My Christmas got off to a terrific start with a thirty-hour delay at Heathrow airport, en route to stay with my partner’s family in Warsaw. Airports are pretty depressing places at the best of times, but when you know you are missing a Christmas feast (of carp, eel and more cake than Marie Antoinette would know what to do with) then it is doubly so …
To pass the time I made friends with my fellow travellers – mainly the Polish diaspora living in the UK. Many of them are paid at, or close to, the minimum wage and are often employed as temporary, agency workers, so hearing their stories, I did feel that my frustrations were rather minor in comparison.
A Christmas present from my father was Meg Rosoff’s novel ‘How I Live Now’. A beautifully written and compelling love story turned out to be a good airport time killer. The backdrop to the story is a third world war and a foreign occupation in Britain preceded by a terrorist campaign in London. The perpetrators are never explained or known to the characters, but this reflects the senselessness of the battle, rather than any naivety on their part.
I was reminded of the tragedy and devastation of conflict again while in Poland. The city of Warsaw was burnt to the ground by the retreating German army in 1944. And the Warsaw uprising – ambitious, brave yet futile in its objectives – crushed by the Nazis, betrayed by the Soviets – was illustrated vividly in the statue outside the Supreme Court.
Compared to the Second World War, economies and societies across the world are more integrated today. What happens in the poppy fields in Afghanistan, the madrassas in Pakistan, the Senate in Washington and the Knesset in Israel has repercussions closer to home than ever before.
Ultimately, the breaking down of borders will make us more rather than less safe. Communities that understand, respect and are linked to each other are more likely to live in peace, even if sometimes it feels like we would be safer if we could pull back from our involvement in the world’s troubles.
As the hundreds of thousands of people passing through Heathrow this Christmas – holidaymakers, migrant workers and business people – testify, we are an open society. Away from the treaties, political headlines and conflicts I shared a coffee with a Pole hoping to get back for a few days to celebrate Christmas with her family. Sitting in the same café were families from around the world. In a way airports are microcosms of our society – at once integrated, chaotic and evolving at an increasingly rapid rate.
As progressives we should embrace the opportunities that globalisation creates and work with our partners, in the EU, America and the UN to create the right conditions for greater global cohesion, stability and opportunity not just for us in the west, but for human beings everywhere. An ambitious task, perhaps, for 2008. But one to believe in and to fight for.