Hello readers. 

I know I left you hanging for the last year — and it saddens me that some of you predicted this would happen. 

By all rationale, I should have had so much to write about over the last year of not having a full-time job and of traveling to so many places. But I guess by now you’ve grown accustomed to me leaving more to the imagination than on this blog. I’m not sure why that is, but I can say that I’ve never been one to push myself to write when I don’t feel the burning desire to share (or scream via prose) welling up inside my chest. 

Maybe this is where I go wrong. 

Nevertheless, I always come back. I may stay away for too long, but I always find my way back to the written word. It still remains as my greatest source of strength when it comes to communicating—and I imagine a great emotional catharsis as well.  That’s why I’m here. 

The events that have unfolded over the last year, on a political and global level, have just sent me deeper into my feeling of rage and disgust, especially with the U.S. I have thought long and hard about how I can make myself comfortable with what they are doing in Palestine, with my tax money no less, and I’ve thought long and hard about where I’d want to be when the proverbial sh_t inevitably hits the fan. That is, if the fan doesn’t collapse on all of us first and kill us on the spot. 

What kept coming up for me in both of those thought processes was the need to further separate myself from that country and its foreign policies. I feel ashamed to have the passport and to let anyone see it. I have absolutely zero sense of pride in pulling it out at the airport or anywhere, and I feel like I’m totally prepared to take the steps and deal with the consequences of renouncing my citizenship formally and permanently. 

That’s where I’ve come to. 

I no longer want to be associated with a country that continuously commits war crimes and repeats its long and seemingly endless  history of oppression, occupation, genocide, lies, and colonialism with impunity. I think it’s more than time for the rest of the nations to take stronger stances and, for lack of a better term, grow some. Likewise, the general population needs to care a bit more about the fact that your politicians do not care even a minuscule amount about you. No matter who you vote for, they’re only on the ballot because of the corruption money behind them, which is ultimately the same no matter what colour or side they claim to represent. 

I don’t know how much more clearly it needs to be revealed that we are wasting our time debating social issues on behalf of candidates who laugh together at all of us when they step off the stage. And then some of us have the audacity to sit by and think that we’ve evolved so much intellectually that participation in politics is voluntary, as if it doesn’t affect every single aspect of your life. None of it makes any sense and I’m not sure why we have forgotten that we are the majority. 

For sure organised communal protests can make a difference because despite the class difference, the 1% still rely on us to consume for their survival. This gives us such tremendous power yet over and over we refuse to wield it. Instead we sit by and watch as the world goes up in flames, as the country we live in stokes the fires and pours billions of our tax dollars into war after war after war.

We ignore the screams of terror because they’re far off enough for us to pretend they don’t exist. But what will happen when the monster appears at all of our doorsteps and says it’s time to fight? What will you do then? Because it will. It’s just a matter of time—and that time will be here sooner than you think. 

Peace.