This is my house

This is my house, and you are a guest in it.
Please – leave when you are no longer welcome …….
I will have no hesitation in using force -
Beneath my smile lies
Fear
And
Hate.

This is my house: it needs rebuilding -
I value you
For your skills:
But without those skills
You
Are
Nothing.

This is my house: you are not welcome,
Yet my morality insists that you stay -
But
Only
One
At
A
Time.

This is my house: we are friends,
And you can stay forever -
But only because
We
Are
Friends.

This is my house: we are brother and sister.
You are most welcome.
Live here and join our family.
We will argue: we will love: but most of all
We
Will
Live.

This is my house. Next door is another house.
I have been in that other house.
That other house is part of my street.
It is a nice house.
I
Like
My
Street.

Dec.00

We can call immigrants ‘guests’, because when we’ve had enough of a ‘guest’ we can blame the ‘guest’ if they don’t leave. The language that a nation uses is very revealing about what’s going on underneath. ‘Framing’ is where you get people to look through a lens in order to control them or their reactions; politicians and the media in some countries will use the term ‘guest’ or ‘guest worker’ because it immediately puts the immigrant workers in the unenviable role of a) being there only temporarily b) being in a host’s house, with the added implication that the host is being generous and well-behaved c) being expected to behave in a grateful way d) being the one at fault if they’re not sensitive and cultured enough to realise that it’s time to leave.
It’s human nature to create and look through a lens prior to taking some sort of action. The language used acts as a warning of intent.

 

As a population ages or declines, immigrants with skills become increasingly valuable, but it’s the skills that are valued. Without those skills would-be immigrants are deemed worthless and are denied access.

 

Some countries are aware that they have a moral obligation to other peoples but they help in the most mean-spirited and small minded way possible. The self-image of the nation demands that they act in a moral way but underneath they don’t want the immigrants and create as many restrictions as possible. The UK is in this position, creating definitions such as ‘asylum seeker’ and making it as difficult as possible for asylum seekers to get in, even if that sometimes means deporting them back to almost certain death.

 

Some countries treat immigrants wonderfully IF they’re in the right racial group. It used to be the case that white South Africans or Rhodesians (as was) had no problem getting into the UK, but black South African or Rhodesian immigrants were as rare as hens teeth.

 

Maybe one day everyone will be valued for themselves. One day in the future we’ll just see people as they are. The use of ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ refers to the concept of a whole family of humanity, and also to other nations’ use of the terms ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ in day-to-day discourse, something that the ‘indigenous’ UK population doesn’t use.

 

The last verse seems very childish but actually says this is my culture and my nation; over there is another culture and nation; we’re all part of humanity, all coexisting on the same planet; I’ve tasted other cultures (I’ve travelled a bit, read a lot, watched plenty of T.V about other cultures) ; this planet and all our cultures are wonderful.
The last verse is therefore full of hope.
In the context of previous verses the last verse also implies a time when there’s no need for the current concept of immigration / migration, when people can just move about freely ( I believe it was possible to migrate to the UK without any need to inform anyone a hundred years ago, and was certainly possible in the USA and Australia when they were first colonised). Current formalised immigration procedures are related to the concept of nation-states and citizenship, so maybe one day we’ll go post-nation-state.

What do you think? Leave a comment!

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