Immigration is a big topic on the world stage today. Western countries are negotiating the repatriation of foreign nationals with African countries and are defining their relationship on this basis. African countries that refuse to accept their nationals being deported from the west are subject to visa restrictions and hostile relations with the west.

This all comes back to westerners feeling that their countries have been overrun with immigrants and their economies have been overwhelmed because of it. Anti-immigration is at the center of western identity politics, and as a child of immigrants in the west, I understand it. And it’s not a new phenomenon. Although westerners have always been taught to keep racial and culturally hostile views to themselves, I have come across it and felt it simmering beneath the surface throughout my life. But now that its reached a threshold, it’s time to confront the very concept of immigration and the reasons behind it.

My mind wanders back to kindergarten and early grade school. At times feeling singled out for my different looking appearance and foreign sounding name. I always drifted towards becoming friends with other foreigners like me. And that continued into my older years. I got a certain vibe around white people in my early years, and just kept myself at a distance from them after that. At this point in my life, I just accepted it as a fact of life that I don’t mesh with their culture, instead entrenching myself within the minority subcultures. I made many Chinese, Indian, African and middle eastern friends. But virtually no whites. And those who opened up to me, I didn’t really give a chance. I just assumed we were too different. But that’s not true.

But I want to focus on how this came to be. My family originates in eastern Ethiopia. The Muslim and Oromo speaking part of the country. We never traditionally identified with the Ethiopian state. It had conquered us in the late 19th century and marginalized us for much of the 20th. Which is at the root of why my parents didn’t love it enough to stay and have a family there. They met as immigrants in neighbouring Djibouti and married in Saudi Arabia. Had my older sister in Italy and had me and my 2 younger siblings in Canada. All my family members have spent either all of our lives or most of their lives in Canada. It is home for all intents and purposes. But we’re not old-stock Canadians. We still spend a lot of time discussing and debating the old country. A place that is essentially foreign to us and where we have no legal status. But it’s in our hearts.

“If you love it so much then why don’t you live there?”

I ask myself this question. Besides not having any legal status there, it’s also a country with a lot of political and economic turmoil. People have always been leaving there to immigrate to the country I was born in. Wouldn’t I be moving backwards? But I cant help the feeling of knowing something those immigrants (including my parents) don’t know. Being born and raised here I grew to feel that we don’t truly belong in a western, majority white country. I should state that I have no animosity or ill feelings towards white Canadians, or people of European descent at all. I grew up in their culture and learned a lot of my values and mannerisms from this culture. I’m a product of it. I have great respect and admiration for them. As I should. But we’re not the same. I learned that early on, and I believe that my intuition is valid.

So why is the place that my family originates so unlivable. It’s one of the best places on earth for human beings to inhabit as far as the land itself is concerned. The land is ripe for agriculture, the weather is the complete opposite of the hostile weather that I’m used to. So it’s not an issue of the land. Therefore it has to be an issue with the people. One of the theories floating around is that the people are less intelligent. But that’s not my experience in dealing with Ethiopians and Africans. It’s a place that produces great intellectuals and bright minds.

What I find is that those bright minds and intellect are not fostered to improve the condition of the country for the greater good. The minds are often focused on some form of ethnic or identity dispute. We’re a very prideful people. So we’re not like the Irish and Scottish, who can put aside their conflict with the English to build something better. And the English who can be happy with having England, instead of expanding it into Wales. We spend our time teaching our children that we’re Irish, and we must fight the English to restore what was taken from us. In the meantime, because this mentality breeds hostility, hostility breeds conflict, and conflict breeds poverty, we’ve developed certain bad survival traits. Ethiopia today is a corrupt country where there isn’t a lot of care for the country. Neither the government nor the citizens care to keep the streets clean (outside of the capital). Different ethnicities often despise each other and view one another as encroaching on their territory and identity. The basic things that would make one proud to live in that country are not viewed as essential.

If this is a result of lacking intelligence, then I guess there is a low IQ issue. But I feel like it’s social programming. The thing about about social programming is it affects everyone across the board. From the leader of the country to the small scale farmer, or guy at the sewing shop. We were raised with this dream that if only the government was changed then we’d be out of this mess. But I fear it’s deeper than that. I may not even be a part of the solution due to my own programming. I too sometimes feel hostility towards other ethnicities in the country. I was raised with the 100% pure mindset. That I’m not anything like the Irish/English/German/French mixed ancestry whites in Canada. But my 23andme ancestry test revealed that I’m not 100% Oromo or Ethiopian; And that I also have over 30% Somali, with trace amounts of Sudanese. But I argue with Somalis on social media about territorial and other ethnic topics. As if a large part of my 23andme relatives aren’t Somali.

I guess its a reminder to myself that I need to be a part of the solution, in order to see a solution.