Pains of a Migrant

For the last months, in Vienna, my baby in my stomach, i wait for my visa. Inside me there is an anxious fear of the new identity of a migrant that i gained, the fear is the source of this new identity.

When they ask me for a new document,each meaningless buracratic difficulty they cause, I feel more suffocated, one night i walk for hours and when I can not see the sea as I am used to, I feel breathless.

In my dreams I see myself crippled, the streets of Vienna which smell money and art, it must be because of the sensitivity that I gained from the pregnancy, I feel as if I am in an 'open air prison. '

The right wing party which is famous for the hatred of turks get many votes this year, in an shopping center I see migrant children with the balloons of the right wing party , the leader wears a 'Che Guevara' tshirt, a coctail in the hand, poses in the night clubs.

A Bosnian woman whose children and husband is deported commits suicide. They lock her in mental hospital thinking that she is mentally sick.

I see writings on the walls saying 'Auslander Raus. ' ( Migrants Out.) They make me angry.

The right wing party creates a comic called 'the Legends of Vienna' and a game in which you crush the mosques . They teach rascism in this way.

The society of spectacle dirties the minds of children in this way.

A young refugee who is sexually harassed in Vienna kills herself.

And the book of Thilo Sarrazin which is based on assumptions of the Germany's decreased mental rate because of migrants , sells a lot.

I remember the Roma Children of Maticni Street for whom I have worked for in my youth, I remember the wall they built to seperate them , they were discriminated from the society and the education claiming that they were mentally crippled. But I have seen their bright eyes.

I want to ask a question; Who is mentally crippled , the ones who make walls or the ones who destroy walls ?

And what is integration...

The migration means to move and according to 13th subject of the Human Rights report,

you can not prevent anybody from moving, everybody has a right to enter and leave a country.

Of course, in this world we live, the human rights is only a fairy tale.

Migrants, 'illegal' refugees, 'legal' economical migrants, cheap laborers, students...

According to searches, the reason people migrate is firstly economical, then bad living standards, health system, catastrophes, death threats, political and religious slavery... Discrimination, homelessness. .. And today with the changing gender roles, they are speaking about the feminization of migration, the young woman migrate freely and unfortunately they mostly become victims of sex trafficking...

One of the most meaningful book written about the subject is Abdelmalek Sayad's 'The pains of a Migrant. '

Sayad is the asistant of Pierre Bourdieu, the prologe of the book is from Bourdieu's pen.

As Platon speaks about Sokrat, a migrant is an Atopos, says Bourdieu, he has no place and no classification. He has no existence, and that creates a shame. He is not a citizien or a foreigner, he is not the Other, he is in the bastard place of existence, in the borders of social existence and non- existence.

A migrant who is always in the wrong place makes us question the basics of citizienship, and the relation of government and citizien.

As Thomas Bernard says, question our thoughts under government control , which prevetns us to understand the humanity's situation and prevents us to respect humanity.

2010