The one where I write about the window on the world

The irony was not lost on me when my own copy of Fallout 3 arrived in the mail a few days ago with Chinese characters emblazoned across the case.  Last night while I was leading an ESL discussion in Second Life about immigration, I wanted the learners to see a video from Al Jezeera television, but our Chinese learners couldn't watch it.  China forbids its people to access YouTube.  Of course, YouTube is the main channel of the world's silly, fun-loving side, but it's also an important expression of the world's philosophies and education.  The Chinese prohibition reduces their people's view of the variety of thought and opinion, true, but it also takes away the humanity of the rest of the world.  If my travels have taught me anything, it's that people are the same no matter where you go.  In shielding its public from the extensive breadth of human thought and opinion, the Chinese government is also denying its people a very personal connection with the outside world.  When I was in Army basic training in Alabama, we practiced on targets made to resemble Soviet soldiers.  We were constantly reminded by the government's propaganda and the news media how oppressive and evil the Soviets were.  It made us consider them less than human and so easier to hate and kill, if necessary.  There are things on YouTube that I personally find unpalatable, but on the whole, YouTube offers mankind a grand window on human society.  It makes us realize that people in Buenos Aires, Argentina, are the same as people in Bay City, Michigan or Rouen, France as well as our own hometown.  We all laugh at the same things, cry at the same things, dance, sing, sleep, drink, and enjoy life the same all over the world.  Shutter this window, and you are left to wonder about the outsiders your government says are dangerous.  You distrust the outsiders because you have been told they are different, yet you have never seen them.  They are not like us, so you must be suspicious of them.  This is what makes war, and all killing, easier.  You can look upon your victim as different from you and consequently less than you, because you have never seen her holding her newborn son, or cringed at him dancing in his underwear at a party, or laughed with them trying to solve a Rubik's cube.  People are people, the same the world over, in spite of all attempts to dehumanize those who are not part of our tribe, our race, or our religion.  YouTube shows us who our neighbors are, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.