Changes in my lifetime
I've just finished a fab book I have wanted to read for some time... the autobiography of Martina Navratilova. Dear regular readers would be well aware by now - I am a huge tennis fan! Sadly had to miss the Australian Open as I can't afford Sky now, but listened to Lleyton Hewitt's defeat (ha ha !) on the radio.
One thing that was interesting about Navratilova's book was, as she was writing in 1985, she still spoke of being unwelcome in her own country, then still Czechslovakia. I was in the (now) Czech Republic in 2001, and was lucky enough to stay with a family in a small border town called Nachod. The parents in the family had applied numerous times to visit 'the West' but were turned down. They had to limit their travels to other parts of the Eastern Bloc. As they preferred to travel independently, they did not always book hotels in advance, which is what the honchos in the former Soviet Union expected. This led to some awkward meetings with Russian police, who would befriend my friends and insist on escorting them to their hotel. My friends would name a hotel, but then get there and suddenly remember they were staying at a different hotel. This would continue until the police were succesfully shaken off!
Even as recently as the early nineties, when I went to Moscow, independent travel was discouraged. I had wanted to go camping outside Moscow, but this would only be approved if I gave details of every campground I intended to visit, with booking confirmations! Not really the type of trip I had been thinking of.
Speaking of change in my lifetime, the people of Iraq have been voting. I simply cannot agree with the means that brought this about, with carnage on both the US and Iraqi side, but maybe something good will come out of this. It was sad to read of women voters especially, being threatened with death if they voted. The country of Greece is sometimes credited with being the birthplace of democrary, but in fact, women and citizens of lower orders, e.g. slaves had no vote at all. I like to think that the country of New Zealand was first in this regard, giving women the vote early last century.
No doubt there will be more changes in my lifetime. I hope they will be positive.
