This week has been a practice in listening and keeping mum; our 13th General Election took place on Sunday, and as with every election that happens in every country, there are people who are happy and there are those who aren't. My close friends and relatives all know that my personal political views have always been quite liberal, with my top personal causes being a quality education for all (key word: quality), and equality for all (come on, who are we to tell others that their skin colour/genitals/love/faith is less than ours?).
Beyond that, I am tied to none of the political parties currently in play in our system, possibly because the word "politics" itself has nothing but bad connotations in my mind. I believe in truth, and the dissemination of truth from every responsible and rational human being (hey, that includes the "nobodies" sharing unverified shit on facewaste, got it?) to the wider population. What one person says, if untrue and not backed up by unshakable facts, can open up a major can of worms that just spreads and then infects the entire game of truth.
As one who is very familiar with the internet, and understanding how things go viral (no matter how ridiculous or irrelevant), I've always believed that people need to check their effing sources before clicking the effing share button. Seriously, guys, I've photoshopped, spread memes, and reblogged enough nonsense to be able to discern what is and what isn't, yet so many people don't realise that just because someone said it, it doesn't make it true! I'm not pointing fingers at any one side, but people need to take responsibility over sharing opinions and facts because there is a large part of the population who wont take the time to check the source of your information, and take your opinion as fact.
I'm just standing on my soapbox, pontificating now, so what does politics have to do with my coconut lemon bars? Nothing, except that I whipped this batch up while watching the electoral count on TV with my family. I was so stressed, so shocked at a lot of the things I was reading on Twitter, Facewaste, and other platforms, that I needed to occupy my hands with something besides clenching and unclenching my fists.
So, a lot of you have tried lemon slices, and lemon meringue pies, and key lime pies, and the such... but this was my first time pairing coconut and lemon, and I'm surprised that it worked as well as it did! Now I'm just thinking of other possible ways I can capitalise on this combo. Maybe a coconut cake with lemon curd? MMM Mother's Day is coming up, I might just try that this weekend!
(Click on the image above to zoom for the recipe)
Anyway, let's go back to the nation for a second: my friends, I love you all, even though I may not agree with some of the views being said by quite a lot of you (both sides of the divide), I hear what you're saying and I understand the frustrations and the strengths of both views. In an ideal world, we could pick and choose the best of both worlds and put it in one completely new and independent system, but this is far from an ideal world. Quit comparing our nation to other such countries like the US, because baby, I hate to break it to you... they're in the same sinking ship we are.
It is not politics that drives the country, it is the people and what we do individually. We have to stop expecting some greater power to dive in and fix all our discontent, there is no Utopia. Even etymologically, the word Utopia is derived from the Greek word Utopos (eu-topos) meaning "good place", and also I suppose Thomas More was being punny, "ou-topos" which means "no place". A perfect system is nonexistent.
There was no real point to this post, it was a full opinion post, and I also threw in a fantastic recipe for coconut lemon bars which I love and will probably make again and again and again. Lots of love x Nabs
