I’m hanging out with a couple of aliens to the left. BBC reports today “Bulgarian and Romanian citizens will have the same rights to work in the UK as other EU nationals from next year.” Polish is now the second language in Britain due to migrants arrival in UK after the 2004 enlargement of the European Union.[1] There will be another wave and wave is an interesting metaphor. It’s natural.
Immigration isn’t a threat. It’s our lifeblood. We are all migrants. We migrate from womb to oxygenated earth. Space travel, to “boldly go where no one has gone before”, is migration. Migration shapes world history. Weather migrates. The further back in your family tree you go the closer you come to an immigrant. Keep going. To be anti migrant is to be anti nature. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for it.
Contradictions and conflict are abound in those who hate immigration. The overt or covert anger twisting the mouths of BNP EDL and UKIP is unsurprising. Anti immigration is the early and clear indication of the onset of an illness that first shows symptoms in language: body language and spoken word. Racism. What’s called an expat community in spain are called immigrants in UK. Yet they are one and the same. The endgame of the illness is holocaust or war.
But the early stages of it are difficult to diagnose unless you’re the target. Ask the Jewish community. To the Eastern Europeans in London, England and the UK I, and many others, see the illness in you. I’ve been to some of your countries and saw it there too. Unchallenged. So I want to help. Learn about us. We know what it’s like to arrive and to be treated as aliens.
Find out about Windrush, The Scarman Report, The Macpherson report, Yinka Shonibare, Zadie Smith, Nadifa Mohamed, Hannah Pool David Adjay, Gary Younge. Camila Batmanghelidjh. Hardeep Singh Kholi. These are your brothers and sisters in UK. Let’s not repeat what the Caribbean community so elegantly and doggedly fought for to make the most inclusive multi-racial 21st century country in Europe. You are the politicians, doctors, lawyers, poets policemen and teachers of tomorrow. Please, face the illness in you and kill it. Or, some years down the line, we will have to do it for you.
This is a frightening article. The implication is – Eastern and Central Europeans are racist. Because two, apparently Ukrainian, men stand accused of some savage acts of terrorism on our shores. And yet Eastern European face exactly the same repulsive racism in the UK, and much more sharply in the years since 2004, when accession allowed them to work in the UK and then be harangued by some natives for purloining their jobs. Fore Eastern and Central Europeans, the world has changed beyond all recognition in the last 20 years. They are as “ill” as you or me, Lemn, but the illness has come on extremely quickly, and their immune systems are overreacting to it.
This has not in relation to any incident except the many times I have detected the illness as its target via unspoken language. I was not aware of the incident to which you refer. Read the article carefully and you will see that I am saying that I am your brother. I am also saying brother change your behaviour towards me. I’m glad you see some of what I am saying. Don’t you think I see that Eastern Europeans suffer racism on these shores. Don’t you see that? Is a person not racist because they suffer as a target of racism? Ofcourse not. Yes it is a frightening article. But I hope it communicates compassion and hope. I must reiterate that this article was not connected to any national or local incident. This is comment. I’m afraid I do not understand the premise of your point when you say “They are as ‘ill’ as you or me Lemn”.
You have no idea what you are talking about brother.You don’t know the history how many people died to preserve Romanians of Dacian descent and Romania as an indigenous nation.Racism against Romania and jealousy at the integrity and unity of the Romanian people despite being put through 2 genocides not just Holocaust but the genocide perpetrators which tried to empty Transylvania of Romanians have made Romanian people have generational trauma. I never experienced racism in Romania as a Nigerian. I been welcomed with open arms in Romanian universities and allowed into the inner circle of indigenous Romanians who are proud of holding on a united Romania instead of being placed in reservations like the American Indians to which they often look up to, especially the courage of American Indians is a source of inspiration for Indigenous Romanians. They fought hard to hold on to their land and unlike Western countries they did not go to Africa to steal humans from their beds to sell them as slaves.Romanians are a special and Ill understood INDIGENOUS People, they fought hard for territorial integrity as an united indigenous nation. Evil people are jealous on those who managed to hold on to their lands and nation as indigenous people, remember that , before you judge a nation,know its original history not the bulls!t politicians are peddling or the racist attitudes of some ignoramuses. I am proud of to be both Nigerian and Romanian and I respect the Romanian people and the warmth hospitality they’ve always shown to me .