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<H1><A HREF="pt1-02-insiders1.html">Insiders and Outsiders</A></H1>
<H6>2. Boundaries, inclusion and exclusion</H6>
<P>It's all a question of <I>boundaries</I> – who stands inside or outside our territorial and psychological boundaries.</P>
<P>Periodically, the masses lay down the rules – even in dictatorships. Fired up by deep feelings, they reset the socio-political boundaries.</P>
<P>There's immigration, and attitudes toward victims and refugees. There's rivalry between different interest-groups within a nation. Then there are authority-figures and the privileged and powerful: their power can nowadays turn quickly against them.</P>
<P>These vexing questions concern a group's self-definition – what it sees itself to be and exist for. It's feelings-based, sometimes highly instinctive. Public sentiment plays a big role in shaping the 21st C, even if only at intense defining moments.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">We all need to <I>belong</I>, to be counted in. In doing so, we usually omit to consider those excluded and counted out, or we dehumanise them, to deny their needs or rights.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">The need to belong and the need to exclude are genuine. But resources are often limited, and accommodating outsiders involves input, effort, time and cost. These questions often lack objectivity. "<I>If we take them in, there will be less for us, and our identity could be weakened – we might stop being us.</I>" The historic tendency is to close ranks against threat.</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">But hang on, aren't virtually all nations made up of immigrants, and don't we all live in the same world, affecting one another? If you were a refugee, how would you feel?</P>
<P CLASS="sansmedsm2">When a nation is genuinely threatened, there is short-term justification in closing ranks – though it hurts dissenters, foreigners and marginal cases deemed a security risk. When it becomes longterm, and there is no real threat, the matter is different. Some nations make a habit of this. Arguably, the Cold War and the War on Terror have both been a projection – us-and-them, <I>belonging</I> stuff.</P>
<P CLASS="linksmedsm"><A HREF="pt1-03-continents.html" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Click for the next page">NEXT:<BR>Continents of the Mind</A></P>
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