Headline April 24, 2017/ ''' *WORLD'S BORDER WHAMPIRE * '''

''' *WORLD'S BORDER WHAMPIRE * '''

WHAT YA MEAN?  BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY?  

That there's more than one way to  *skin a cat*.  How da ya know? And who started all that, by the way?

Now, Merium, Rabo, Zilli, Shahzaib, Faraz Majeed, Eman, Ali Hassan, Zara Sohail, Danyial, Zaeem, Hazeem,  Ambassador Malala, Vishnu/India, Majeed/Malaysia,  Toby/China, Paras, Jordan, Bilal-

*Now why do you all wish to know, where am I, as a Muslim, Welcome?*  

Well, with all my respect for every country in the world,  I for one, will not leave my beloved  *Proud Pakistan*   for all the riches and honors of the world.

As the wave of populist fury jolts established democracies in the West, questions keep getting asked about the fate of Muslim immigrants living in the  United States  and  Europe.

Will a  Western leader  like  President Donald Trump who at least twice attempted to ban  'visitors'  from certain Muslim countries from entering the US, deport Muslims involved in terrorism or serious crimes on the back of strong  anti-Muslim propaganda carried out by the alt-right media?

What if such  Muslims   were born in the country or were long-time naturalised citizens? Whats the law on that,? is it legally possible to deport them?

The  Conservative government in the  UK, appears to lead the way with an implementation of a controversial  plan to strip Muslims of their British nationalities, citing national security and serious crimes. 

THE BITTER TRUTH FOR THE WORLD TO CONSIDER IS : that it's the idea of  *The Migrant*  that all people seem to  hate and fear  is much much   more than the  reality  of it.

''I don't understand how much the UK had changed until the day the anti-Brexit MP Jo Cox was shot dead. 'Stronger together*  had been her passionate plea for a UK that embraces migrants-

 Against that was the  *Britain First*  cry of the man who killed her. The day she died, rather than the day Brexit was voted in, that master researcher Kamila Shamsie, realised - 

*How dark the world around her had become*.

One London night, a few weeks after Brexit, something happened as I was walking to a bus stop that had never happened in the  9 years since I had moved to the U.K :

A man  [white, young, Londoner by his accent]  shouted abuse at me and followed up with  'Go back where you came from'. 

He seemed more ridiculous than threatening but even so I wasn't about to get into any kind of exchange with him- So I didn't ask the question I wanted to ask : 'And where do you think that is?''

In London, I'm almost never recognized as Pakistani, Spain or Italy or Greece are the countries I'm more often asked if I'm from. And so i couldn't help wondering , as I walked away from the man-

Whether the racism that I'd just had hurled at me was the old fashioned 'Paki-bashing'  that so long has been a part of UK life or if it were a more recent form of  anti-European sentiment   -that didn't confine itself only to Eastern Europeans as it used to.

More likely, I decided it was both.The man didn't know where exactly my origins lay, or even if had ever lived anywhere other than the U.K  -but he knew I wasn't an Anglo-Saxon. And that was enough to make me an unwanted outsider. Welcome to Brexit Britain.

Brexit Britain, isn't, of course, an island unto itself. Rising anti-migrant feeling is part of Trump's America and the many nations of Europe, such as France, Austria and the Netherlands, where far right parties have recently seen a surge in popularity.      

   

There are many reasons for this  wide-spread lurch towards xenophobic nationalism-  Pankaj Mishra's new book  The Age of Anger is a particular fascinating analysis of how  modernity/neo-liberalism has failed a large percentage of the people who expected to have their lives improved by it-

But despite all the common factors, the malaise plays out differently in every nation. And living in Britain the last decade has meant watching the disease advance, bit by bit, and both seeing and not seeing where it could lead us.   

I can't say that I knew the  Brexit vote  would win   -but, in the weeks leading up to referendum I thought the chances were 50/50. There's nothing like being a recent migrant to be attuned to shifting attitudes towards migrants in your new nation..

When I entered the UK in 2007 it was on a  'writers-artists-composers'  visa -one of the many  visa routes  that could lead towards  settlement and citizenship.

Within a year of my arrival a new  'points-based'  visa system was introduced by the Labour Government   -ostensibly to streamline the work of the Home Office.

But far from the  start it seemed  a way to make far fewer  non-EU citizens eligible for settlement, and to allow the government a mechanism to make the rules even more stringent with relative ease.

I was only able to stay on  when my visa expired  because that particular year I had earned enough money from my writing to switch into another visa category.

And within a couple of years the category I had  switched  to   became impossible for someone with my  income level  to qualify for, and then it was erased entirely...............

The Honor and Serving of the latest ''Operational Research'' on the real State of the World continues. Thank Ya all for reading and sharing forward.

With most respectful dedication to All the Migrants of the world, All the Muslim Migrants the world over. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and  Twitter-!E-WOW!   -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Migrants-!WOW! '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless