The Right to Choose

I caught the end of a Star Trek Next Generation episode today.  It was the one where the Federation, through the lead of one of its most brilliant robotic engineers, has decided to "decommission" Data.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, Data is a highly advanced robot, played by actor Brent Spiner who interacts with the other crew members (and the audience) as if a real person, although, like Spock from the original Star Trek show, Data is always working on his emotions.   At the conclusion of the episode, Captain Picard presents a case for bestowing the right to choose on Data, by appealing both to Data's obvious intelligence, awareness of his situation, and awareness of self (criteria often put forth as qualifiers for sentience), but also, by acknowledging that it is inevitable that other Data-like being will one day be created, a race of them, one might say, and that by ruling that Data is property, no more, with no choice to decide his fate, the Federation would be establishing a legal justification for the enslavement of future Data-like beings, even those who are created with even more human like capabilities. 

Laws which protect property over people.

The fact of the matter is that humanity has been struggling with the definition of property for all of its existence.  Legally speaking, men were often protected from the ramifications of spouse and child abuse due to the long held beliefs that they were the property of the man of the house.  Not to mention the hundreds of years of slave trade where people of color were sold in the marketplace right alongside cattle and sheep. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 

Self-evident perhaps to white men about white men and their possessions, who themselves often treated their children, spouse, and certainly men of color as property, perhaps even despairing at such beliefs but perceiving them necessary for economic reasons.  The decades after these words were written are marked by both amazing accomplishments, and horrific instances of denying those very unalienable rights to the Native Americans who populated our land before it was the United States, and those American born citizens who happened to be the wrong color.

Which bring me to the Turkish invasion of Syria.

Sadly, the focus of Americans seems to be that either President Trump tacitly gave Turkish President Erdogan the green light to invade or that we should not be involved in a country protecting its borders.  There is very little talk of the choices available for the people who live in this area of the world, people whose only crime was to be born there. 

Now, let's be clear on this.  The situation with the Kurds, is extremely complicated.  They exist primarily in an area which is labelled Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, on a map; upwards of 30 million people without a country of their own, perhaps the largest such distinction in the world.  Since a large share of Kurds live in Turkey where they press for there own self-governed territory or more representation in government, sometime violently, the PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, and other countries around the world, including America.  Yet, it was Kurdish forces which did the yeoman's work on the ground to help defeat the ISIS caliphate, and who currently guard the prisons where many ISIS fighters are held. 

In essence, the United States used the Kurds to help defeat ISIS, while condemning their acts of terrorism within Turkey to gain political independence.  If you see parallels to the events of the 1770's in colonial America, you shouldn't be surprised.  Syria, which is run by a Russian ally in Bashar Assad, a man condemned multiple times by the West for his awful treatment of the Kurds in his country, (just as ex-ruler of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was vilified for gassing Kurds in nothern Iraq), is being turned to by the Kurds to help them maintain their land in northern Syria.  Whether Assad gives a shit about the Kurds or just wants to act as a thorn in Turkey's invasion of its land, is certainly debatable.  All the while, an Erdogan led Turkey, which is a NATO country, is becoming far too friendly with Putin and Russia.  I guess dictators and tyrants have their own club too.

And so the wheel keeps spinning with the Kurds looking to, literally, anyone to help them fight an assault that is creating over a hundred thousand refugees (where will they go, Turkey, Iran, Iraq?), destroying their villages and killing their soldiers. 

All because they do not have the right to choose and are fighting, among other things, laws which protect property (country sovereignty) over people.  President Trump is fine with allowing Turkey to defend its borders (he probably wishes he could create a buffer zone between America and Mexico) as that is one of his major political stances.  Russia is giddy with the idea that they can be the peacemaker, cementing their importance in the Middle East drama.  Syria is glad the line in the sand is now being drawn against Turkey.  And Iraq and Iran want anything except an independent country for the Kurds (especially if they get to control the oil reserves in the northern areas of these countries) so don't mind the Turks doing the dirty work of cleansing the area of Kurds, cleansing being the proper term.

The right to choose.  It is certainly a Utopian dream to believe that those uplifting words which helped create America, would actually be brought to fruition throughout Earth.  It would require a paradigm shift of the highest magnitude in so many phases of the tenets of civilized thought, none less important that the legal structure which protects property over people. 

The Kurds have fought, and will continue to fight, to protect their families and their culture from being forcibly removed from their homeland, a land where they have lived for centuries regardless of the name assigned to it on a map.  Yes, they are a tribe caught between many countries, sometimes to the detriment of their cause, but a family nonetheless.

Is it possible for a family to encompass such a large population while living in multiple jurisdictions?  Is it possible for a family to encompass multiple countries while sharing religion, culture or strong moral values?  Is it possible for a family to include all races and creeds, despite the variety of ways in which they speak, worship and love?  Is it possible for a family to be the family of Earth, as seen from the perspective of a being not of this planet?

Can we extend the right to choose to all the members of the family of man?  Do we want to, really?  Humanity has a long was to go before the words of the Declaration are applied to all the humans who inhabit our planet.