Over the past few days, I've been contemplating the ideas of "home". Most of us on the trip are beginning to say, Okay, I'm having fun, but I'm ready to go home. Lately, though, I've been getting a little tripped up over what this word actually means.

For most people, home is where you grew up, or where your loved ones live. In some cases, however, that isn't true. For the people affected by hurricane Katrina, the place they grew up no longer exists; whole neighborhoods were washed out. These people have had to develop new lives in new places, and the sad truth is that they have to build a new home, whether they like it or not. At the same time, I wonder how people can move away from this "home", if it's truly a place they love, filled with people they love, or if these individuals simply have a different understanding of the word.

This leads me to think of the people driven away in the Highland Clearances. Many were satisfied with the their lives, not dreaming if the big city, or how they could manage to get out from under their parents. I'm sure they sensed the unrest among the lairds, but I don't think many of these people anticipated being thrown out of the homes their relatives had lived in for years, or that if they refused to leave, they were brutally removed, if not burnt alive with their houses.

Of course, the Highland Clearances weren't the first time this happened. It happened to the Jews during the second World War, the Cherokee Indians along the Trail of Tears, and before that, the Cherokee Indians cleared away another tribe of Native Americans to take their land. But does it really make a difference? Is it really okay and acceptable to push people away from the land and memories and belongings they've known their whole life?

In class today, we discussed how despite the horrible reality of the Highland Clearances, perhaps this helped the economy in the Lowlands later, as Glasgow boomed in the harbor and see-faring industries and as Edinburgh became an intellectual center comparable to London itself. In my opinion, however, this is simply what we are taught to believe, and it's wrong. I don't care how the economy flourished if thousands had to suffer and die and be shipped away like cattle in order for it to happen. I don't care if the people of the Lowlands prospered if it was at the stake of nearly eradicating the whole Highland race and culture. And quite frankly, if England or Scotland is or was proud of this new, better economy, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Decades before the Highland Clearances, the Highlanders and Lowlanders were having problems with each other, as I'm sure the different tribes of Native Americans were. But under no circumstances was this a call to arms, to attack one another in the hopes of showing one's strength or dominance over another. Despite the time period and the amount of time that has passed since, there is no reason good enough to push out a whole race of people from the land which they know and love. And not one human in all of history, has ever had, or will ever have, the right to do so.