Visas, Bonds, Wars, Religions and Radicalism
February 11 2017 By Abiodun Giwa
Abiodun Giwa
Ask anyone whether he or she has bonds, the response may result in an attempt to evade the question or to outrightly say and pray that bonds are not his or her portion, because some of us have mistaken bonds for bondage.
According to the dictionary definition, bond is an agreement with legal force or something used to fasten things together. The first definition serves the purpose. In cultural terms, we all have bonds, unless we don't belong to any human society, under rules and regulations, written or unwritten.
My muse for this writing is Paul the Apostle and his numerous mention of bonds in his letters to the Gentiles, whose conversion he dedicated his service. Paul also mention his own vow to preach the gospel with eternal commitment and steadfastness, despite the bondgae, suffering and persecution, which the work entail.
My own bondage is for being first a citizen of a country, whose leaders lack commitment to the salvation of the poor citizens, and I am made to be a victim, having been deprived of necessity of life's needs worthy of decent human beings. Therefore, I am made to struggle to find means of survival at whatever cost to my humanity, including debasement by those who say their culture is more superior to mine.
I got a visa to travel on a business trip and I was given a period of time to remain in the country far shorter than my expectation. I remembered the bond between me and my host country.I feverishly sought necessary permission to remain in the country, because returning to my home country was equivalent to returning to hell and bondage.
Most migrants from economically poor countries or whose leaders are equivalent of Judas Iscariot (in term of love of money and diversion of common patrimony to their own selfish use) are likely to be in the same shoes that I found myself. For refugees from war torn countries, their own bondage is the seemingly ceaseless wars in some of their countries and the use of their countries partly as launching pads by religion radicals.
Though we are all migrants, we are different in the way we manage our predicament to avoid remaining in a country not our own and breaking the bond in the visa that we have. Some of us as immigrants find ways to quickly adjust and get necessary papers to remain within the legally acceptable bond and ready to leave if denied, to avoid being called illegals or be ascribed a crime for whatever reason.
But some of us are careless, either for lack of knowledge that breaking a bond is likely knowing the truth and choosing to work against it. Or out of nonchalance and disrespect for keep an agreement and then become part of a large population of immigrants, who have no papers, because their visas have expired and they have done nothing to avoid accusation of breaking of the bond.
people actually believe that breaking of the bond has since become a common occurrence for people coming from economically deprived countries. They say we go to embassies to apply for visiting visas and we are granted two years visa and given few months at the port of entry. But that does not matter, because we know we are not going to return or honor the letters of the visas, to avoid returning to the hell that our home countries have become. We therefore have transformed abnormality to normalcy.
From interviews, many people say that visiting visas have been translated to mean permanent visas, because very few people return to their countries after the expiration of the visas. And many of the countries, where we go as immigrants, running away from abominable conditions in our countries, have evolved means to handle how to enforce the letters of the visas, either by outright ban - as being argued in the United States or by stealthly bans - as done in some other countries without no one hearing arguments between politicians and ideologues, about how migrants with expired papers are ferried back to their home countries, against their will, for seeking employment, a violation of the visa agreement.
Curious observers say that the argument between the Republicans and Democratic Party members in the United states is a political dirty fight for the White House and the booties attached to it. The truth, they say, is that, both parties deport immigrants, and that the first has chosen to do it openly to gain support among its followers, and that the other one also do it quietly, and make noise against the first, to gain political support, and continue to use the miseries of poor, to gain political advantage.
People are silently saying none of those countries that have been condemning the current leadership in the U.S. over its temporary ban order can claim to love migrants than the U.S. They ask whether it isn't part of the Brexit campaign to limit migration or to take Britain back from a larger EU without boundaries to enforce legal migration and discourage illegal immigration among other considerations?
For refugees from the seven Muslim countries affected by the struggling ban in the United States by a government that has chosen loud publicity to fulfil part or whole of its campaign promises, their problems are part of leadership and followership, for the love of autocracy and deceptive democracy that looks like democracy , wars, the existence of radicals, looking for people to kill, to send messages to their adversaries.
As an immigrant, I am in the country of my choice outside my home country, to seek means for a better life and not be killed in any terror attack targeted at my host country, for a disagreement for which I am not a part. Therefore, anytime terrorists kill, my fear is for me not to be a victim along the way and the need for the government to do everything humanly possible to keep terrorists away.
Getting killed by anyone is not the part of the bond in the visa that has brought me here or part of other papers that I have obtained to continue living here. And I don't wish terror death for anyone. I want the leadership to do everything possible to keep us safe from terror attacks. This is the promise successive governments make to the electorate and they still repeat the promise anytime a terror attack happens.
According to the dictionary definition, bond is an agreement with legal force or something used to fasten things together. The first definition serves the purpose. In cultural terms, we all have bonds, unless we don't belong to any human society, under rules and regulations, written or unwritten.
My muse for this writing is Paul the Apostle and his numerous mention of bonds in his letters to the Gentiles, whose conversion he dedicated his service. Paul also mention his own vow to preach the gospel with eternal commitment and steadfastness, despite the bondgae, suffering and persecution, which the work entail.
My own bondage is for being first a citizen of a country, whose leaders lack commitment to the salvation of the poor citizens, and I am made to be a victim, having been deprived of necessity of life's needs worthy of decent human beings. Therefore, I am made to struggle to find means of survival at whatever cost to my humanity, including debasement by those who say their culture is more superior to mine.
I got a visa to travel on a business trip and I was given a period of time to remain in the country far shorter than my expectation. I remembered the bond between me and my host country.I feverishly sought necessary permission to remain in the country, because returning to my home country was equivalent to returning to hell and bondage.
Most migrants from economically poor countries or whose leaders are equivalent of Judas Iscariot (in term of love of money and diversion of common patrimony to their own selfish use) are likely to be in the same shoes that I found myself. For refugees from war torn countries, their own bondage is the seemingly ceaseless wars in some of their countries and the use of their countries partly as launching pads by religion radicals.
Though we are all migrants, we are different in the way we manage our predicament to avoid remaining in a country not our own and breaking the bond in the visa that we have. Some of us as immigrants find ways to quickly adjust and get necessary papers to remain within the legally acceptable bond and ready to leave if denied, to avoid being called illegals or be ascribed a crime for whatever reason.
But some of us are careless, either for lack of knowledge that breaking a bond is likely knowing the truth and choosing to work against it. Or out of nonchalance and disrespect for keep an agreement and then become part of a large population of immigrants, who have no papers, because their visas have expired and they have done nothing to avoid accusation of breaking of the bond.
people actually believe that breaking of the bond has since become a common occurrence for people coming from economically deprived countries. They say we go to embassies to apply for visiting visas and we are granted two years visa and given few months at the port of entry. But that does not matter, because we know we are not going to return or honor the letters of the visas, to avoid returning to the hell that our home countries have become. We therefore have transformed abnormality to normalcy.
From interviews, many people say that visiting visas have been translated to mean permanent visas, because very few people return to their countries after the expiration of the visas. And many of the countries, where we go as immigrants, running away from abominable conditions in our countries, have evolved means to handle how to enforce the letters of the visas, either by outright ban - as being argued in the United States or by stealthly bans - as done in some other countries without no one hearing arguments between politicians and ideologues, about how migrants with expired papers are ferried back to their home countries, against their will, for seeking employment, a violation of the visa agreement.
Curious observers say that the argument between the Republicans and Democratic Party members in the United states is a political dirty fight for the White House and the booties attached to it. The truth, they say, is that, both parties deport immigrants, and that the first has chosen to do it openly to gain support among its followers, and that the other one also do it quietly, and make noise against the first, to gain political support, and continue to use the miseries of poor, to gain political advantage.
People are silently saying none of those countries that have been condemning the current leadership in the U.S. over its temporary ban order can claim to love migrants than the U.S. They ask whether it isn't part of the Brexit campaign to limit migration or to take Britain back from a larger EU without boundaries to enforce legal migration and discourage illegal immigration among other considerations?
For refugees from the seven Muslim countries affected by the struggling ban in the United States by a government that has chosen loud publicity to fulfil part or whole of its campaign promises, their problems are part of leadership and followership, for the love of autocracy and deceptive democracy that looks like democracy , wars, the existence of radicals, looking for people to kill, to send messages to their adversaries.
As an immigrant, I am in the country of my choice outside my home country, to seek means for a better life and not be killed in any terror attack targeted at my host country, for a disagreement for which I am not a part. Therefore, anytime terrorists kill, my fear is for me not to be a victim along the way and the need for the government to do everything humanly possible to keep terrorists away.
Getting killed by anyone is not the part of the bond in the visa that has brought me here or part of other papers that I have obtained to continue living here. And I don't wish terror death for anyone. I want the leadership to do everything possible to keep us safe from terror attacks. This is the promise successive governments make to the electorate and they still repeat the promise anytime a terror attack happens.
