Who's Your Favourite Ally?

I was thinking tonight about Allies.

Groups form around us at times and phases in our lives - we ally with 'youth', when we are them, we ally with 'gender', when gender-issues arise, we ally with our 'religion', when we have it and it differs from some other and we ally with our 'class/social group' when it serves to do so; we ally with whatever reflects our image of our selves at the time.

Not sure where I am going with this...

…it's just that it reminded me of how, when I am in South London, North London seems a contrast and yet as I pass Birmingham, I begin to feel an allegiance to my London roots. Then as Lancashire approaches, I ponder the contrast of Northerners and Southerners. Don’t get me started on how all this morphs again once I leave the country…

It also reminded me of how, within South London, exist the many smaller allegiances of suburbs and clans of fans of football teams... and how, even in the wider view of the world, there are larger chunks of allegiances, held together by religion and race.

What does this all mean and is it of any relevance? Goodness knows. Just thinking about who/what we choose to ally with and what would happen, if we chose our allies with a different, as yet unthought-of criteria?

Maybe the whole ‘ally’ concept is the spanner in the works of world-wide harmony?

And what of the way allying, is changing? New allies are being formed on social networking and other online community sites. We have new allegiances with those on Linked-in or those who prefer Facebook over Bebo …and almost related, to those who tweet on Twitter.

Allies are the power-base of those who seek control – from neighbourhood gangs to global partners – power is built on strategically or numerically worthwhile allegiances.

So I suppose I am questioning what/who I ally myself with.