Home. What is a migrant? …they say that ‘home is where the heart is’. What does this mean if you are a migrant? Does this mean, because a migrant has no home, that a migrant has no heart? Heartless? No courage, no soul. Or does it mean perhaps, that a migrant has left his soul …his heart, his courage elsewhere so cannot give it or of it anywhere else? A migrant & his home.

I remember how excited we all were with the Australian Republican Movement. Oh so many years ago. A century. The hope, the pride we all had then. Self-determination! Yeah! Us, Aussies. Yeah! A different world – we could have done with a neo-liberal plebifarce back then – it couldnt of happened back then, a plebifarce i mean, we had democracy. Oh what hope. What pride. And then, first the sadness at the ‘rip-off’… Even with the mix of relief that we wouldnt have to swear allegiance to the ‘Union Jack’, then the anger, then sheer despair.

I wonder what a migrant feels like? I suppose they just wander about all over the place aimlessly… Here a day there a day anywhere a day day. Like a squash ball. Bounce bounce bounce bounce. I suppose that someone or something needs to be hitting them, that is, to keep them moving, migrating. If it stops does it cease being a migrant? It’s certainly stopped immigrating. Is a migrant the same as an immigrant? Would we need the two different words if they were the same thing?? I think that a ‘migrant’ bounces around within a thing and an ‘immigrant’ come from the outside..

“How can you keep on moving unless you migrate too, They tell you to keep on moving but migrate you must not do.”

Or maybe, an immigrant is a worthwhile thing and a migrant not – like a migraine. Pestilence. A pest. I wonder if ‘to migrate’ is fundamental to a thing – does it migrate because it must? Does it migrate because it has too? What happens if you put this thing with the essence of ‘migrate’ in it in a place where it cant migrate …does it die? ….”how can ya keep on movin’ …”

“Well, youre not allowed to be out here!”
What do you mean “not allowed”?
“Well this is Australia and YOURE not allowed to be out here.”
But im a migrant, im migrating.
“Ha ha ha – you cant migrate in Australia – its a free country. A Demockracy. We cant just have people wandering about all over the place now can we? Then it wouldn’t be a free country!”
Im sorry darlin’ says I, im confused. I have MIGRANT stamped all over my identity papers.

The teenager stopped shuffling her family photos, put her nail-repair down & with neo-liberal pity said, “Oh you poor old man you, we have to grow food out there – dont you understand? Food for Australians. We cant have lots of old sick migrants out there spoiling it all for us ..can we – thats why weve stamped MIGRANT all over you. So you know this food is for Australians not migrants. He he he.”
So i can get nothing to eat here?
“Nothing here. Its a free country. Why dont you go home?”

Ah, Home – its where the heart is.

“Oh you cant have a heart,” she whispered leaning forward in her high-chair, ” Hearts are for Australians…”
But I AM an Australian!
“No! You have MIGRANT stamped on your identity papers and if you DO have a heart then we will have to have it removed.”