I’m not a comic book artist. I don’t own a micro-business, I’m not a sole trader. But I have a friend who is a comic book artist. She is a sole trader. And on New Year’s Day 2015, she could be looking at the end of any kind of dream of making a living from her artwork. Which is amazing. I have a framed piece of it on my desk. I’ve had her work displayed in our café twice. I’m thinking maybe a third time is order because I like her work so much.
My friend is Jennie
Gyllblad. Click the name to learn more about her work. Click this link to read what the
independent artists have to say about a new circle of hell of bureaucracy and
red-tape being looped around their livelihoods. Then read what
one of the EU’s top dogs has to say about the whole thing. Doesn’t read
like a pile of patronising wank from a government official. Not at all.
I’m prepared to admit that I probably don’t understand this
stuff half as well as I should. I’m not providing any kind of digital services
that would require me to register for VAT in other EU countries. But I am a
creative person was aspirations of making a living out of my work. Sure, I
intend to go down the standard commercial route. Get myself an agent, let them
do the legwork with publishing houses, take their piece of the pie and leave me
with the crusts to live off. But what if that doesn’t fly? What if I decide
that I just want to get my work out there any way I can and go in for the
ever-growing market of ebooks. Oh yeah, that’s right. The European Union is
going to make they get their cut. All in the name of “fairness”. Making sure
big businesses don’t utilise one country’s relaxed tax laws to benefit their
coffers. Yes, ladies and germs, the small business people, the sole traders,
are getting dicked over so nameless corporate fat cats have to get a smaller
bonus and go for last year’s Ferrari instead of this year’s flashy new model
Gross over simplifications, I’m sure. I’m straying into the
dangerous arena of political discourse and I might as well by painting a big
target on my chest and jumping up and down shouting “Hey you there with the
excessively large rifle! Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”
But this whole thing has led me to thinking about subject which has been
cropping up a lot in my head lately.
We’re about to make an abrupt topic change. Seatbelts on,
kids. I’m about to talk about one-world government.
My favourite videogame is Deus Ex. Towards the end of the game’s first act if you will, one
of the main characters has a little throwaway line of dialogue – “The wealthy
has always been the ones to profit from one-world government.” I have no idea
why they do. I have no idea if a single, unified human government wouldn’t just
end up screwing everyone over, but I feel rather convinced in my heart that if
we don’t all come together and cooperate, there isn’t any hope for humanity.
The Republicans swept both chambers of Congress in the
mid-term elections. There’s the terrifying possibility that if they can muster
a charismatic enough candidate in 2016, they’ll snatch the White House. It’s a
thought that makes me shudder. But then I look back home and I shudder even
more. The rise of the UK Independence Party. An unholy band of fascist gasbags
who would take the UK out of the European Union and probably attempt to re-establish
the British Empire while they’re at it. I wouldn’t put it past them to settle
the old score with France by flattening the country with nuclear weapons. And
maybe just throwing a few pot-shots at the rest of the EU. And these aren’t the
only two examples. In the recent European Parliament elections, many right-wing
ultra-nationalist parties made gains. It’s a disquieting trend. It could be
considered quite the naive worldview, but I studied history for a good long
while and there’s a very important thing I learned about nationalist parties –
they are BAD NEWS.
Let’s examine some extreme examples. Benito Mussolini.
Turned Italy into a fascist dictatorship and led them into World War II
side-by-side with Nazi Germany, the most dangerous nationalist, fascist regime
in history. Millions dead in heavy fighting, millions more murdered for the
simple fact of their ethnic heritage. Why? All in the name of the nation’s
spirit and purity. Are you sure you don’t want to shudder at the idea of UKIP
and parties of their ilk taking power in other nations?
But how does this relate to one-world government? Simple. We
need to shed our insistence on being identified by nationality, on this idea
that our sovereign identity is more important than our shared humanity. I grew
up in Wales. I’m Welsh. But I live in England. So I’m British. Because of this dichotomy
of national identities, I find I care very little for my national heritage. I
don’t give a frak. I don’t wave the British flag, I don’t sing the national
anthem because I don’t know or care to learn the words and I sure as frak don’t
want this country separated from the rest of Europe or the world for that
matter. It’s more important that I’m human. That humanity comes together and
embraces that fact that our future is decided together. When the world comes to
an abrupt end, we’re all gone. No little country is going to be spared to take
all the glory for themselves.
Perhaps it’s my lot as a science-fiction writer to dream of
a brighter, more utopian future. Let’s talk about that. I say utopian.
One-world government will not be a utopian dream of cooperation. It will not be
the United Federation of Planets living in peace and harmony with all peoples.
But I think it will be better. With the combined resources of all nations, laws
established from one source applied to the whole world...no need for individual
VAT regulations for countries. One tax law to govern the whole planet. It’s
instances like this that I think the United States has a pretty good model. You’ve
got federal laws and state laws. Apply that model to the world and I think you’ve
got a nice stop-gap solution, a good first step. Because a lot of countries won’t
want to give up their individual laws. So treat them like state laws. Except in
incidents of human rights for example, where it’s a global law matter.
More than anything – and this is where I get incredibly
flighty and my sci-fi roots really take hold – there is no way, in our current
state of squabbling nations, that humanity has any hope of getting off this
planet. That, for me, is a big deal. Because this planet is beyond frakked and
doomed. Generations down the line, this place is in incredible danger of being
rendered completely uninhabitable. And it won’t be the sole strength of China
or the United States that will save us. No. It will require cooperation on an
unprecedented global scale to save the future of humanity.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky said it best: “Earth is the cradle of
humanity. But one cannot remain in the cradle forever.” I believe that the
future of humanity lies out in the stars. Extra-solar colonisation is the way
to go. But we can’t do it alone. We’re going to have to do it together. The
sooner we realise that our fate as a species is irrevocably tied together and
the Universe doesn’t give two shits if we’re British, American, Chinese,
French, German, Egyptian, Sudanese, Iranian or Indian (it’s going to try and
kill us all anyway with massive solar flares, asteroids and all sorts of other
junk), the sooner we can get on with the business of realising our species’
full potential. The sooner we can step out into those stars and forge a
brighter, more incredible future for humankind.
Started out ranting about prohibitive bureaucracy and
unnecessary financial red-tape. Ended up philosophising about the future of
humanity. All in a day’s work for my incredibly sporadic mind. Still frakked
off (on behalf of dear friends) about this EU VAT regulation thing. Sign
this petition please. Stop them from bankrupting my friends and fellow
creatives. This world would be an even more dull and depressing place without
our minds in it.
