Washed Ashore

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark” said Warsan Shire in her poem called Home. I feel confusion and apprehension about the word “home,” because I’m still desperately looking for one, even though I’ve found it. I may just not be able to stay. The problem with leaving a place of origin that is the mouth of a shark is that you need to prove your worth as a useful and valuable human to be able to go and stay somewhere else. In other words, to be able to immigrate. People may say that the place you left was not the mouth of a shark. They wouldn’t live there themselves, but they say the place is fine, and you should go back and make sure you stay there (to stop invading here!). It is important to keep in mind, however, that there are multiple different types of migrants. Each one has different stories, different obstacles, different reasons to move, and different pejorative narratives imposed on them.

I see the work of brilliant academics as I review literature on migration. They have messages about humanity, and they expose the idea of human rights as a fallacy in the context of immigration, statelessness and nation-states. Those who have the right to have rights are the citizens of the rich nation-states. As fascist narratives and border violence advance in the world, it is as if these academic papers get washed ashore, ignored by politicians who make immigration laws. The media constructs reality and public perception by associating migrants to pests and natural disasters, and by removing the humanity and the stories from the “swarms of migrants” supposedly invading your place.