Exile

[liv]

So my DW reading list is full of people who have been driven away from LJ by the extremely draconian new Terms of Service, and suddenly finding themselves subject to Russian law. People who have made LJ their online home for 15 years or more, who have stuck with the site through multiple iterations of users getting screwed over. I hope that you'll find some kind of shelter here on DW, but being forced to move is still really horrible.

My Facebook feed, meanwhile, has lots of my Swedish friends talking about a neo-Nazi group which has driven the tiny, extremely northerly Jewish community of Umeå out of their meeting centre. I never made it up to Umeå when I was being an itinerant preacher in Scandinavia, but we were in contact.

And my Twitter feed, which is my main source of actual real-world news these days, is discussing the latest atrocity in Syria, which is horrifying even against the background of the unimaginably terrible past few years over there. My parents and my brother have been working with refugees who have been driven out of their Syrian homes by the conflict, and in many senses the people I've come into contact with here in England are relatively speaking the "lucky" ones.

There's no connection between these three stories, certainly no comparison. But all three are making me sad and scared and I don't have the heart to work on preparing for next week's Passover seders, celebrations of freedom and homecoming. And most certainly not to write the post I was planning, the nice theoretical discussion of how to apply the principles of free speech to people who actively advocate dehumanization and genocide. Maybe another day.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Lots of love. The move is made easier by you being here

[sfred]

*sends love*

[hatam_soferet]

Dear badger, much hug, many love

[cosmolinguist]

It is a tough time. More unbelievably frustrating, scary and dispiriting news from my native country today, and ominous medical news for a number of people I love on a smaller scale led (along with the things you talk about here) to a bad day for me, where my nerves felt all jangly and even the company of people I love had the opposite of its usual effect. It's a tough time. It's okay to say so and to not do all of the things we made good plans to do.

[ewt]

But all three are making me sad and scared and I don't have the heart to work on preparing for next week's Passover seders, celebrations of freedom and homecoming.

To me, all these things are all the more reason to remember to celebrate freedom and homecoming where and how you can. But no, they don't make it easy.

[worlds_of_smoke]

-offers hugs-

[finding_helena]

Hi! Nice to see you again.

I'm a little sad to leave LJ, but it also kind of feels like time... It hasn't been going in a direction that I like for a long time now.

[silveradept]

The world is full of sad things and angry things and things that need talking about. Here's hoping for a time where they are no longer necessary, because they no longer happen.