Relief dulled by exhaustion

[cosmolinguist]

And still the plight of migrants and their families doesn’t resonate with the British public as loudly as it should. I have heard the argument that no one has a right to settlement in a country that is not their country of birth many times. But other than in asylum cases or when people are joining family members, it is often the case that a life in the UK just develops organically. Sudan, where I am from, is in my bones, but the UK is where I had built a life just by virtue of the time I spent here. Via study and work, relationships and just the day-to-day of living, an investment is made in the country that you do not wish to unwind. Is that not, at its heart, what integration is? Is that not, allegedly, the Holy Grail? Satbir Singh, having won the right to bring his wife to the UK after the Home Office admitted its mistake, reflects on what is now, effectively and deliberately, an alienating process. “The first interaction you have with the state is suspicion, that you are a liar, a cheat and a fraud. This is an enormous roadblock to integration.”

In 2017, the permanent residency that was granted on appeal qualified me for British citizenship. More than a decade after that moment of pregnant possibility on a balcony in Bethnal Green, and 14 years after excitedly taking in the view of London’s parks on a train from the airport, I was making my way towards my naturalisation with leaden feet. The citizenship had been so shorn of its significance, so stripped of its essential meaning, that the ceremony felt like a formality. And when it was over it felt hollow. My relief was dulled by exhaustion and sadness that becoming the citizen of a country in which I had invested so much had been marred by an extractive, dishonest and punitive system. I now looked forward to only one thing – to never have to think about any of it again.

“They don’t want you to integrate,” Farsani had told me. “They want you to fail so they can point their fingers at you and say, ‘Look, immigrants do not integrate’.” But we do, because the country, in spite of its broken immigration system, slowly, organically, casually, naturalises you in ways that cannot be validated by a Life in the UK test, citizenship ceremony or exhaustive application dossier. But daily this natural, healthy process is being violated, via administrative incompetence and politically instructed cruelty, to fulfil a soundbite “tens of thousands” target the government cannot meet, and is too proud to jettison.

Reading this was hard on me -- I saw it shared on a friend's Facebook and knew I had to but also I had to work up to it because I knew it'd be hard on me. It was; I teared up a little at a lot of places but especially here at the end of the article because that's exactly how my citizenship ceremony felt: hollow and bestowing on me only the benefit of not having to think about it any more. Even when my UK passport arrived, I just calmly opened the envelope and took it upstairs to file away with the other passports with no thought other than I never have to think about this again.

It was good for me too; it got me working on my book for the first time in way too long. I'm ashamed now of how long it's taken, but I think I am making good progress.

Comments

[liv]

That's a really good article about a completely terrible reality. Thank you for passing it on.

[cosmolinguist]

I was so impressed with it, I'm glad others are finding it so as well.

[po8crg]

I've been following Nesrine Malik because she writes well for a while, but this was exceptional.

[ivy]

Ugh; I am so sorry. When I did it 20 to 10 years ago for my then-partners, US immigration was similarly hostile and terrible; I'm disappointed to hear that it's so similar over there. It is a really alienating experience to be presumed to be a cheat, a liar, and a thief. I was born here and I was mightily offended; my partners had it harder since they were the direct recipients, and all of us were terrified that they might say no. Maddening.

[jesse_the_k]

That's a heart-breaking essay.

Even more heart-breaking is the reality it (and you) document

[barakta]

Glad book is progressing.

Am avoiding hard things today - kinda had too many this week, but thank you for talking about this stuff so I can understand and be aware of it in general.