article 50 Archives - 100 days of solitude

Let it not be lost. (The United Kingdom that we love.)

From Divided Kingdom: How Brexit made me an immigrant

The longest day of the year has been and gone. So has the worst. This is what I declare today, on the 27th of June, midway through the year: enough. Let this be the worst of it. Let the second half of 2016 be an opportunity for figuring our shit out, and healing.

I say healing – not licking our wounds. We are not wounded, even though we are in pain. We are not wounded unless we choose to take these wounds on, to let them break our skin and our spirit. Unless we take on the mentality of the wounded, the injured, the put-upon. And then what? Denial, anger, bargaining, depression? Retaliation? Self pity?

We are in pain, but we are not wounded. We are grieving. Some of us are grieving; some of us are rejoicing, celebrating an outcome that we think is for the best; some of us are confused; some of us riddled with regret. But I say us, did you notice? All of us are us. The Leavers, the Remainers, the in-betweeners, even those who only thought of googling the EU after they’d voted, even the ones who decided, on the day, it wasn’t all that important to turn up, even people like me, who weren’t given the choice at all: they are all us.

It’s not easy to say this. I feel no connection to core of the Leave voters. I feel no connection to those motivated by racism, xenophobia or nationalism. I feel no connection to the ignorant, because ignorance can be cured or, at least, ameliorated (perhaps by doing a google search on the EU before voting to leave it) and it is not – as demonstrated by all of those declaring themselves devastated by the outcome of their actions – any kind of bliss. I feel no connection to those who hold on to a past, a time before, that can never be recreated, who voted for the ghost of Great Britain instead of the living, breathing people that make up this country today.

It’s not easy to say this, because some of these people want me out. To some of them, I’m not the collateral damage of a decision driven by loss of faith in European politics; to some, I am the problem. They didn’t vote for themselves, they voted against me. It’s not easy, in the face of people rejoicing in the fact that they’ve voted me out, to not feel wounded. But I have to try because to give into this is to perpetuate the division that I’m fighting against, in my heart and with these words. To give in is to legitimise it. And that’s when they’ll have truly won.

Trying to take in the world, today, makes me feel a little nauseous. It reminds me of dystopian fiction, a reality that looks vaguely familiar, but not, and makes your stomach turn. The Leavers and the Remainers have already become terminology; they have taken root, they have taken hold. They are used as if they’d always been around, as if we’d always been using them. Already, in the space of a few days, we cannot imagine there was ever a time when that split didn’t exist.
Dystopia: the Divided Kingdom. Where Leaver and Remainer are the only available choices; where there are no more classes, and no more opportunities, only two factions at war. Where you have to wear the government-issue yellow or blue armband at all times, so that you may be instantly recognised as one or the other, and no one has to waste time talking to you to ascertain where you stand. Endless queues at specially-converted clinics, blue or yellow, where they brand your identity – Leaver or Remainer – onto your skin, and secret, back-street places popping up, where you can have the mark burnt off, for those, unthinkably, who want to switch allegiance. And later, branding babies at birth. And later, coding it into your DNA. And somewhere, out of sight yet too much in-your-face to be tolerated, the unmentionables, the identity-less: the EU citizens. Cast adrift, segregated in special ghetto housing, and knocking on unmarked doors for black-market papers, so that they, too, may be branded, and belong.

Does it sound far-fetched? This is what happens when you perpetuate division. When you legitimise it. This is what happens when you split people down moral lines, with rhetoric and fear. You don’t have to go too far back to fetch an example: do you remember a man called Hitler? Do you remember Apartheid? Have we already forgotten that world, just three days ago, when these were things with which we did not agree?

We are all of us grieving. We are grieving for the United Kingdom we once knew, the United Kingdom we still believed in just three days ago. A country built upon imperialism and colonialism and nationalism and racism, but that evolved. That grew to include us, that chipped away at the divisions to make sure all of us were us. That forgave itself for the –isms of the past, and gave itself the opportunity to grow. We are grieving, all of us, for the country that we loved.

But the nationalists and the racists and the colonialists and the ignorant have always been around. This referendum did not create them, it only gave them voice. It allowed them to identify as Leavers, as opposed to Remainers, and it gave them a leg to stand on when, for so many years, they had none. When their legs would have been kicked from under them, just three days ago, the very moment they gave voice to hate. It placed them in the moral majority, alongside people who genuinely did vote for what they hope will be a better world (regardless of whether you or I agree), and they are piggybacking on these people to gain credibility. But, on their way to a better world, outside of Europe or within it, I doubt many of the Leavers want racists riding on their backs. Let them walk alone, and then be counted. Let them see that they don’t count for much.

Because the United Kingdom that we love may not be lost, not irrevocably, not yet. Not unless we give in, not unless we perpetuate division and legitimise hate. Not unless we allow ourselves to be wounded and lash out. Retaliation? No. Self-pity? No. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression? No. We may be grieving, but we are not trapped. We don’t have to follow the same old patterns, blindly, that invariably lead to the same results. We can grow to include them, these others, to accept them for what they are and still be us. It isn’t easy to say this, in the face of so much hatred, rejoicing in a victory that it calls moral, tainting those around it with its brand. Daring to show its face, all of a sudden – but these people have always been around. They may be in our faces, now, but we don’t have to give in, and we don’t have to carry them on our backs. They haven’t won, not yet. We can show them that they will not be tolerated. The world may be changing, but these are still things with which we do not agree. We can neutralise them, not legitimise them, by being us. In the name of the United Kingdom that we love, we can still be us.

This is what I mean by healing. Skin unbroken; spirit intact. Not like it never happened, but like it happened and we learned.

So let the 23rd of June be the worst of it. Let it be the worst day of the year. Let us not be wounded; let our pain help us heal. Let our grief bring us acceptance. Let us figure out our shit, instead of flinging it at each other. Let us learn; let us grow. Let us forgive ourselves and the United Kingdom that we love; let us still believe in that place that included us; let it not be lost.

This is the fourth of five essays written in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum in June 2016. The first four were published as Divided Kingdom: How Brexit made me an immigrant. Click here to download the Kindle version of the book for free on Amazon – or read part one, part two, part three, and part five here.

And before anyone else rushes to point this out: no, I no longer live in the UK. And yes, in a way, Brexit won. It drove me out. I left London, the place that I’d called home for 20 years, and moved to an island in Greece. But not without sadness, not without regret, not without looking back. I look back all the time because, no, I still haven’t given up on the United Kingdom that I love. And yes, in a way, I still identify as a Londoner. And I’m lucky in that I had other options, but I’d still like the option to come back.

Image credit: BBC News From the People’s Vote march in central London, March 23rd 2019

Divided Kingdom (The day after)

From Divided Kingdom: How Brexit made me an immigrant

divided-kindom

Brexit gave me a very romantic moment this morning. The birds chirped and the bees buzzed and the sun shone upon me as I picked up my phone and proposed to M by text message. ‘You might have to marry me’, I said. He’s not a sentimental man, but I’m sure there were tears in his eyes when he read it. This is a joke I’m making, on this day when there is nothing to laugh about. Ha ha.

I’m crying as I write this.

All my life, I’ve stood on the funny side of things and found something to laugh about. And I have laughed today, but bitterly. There is a bitter taste in my mouth. Bile. Hatred. Division. I’ve laughed, because you don’t just break the habit of a lifetime from one day to the next, but things are being broken all over the place. And today, I don’t know where I stand.

It’s not about the breaking up of a union that, despite the best intentions that I’m sure were present, somewhere, at its inception, was arguably ill-conceived in the first place. What’s broken is this human race, that looks around and sees only difference, that looks around and fails to recognise itself in the humanity of others, that sees otherness wherever it looks. Humanity: the great equaliser, but it’s the lowest common denominator that’s at play today, and it is fear. In all of our equations, X equals humanity divided by fear. We’re broken, and our edges are jagged; we don’t remember how we fit together. We don’t remember that we ever did. From one day to the next, we forget.

It’s too soon to write this. I don’t know how I feel. Something has happened and I want to talk about it, but there really isn’t much to say. Something has happened, yet nothing has happened yet everything has changed yet everything looks the same. The birds are chirping and the bees are buzzing and the sun is shining upon us all, and I cannot connect this feeling inside, the cold dread, the fight-or-flight tingle in my limbs, the bile rising up and turning my jokes bitter, to what I see when look around. I see myself as other, as others now see me; I recognise nothing at all.

I’m crying as I write this, but you don’t break the habit of a lifetime from one day to the next, and I’ve made jokes today. Like, I’ll be a new Anne Frank and hide in an attic and write my memoirs, ha ha. But it’s a bitter laugh, and powerless: it doesn’t connect. How could it, when connection is to recognise ourselves in others, and we have failed to even recognise ourselves? When the immigrants of yesterday are the xenophobes of today and they see neither irony nor danger in this, and memory only serves as ammunition, to justify the bitterness and the jagged edges we’re pointing at each other, something is broken. It shouldn’t surprise me, that I feel disconnected, but I was surprised by the news this morning, and I no longer know where I stand.

Divided Kingdom, you are broken, and you have broken my heart. And I know how little this matters. I know it matters almost not at all. But today, to me and to another 3 million residents of a land that’s shifting beneath our feet, of a kingdom divided, it matters. From one day to the next you have turned us into other and, no matter where each of us stands, there is no funny side to this. Just sides and jagged edges and that dreadful, chilling tingle in our limbs.

Fear is the great equaliser. That’s what the X seventeen million people drew onto their ballot papers and divided a nation equals; that’s what they chose. But what we fail to see is that we are all afraid. And if we recognised ourselves in the fear of others, perhaps we’d remember how little there is to be afraid of, after all. Perhaps we’d remember that we all fit together, and that division has never conquered anything for long. Perhaps we’d see that there has only ever been one side, and it’s the one where we can laugh at ourselves. And not allow the bile to turn us bitter. Despite the Xs that divide us, we still have that choice.

This is the second of five essays written in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum in June 2016. The first four were published as Divided Kingdom: How Brexit made me an immigrant. Click here to download the Kindle version of the book for free on Amazon – or read part one, part three, part four, and part five here.

If I’m allowed to stay (Divided Kingdom)

From Divided Kingdom: How Brexit made me an immigrant

uk border

I am not an immigrant tonight. Tonight, I am a resident of the United Kingdom. But tomorrow: what?

I moved from Athens to London in 1996, at age 18. This September, if I’m allowed to stay, I’ll celebrate twenty years in the UK.

If I’m allowed to stay. Can you imagine? Twenty years: that’s more than half my lifetime. That’s my entire experience as an adult; that’s pretty much everything I know about the world, everything I’ve learned about how to conduct myself in it, everything I’ve become. When I come to Greece, I don’t quite know how to make myself fit in. I am awkward, I am strange, I am, somehow, a little displaced. I don’t know how to ask for the things I need; I use English words where the Greek ones elude me. I apologise too much, and hold doors open for people who storm through them, casting me hurried looks of confusion or contempt. I have trouble crossing roads because the cars keep coming at me from the wrong side, and they don’t seem to obey the rules of traffic that I’m used to. I don’t belong here. My passport may be Greek, but I’ve been marked for Britain. I am a Londoner. I’ve never been an immigrant, so far.

To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never stolen anyone’s job. I’ve never accepted lower than average wages, making it impossible for the British jobseekers to compete with my rock-bottom immigrant standards. I came from a country that considered itself prosperous; I came to go to university, not to survive. I didn’t come for better; I came for good. If anything, my standards were unrealistically high.
In the early days, in the late nineties when barwork was still cool, my colleagues behind the bar were all British, every single one of them, and we all interviewed for our positions. We were all on minimum wage and we all spent most of our earnings on beer and dancing and late-night kebabs.
And later, when the EU opened its doors to many more nations, the ratio of foreign to native workers in the hospitality world settled at around 50/50, perhaps even tipping to 60/40 in favour of the foreigners, but it wasn’t because the latter were being chosen over their British counterparts. It was because the British weren’t applying. I know, because I was the one going through the CVs. Having gone off and done other jobs and got myself a Masters in Creative Writing, I wandered back into barwork in the mid- to late-noughties. My own generation had long moved on by now, and the kids, it seems, were no longer interested in serving drinks. I don’t know where they went or what they were doing, but they certainly weren’t queuing up for jobs in pubs and being rejected in favour of cheap Polish (and Greek) labour. Perhaps they were signing on: they were, after all, entitled to benefits; we were not. Because – in case you wondered – no: you don’t just stroll past the borders and sign on, and then sit back and drink cider out of a plastic bottle and have lots of foreign babies to drain the country’s resources. They don’t let you do that. Funnily enough. You have to earn it.

In twenty years, I’ve never signed on. In twenty years, I’ve never applied for or received any benefits. In the twenty years that I’ve been making National Insurance contributions, both through PAYE and voluntarily, through self-employment, I have probably received statutory sick pay twice. In twenty years, I’ve visited NHS hospitals three times, and my GP perhaps ten, mostly to renew my prescription for the contraceptive pill (not a single foreign baby in sight). I’ve had one filling part-subsidised by the NHS. I’ve paid several thousand pounds in taxes. I’ve paid several thousand pounds more in rent to British taxpayers.

I think, on balance, I’ve probably put more into this country, financially, than I’ve taken out. I think, on balance, I haven’t drained this country’s resources all that much. I have earned my benefits, but I have never abused them. And I’ve chosen this country, I’ve adopted it as my own and Britain, in turn, has never treated me like an immigrant. So far. This Great Britain, made up of immigrants and thriving on the multitude of cultures that it’s embraced. Gradually, yes, and with difficulty at first, but bravely and wholeheartedly, for the most part, with the openness that makes this Britain great.

And yet, tomorrow: what? Will I become in immigrant, at last, in this country that made me who I am? Will Britain make me an immigrant, at last, twenty years on?

I think I’d like to celebrate my twenty-year anniversary in the pub. I don’t go to pubs that often anymore, but it seems appropriate. I’ll drink a pint of lager with my friends and later, perhaps, we’ll go dancing. We might even have a kebab on the way home, but a nice one, and we’ll sit down to eat it, with cutlery. Our standards are still quite high.

I think I’d like to do that, if I’m allowed to stay.

This is the first of five essays written in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum in June 2016. The first four were published as Divided Kingdom: How Brexit made me an immigrant. Click here to download the Kindle version of the book for free on Amazon – or read part two, part three, part four, and part five here.