Distance does matter

There is one thing that I just realised in a flight back home from London to Jakarta a few years back. I was so bored and tired during that 13 hours flight in the economy class seat that I decided to enjoy the real time GPS image flight path, minute by minute, country by country. I find myself imagining the people and the life that is happening down there. The cultural differences across the countries and the borders. 11,703 kilometres is a huge span of  cultural rainbows, but that’s not the only thing the path revealed to me.

Distance does matter, because human are geographical creature. No matter how connected we are through the internet nowadays, we always measure our world by its distance from our physical self. We might get familiar with events on the other side of the globe, but as a geographical creature, we can relate better to events physically closer to us.

As we flew from London across the European continent towards the Qatar – Abu Dhabi corridor, I was actually physically amazed by how close is Europe and Middle East. The GPS display of the aeroplane showed that we had only flown a 5,000 kilometres away from London, that is not a very far distance to cross. That is actually the distance that I, as an Indonesian, have to go from Banda Aceh, Indonesian West end capital city, to Jayapura, the East end capital city. It finally hit me there as I flew the distance,  why the European people always deeply affected by events in the Middle East, and why there are so many eastern European refugee in UK.

Physically, the distance between European countries to the Middle East countries is not more than 5,000 kilometres. London and Egypt are only 3,000 kilometres away, that’s equal the distance between Jakarta and Jayapura. Rome and Cairo is in an equal distance with Jakarta – Kupang, the capital city of the East- South East Islands province, one hour time zone away.

Furthermore, the cultural historical bond between the EU countries and the Middle East countries have a complex emotional historical connection. The Macedonian, Roman, Ottoman, are among many empires that had their territories in both continent. They have a long shared and contested history, and they will continue to shape each other as an eternal rivals.

I am not saying that shared identities such as religions, genders, race and everything else don’t matter, I am just saying that distance does matter.