Hello my dear friends, how are you today? I hope life and the weekend are treating you well. I am out for another Star Trek Voyager binge day as I had my booster jab on Thursday and it knocked me out totally.

So this morning I did a tiny round with Sherky and after coming home made myself a weird coffee. Well, the best husband considers my coffees weird because he likes his simply black with a pinch of chilli. I, however, make a ritual of adding raw cocoa, turmeric, cinnamon, clove, date sugar and lots and lots of oatmilk.

So I plopped down on the sofa and checked my email just to find one from Pearltrees one of the social media platforms I joined way back in 2013. “Oh, another one to cull” I thought but as with many of these platforms they don’t make it easy to leave. I simply could not find a button to do so and by the time I wrote to them asking to delete my account my coffee was cold. Yuk!

On Saturdays I wanted to introduce to some of the countries that I stand with because they are troubled by violence in one way or another. But the second country already got me into trouble. It’s Algeria and as much as I tried I could not make heads or tales of the fractions that fight and if it is pretty calm or not currently.

All I figured so far is that it basically has one sort of armed conflict or other going on ever since they freed themselves from French colonialism. My goodness, dear readers, do you know how lucky you are if you live in a peaceful country?

Well, first a video for you about Algeria’s history and other interesting facts by Mark Hachem from Arab Facts. As always please give a like or even a follow if you appreciate interest his work

You can find a lot of video’s about the Algerian war of Independence which seems to be one root of ongoing conflict. At least their animosity with Marrocco seems to have its root there. These two video’s from Now This World & Visual Politik explain what’s going on

Please, give a like or a follow if it helped you understand more.

I wasn’t aware that Algeria was a one-party state for quite some time and recently violence seems to have to do with a fight for democracy. But I suspect it’s difficult past and civil war in the 1990s make a peaceful Algeria a difficult project:

I always wondered how people who at one day live peacefully together can fall into violence against each other the next. However, since the Brexit referendum in the UK in 2016 I can.

This referendum emboldened British citizens who believe foreigners are a threat to their way of life and rather have walls and border controls go up than learn to live together in peace with someone who looks and lives differently. It lead to the death of a member of Parliament and open hostilities not only against non-british Europeans but re-inforced decades-old racism against non-Brits from other continents & Brits with a non-British family background.

And despite the British government’s assurances that your rights are secured if you applied for settled status many have experienced problems because you do not get physical proof.

But what made me most understand are my feelings around this topic. I try to be a peaceful person. I do not believe in violence to solve disagreements. However, my deepest fears have been roused since 52% of the British decided its better to live outside the EU. When I decided to leave Germany I thought of either going to Switzerland or the UK. In the end I decided for the UK because it was in the EU. Despite the EU’s problems I deeply believe that working together in a Union is the only way to keep peace in Europe. Plus I believe that a court that is part of many countries like the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights will provide better support of my rights than just the one in one country.

I have to say that I am not up-to-date what the post brexit agreement states when it comes to EU courts but when I have a look at the dealings of the likes of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel I am not confident they give a f…about the rule of law anywhere in the world.

The simple truth is: despite not having experienced direct problems I do not feel safe in this country anymore. They recently detained a British non-verbal black teenager who went missing from a hospital and prepared his deportation. WTF?

Now, of course, I am aware that I have white priviledge and nothing I experience can be as bad as what people with Black and Asian background go through. But the thing is that the general atmosphere is toxic and with a government that continuously has to fight court cases because they did something illegal I doubt Britain is a safe country for anyone at the moment. Oh, did I mention the 174 000 covid deaths? Imagine that death toll would have been caused by extremist terror? All hell would break lose. In WW2 “only” 60.000 British civilians died and that included the commonwealth. But no-one in this country seems to be appalled by this because they got their Brexit and Boris did his best.

I feel alienated in this country since the referendum. I always wanted to become British but could never afford to but now I am so glad I never went through with it. I am disappointed and angry. And despite me trying to get over it I simply can’t. So often I simply want to go and batter Boris Johnson, Nigel Farrage and the likes to a pulp for the s… they caused. And I assume if I’d be with people who have a more physical approach to dealing with anger I quite easily could end up in guerilla fighting position of some sort. And to be honest, that realisation scares me even more than anything else.

Love & Rage my friends. I wish you that you are less troubled than I am