On jews, palestinians, soccer team fans, nationalism and trip hop

Why on earth do we make such a big fuss about our identity? Why can’t we just live as human beings with our apparent differences? Why the division? Would everything have been solved if there were just one global holy book? Or if everybody believed there is no god? Would there still be war for territory without any borders across the world? Do we really need these imaginary things to get along?

This whole setup of isolation is absolutely artificial, it has no other basis than different upbringing, different dogmas, different traditions, different sources of knowledge. We are all slaves to the past, to what has been said and done there and then, and we repeat the same patterns, the same mistakes, over and over again. We don’t learn from history, on the contrary. Our education system fails completely in resolving this issue, and we obediently accept the course of the world, as if there is no way out.

The fact is very simple: there is no such thing as “the Israelis”, “the Palestinians”, “the Americans” or “the Belgians”, they do not actually exist. These are merely labels. A lot of people think they exist, that’s all. Check this out for yourself, go into it, see what is going on in the world. There are immigrants, we can change nationalities, countries split, countries are formed, …
Likewise, you are not your name. Your name is a practical way of getting around and of pointing out who is talked about, but it is not you, it is but a reference, a pointer to someone you maybe once were. Your life goes on, you change, you don’t remain the same person, even though you hold the same name from birth till death.
There are only people, people of flesh and blood, men, women, children, who happen to be born in some place, who are struggling to make a living, trying to survive. It is insane to label people according to some arbitrary criteria such as borders, color, beliefs, … What do you do with people who live on borders for example? Or people with mixed ethnicity or race? People with multiple passports? What are they? Is everyone forced to choose sides? In the end, what does it really mean?
— You may see part of the truth while reading this, but in a few minutes, hours or days you will probably have forgotten about it. You’ll deem these words unrealistic, utopian, whatever. Unless you see the matter of the fact and what implications this has on your other thoughts, views and beliefs, you will keep identifying with some ideas. Can you drop identification and see what happens? Or the other way around: can you identify with the whole of life, the whole of humanity? Find out why you can’t, reveal the absurdity, examine the forces inside you, the peer pressures that keep you from thinking and acting freely.

Practical issues such as language and religion(?) can be overcome, there are ways to make those things work, if there is the willingness and the open-mindedness of us all.
Of course opening up all borders is not the real end solution, it would only be a practical start. The real change has to happen inside our heads. If you are able to think beyond all divisions and borders, nothing more has to be done. Don’t come up with problems such as the fallacies of globalization, WTO, IMF, … These are nothing but institutions built on the past, more of the same misery.
The gap between the rich and poor is continuously growing, despite what politicians promise. This fact alone says it all.
There is plenty of intelligence and expertise to make things work more harmoniously, but to accomplish this there has to be a radical shift in how we view ourselves and the world.
The only real revolution is the revolution of the mind.

“I have excellent news for the world. There’s no such thing as Trip Hop. It does not exist. It’s a figment of some lame cunt’s imagination. There was never any such thing as Trip Hop. It was a polite thing to say when you were trying to say that you were not into the boring old Rock and Roll but you didn’t dare to say Rap because you were afraid of getting kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn’t let you smoke up their weed anymore. There’s Hip Hop, there’s Rap music, there’s Gangster Rap, there’s G-Funk, there’s Miami Bass, Bounce, West Coast, East Coast, Underground, but Trip Hop doesn’t mean shit.”
— Kut Masta Kurt on “Figment” – Masters of Illusions LP (2000)

KMK was definitely on to something there, but the truth of the matter is that there is only music, sound, expression, communication.

In other words: LABELS DON’T MEAN SHIT!

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