Neighbours

Remember that old adage reflecting
regretful resignation, that 'you can't
pick your neighbours'? You may choose
to ignore the people living next door to
you as is your right, though running counter
to the conceit of a social civility contract
because you wish to secure solitude for
yourself or because you are just plain
anti-socially hostile to the presence of 
others, but neighbours are no longer those
who merely reside beside us in a shared
neighbourhood. The world has become
one big shared neighbourhood although
advances in technology have made it a
much tighter place of communication and
ease of travel. The neighbour you prefer
to ignore who insists he/she be addressed
in gender-neutral tones, or the one you
prefer not approach your children, much
less those who righteously militate against
childhood disease inoculations thus
placing your own in potential danger are
admittedly one kettle of fish. Another
altogether are those whose tormented
lives of privation, oppression and danger
motivate them to become your neighbour
by illegally infiltrating your country.
Perhaps to place neighbours in an entirely
different perspective is to ponder the
kind of hatred of others that instill in
some an irrepressible drive to mount raging
attacks of terrorism, to slaughter and to
gloat that mass death relieves the world
of the presence of irredeemable heretics.