We Will All Be Refugees by 2074!

There is a big debate in Stravaraland whether a newborn should be given refugee status. Apparently, the question is not whether such refugee status can be given to someone who is born in, say, Limassol in 2007 but whether refugee status arises from the status of the mother or the father as refugees, respectively.

Now, this debate is discriminatory: whether the hereditary right is coming from a woman or a man should be irrelevant. Therefore, eventually it will have to be the case that if any hereditary right of any form is to be recognized, it has to come from either parent so as not to be disputed at some point at The European Court of Rights as being discriminatory. Now the debate has other interesting implications.

Assume for a moment that we take the view that this hereditary right passes down to the son or daughter from either parent. Now, with the original refugees being around 30% of the population, if we define as “refugee” every person that gets born that has only one parent being a refugee, then how many years will it be before all Stravaralanders are “refugees”? Now that is a good mathematical puzzle that should make it into the Public Service Entrance exams for StravaraLand (along with, of course, “When was the latest year Stravaraland was saved from the mouth of the Bad Wolf?” and, next question, my own favourite, “Who Saved Stravaraland in 2004?”).

But I digress. How do we figure out the approximate year when all Stravaralanders become refugees? Well, assume that the maximum age to live to for anyone born right before the invasion is say 100 years. Then, by around 1974+100=2074 all Stravaralanders will be refugees, therefore a great weapon in our fight for a fair solution to the Stravaraland problem. Just imagine. We will not say “We have 200000 refugees” any more. We will instead say: “We are all refugees” or if you prefer “Ich bin ein Refugee”. Now how effective is that for a slogan? We might even make it a bit better and expand on the other, long forgotten, favourite: “Never forget, we are ALL refugees NOW”. In 2074 we can erect a (digital) poster up at Ledras, where the Berliner kiosks will have been upgraded, and the poster will say: “On behalf of the whole Stravaraland population, you can now observe across the divide the militarists that turned us ALL into refugees”.

Now as an apodimos with children that are eligible to be refugees, I would like to point out that I am going to lobby so that my children get the “refugee” status. And I would like the government to set up a Refugee Community Centre so that all our refugees can be accommodated, given blankets, free medical care and the like. I would also like Angelina Jolie, as UN good will ambassador for refugees, to be invited to this Refugee Centre and offer solace to all our refugee children (and, why not, their parents). So that we show to the world the barbaric nature of our enemies’ actions, and to create a much more effective lobby for The Cause in the foreign lands…