established and "the norm" is now becoming a memory and something our children will read about in years to come.
The European Union is beginning to collapse (at least financially).
America is disappearing down the rabbit hole, never to return.
Korea is on red-hot alert with the death of it's "dear leader", Kim Jong Il and the rise of his Morissey hairdo inspired son.
Australia is becoming dependent on the drip-feed of China and the 3rd world is becoming the financier of the 1st. The polarities of our reality have begun to reverse for good.
It is my hope that in the future looking back on these words I write here, that in time, all we will have had to live through today is a little financial woe and a few less new things to look at when we want them. We will wake up from this self-imposed financial mess and find it was all just a bad dream. But my fear is that it is only "hope". And look where "hope" has gotten Barrack Obama. Not far.
Collectively as a planet, we are beginning the process of paying back our greed. Whilst for some this is unfair because they live within (or well below) their means, for most it means the long hard slog towards paying back their, or someone else, debt. Whilst we think that what we will be paying back will be loans, home loans or credit card debts, the reality may end up meaning we are paying back in other far more significant ways.
If you read the news, in particular economic news, an uneasy tone is beginning to creep into forecasters predictions of what's to come. Mentions of war in Europe within ten years; the shift in power between the U.S. and China and what it could mean; America setting up base in northern Australia preempting a strategic strike against Australia from China; what the outcome of the spring revolutions in the Arab states might ultimately result in. Everything works in cycles and history has an awful habit of repeating itself. It's compelling stuff.
Whilst this information has been seeping into me over the last few months, and after contemplating what might happen in the next 5-10-15 years, I began asking a few questions of myself. In particular how strongly I felt about being an Australian and an Estonian citizen.
Suppose a European war did occur within 10 years. How long would it last? - European wars have a tendency of lasting a few years.
How old would I be then?
How old would my child or children be?
Would Estonia get caught up in it?
Would Australia get caught up in it?
These are pretty far fetched questions to a person sitting in a Western country who's only real concern on a day-to-day basis is what the weather is going to be like that afternoon. That's because from my generation on (gen X), as Australians in particular, we have never really known war. Sure we went to Vietnam and we've lost 30 or so Diggers in Afghanistan (the size of an Afghan wedding party commonly targeted by NATO drone planes), but from my generation on wards, we really don't know what war is. We (the other 99%...) don't know how to hold guns and fire them. We wouldn't know who to fire them at. Some of us pretend to think we do, or could, but the reality would be very different if it came to the crunch. We're not hard-wired for that kind of survival.
That's thinking in a 'what if it happened' scenario.
What if say, in 15 years time, 2/3rds of the world population was (still) involved in a conventional (non-nuclear) 3rd world war - all because of greed. My oldest son might be 16 by then. Far too young to be sent off and fight for a bankers right to take money off him.
Right?
Back when I lobbed up to the Estonian Foreign Affairs Ministry in Tallinn a few years ago to get my hot little hands on one of those Estonian (EU!) passports and assume my families birthright of nationality as an on-again off-again Estonian, I didn't pay any attention to the fine print of what that could actually mean. All my focus was on was being able to call myself Estonian. The responsibilities of being a citizen of my other country came a far off distant second.
It wasn't until my wife and I were having last minute drinks in Hell Hunt with several friends before leaving Tallinn from one of our visits, that I was introduced to an Estonian guy (can't remember his name to save my life) who was quiet but easy to talk to. We chatted about things in general until the conversation eventually came around to why I would want to come to Estonia. Naturally (smugly) I informed him I was in fact an "Estonian". Being a level kinda guy, he was a little nonplussed about my citizenship and began to go on about how his Russian friends could not become citizens even though they had spent their entire lives in Estonia, yet here was I, loud and proud, able to walk up and get assume my right at the drop of a hat.
He was fairly provocative but in an intellectual way that didn't offend me. It was his way of telling me what he thought of me receiving an Estonian citizenship. When delving into why I would want to have Estonian citizenship or even why I would want to be considered Estonian, he dropped the most basic of questions that left me unable to answer and looking fairly...well...gutless.
"Would you die for Estonia?", he asked. A silence fell over our conversation for a minute. Would I die for Estonia?, I thought. Would I even die for Australia? Nup (or would I?...). What's the point in dieing for a country all together?
I mean, if we all went to war and no one was left, would the country really exist and therefore what would be the point in going to war in the first place?
These were the questions I could remember thinking, but not being able to get out of my mouth. All I could do was sit there and contemplate his question (and mine) over and over.
After a minute I asked back, would he fight for Estonia and be prepared to die? He shrugged his shoulders as if to say what a dumb question and replied "Of course!". This left me in an awkward position. Here was I uming and arring over whether or not to fight the good fight, and there he was ready to go at an instant. I started to wonder if he resented me being a citizen and wanted a citizen refund back from this gutless Aussie sitting next to him in a bar. The usual Estonia silence ensued at the table as I sat there not saying anything. He just went back to his beer.
His question stuck with me though. I mean, it wasn't a question I hadn't been asked before. When your a kid playing wars out in the back yard and your full of fight and bravado, your mate says "Would you die for Australia - if we were invaded? (i.e. if your neighbors dickhead kid came into your back yard, would you punch his lights out), instantly you reply "YEAH!", and you believe it. Your a kid. You don't watch the news and you don't understand what war is. But I wasn't that kid anymore and I needed to find out more about what was expected of me as an Estonian citizen, before things got...serious.
And so it was over time, I would investigate what my obligations to king and country might mean when it came to compulsory service in the Estonia military. Fortunately (for once) due to my age, I was off the hook for compulsory military service. Whilst I sort of new that would be the case anyway, it failed to get me thinking of the implications down the track.
Enter the birth of my son. Whilst he was born in Sydney Australia, with every strand of U.K. educated nursing staff fluttering around him, it was without question or hesitation that my wife and I knew he was also an Estonian and an Estonian citizen as soon as we could fill out the paper work in Tallinn, six weeks after his birth.
Of course he was Australian as well - that went without saying. Unlike the majority of kids he will know, his will be a life where he can hedge his bets and choose his freedom as he sees fit. Summer in Tallinn? Summer in Sydney? Let's see how cheep the flights are... Well, in time it might prove more of a dream than a reality or practicality, but the point is that freedom is there for him.
Which brings me back to now. With all of the goings on in the world, the thought that I was guaranteeing the servitude of my son to the Estonias military within 18 years had never once crossed my mind while signing on the dotted line to make him "Estonian". Maybe by then, this crazy mess will have washed over and my thoughts might be more along the lines of "thank god he's off to the Army. He might learn some manners and get a bit of an arse kicking from a tough sergeant". But somehow, I doubt it. As it turns out there are quite a few ways of skipping compulsory service if you really want to.
In our quest to be all that we want to be, have all the things we desire and believe we deserve, we have taken our eye off the ball - freedom. Freedom does not equal "freedom" any more. If it ever did.
When Estonia was set "free" by the former Soviet Union, it was like an innocent child held against its will was let go from a suspicious brainless thug, only to fall straight into the arms of a another thug - the Western world. The child thought the new thug was cool and dandy because he was holding out all the candy they could hope to imagine. Little did they know that 20 years down the track, this new thug (a guy going by the name of Eu) would be out to screw them over even more than the first thug.
Don't get me wrong; Estonia has begun to learn it has two devils on either shoulder, the same as the rest of us. But whilst I am not a communist, I can still see the old communist minority of Tallinn shaking their heads at the worlds capitalistic mess saying "we told you so". That's fine and understandable as theirs is just a case of 'better the devil you know'.
And I can't help feeling sorry for Estonia. They are finding 20 odd years of "freedom" is the feeling of 'we're damned if we do, we're damned if we don't' and the fact they are falling back several hundred years into the E.U.'s (i.e. Germany) serfdom. There's that wheel I was talking about at the start. Estonian President Ilves even acknowledges the fact!
A few years ago, no citizen zombie (me included) would have foreseen this world mess coming to a head the way it has.
Because of my lack of insight and because of my personal quest to open my horizons and become a citizen of the world, I didn't stop to ask what the real cost of having that "freedom" might be. Could it cost me a son, my future children or my whole family? My own life?
In time, I feel I may be forced to make a choice about who I really am and who I ultimately want to be - whether Estonian OR Australian. Forced to choose who will offer me the most freedom in the future. Anyone scoffing at that thinking 'Australia dickhead...what else', would be foolish at best to think Australia isn't at risk. It's been a long road to get to this point as a human being, and would be so sad to have to undo so much of it. But those are the choices we make in life, whether were free to make them or forced to do so.
Whilst it's still too far to call whether this choice may have to be made, my gut is telling me it's that day of reckoning is just around the corner. I know which way I'm going to fall. Do you?
