TED Community » Michael Pesin

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Music. Astronomy.

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• A comment on Conversation: The Right of Free Travel (visa-free) for Every Human Being on Planet Earth

  Jul 20 2011: In my opinion the VISA is a bureaucratic form of men guarding their territory.
  Many mammals and other animals are territorial, they gourd their territory to protect their food, family (pack), etc.
  
  Men have always been in a land bordered by imaginary lines. It's in our nature. And we want to protect these invisible lines so that our children would have a safe land to live and prosper. That is why we want to control whoever goes in and out our imaginary lines, so that no alien could harm our way of life.
  Of course in our modern society, with technologies like the internet this sounds obsolete, but not everyone has this technology, or any other form of communicational technology.
  
  I would like to address the point that allowing freedom of travel will reduce prejudice: History, and everyday life, shows us that even people who live next to each other for hundreds of years can still have prejudice thoughts against them for being different in skin color, religious views, political views, the way they throw the trash etc.
  
  I must remind you that most of the worlds population cannot allow leaving their homes and livelihood and travel to another city, let alone another country.
  
  It's a pity, but it's our nature to try and protect ourselves from strangers. Just like the need for a document called VISA: A need to filter (=protect ourselves from) people who enter our territory.