Feeling at home in your new country
when my dad visited his relatives and
they told him
that he should feel at home he used to
say
no i don’t want to feel at home i want
to be treated as a guest
i could understand why he joked like
that because
being a guest means that you are served
by the host
and that you don’t have any other
obligations
then to behave yourself more or less
normally
do not make any scandals to not break
anything or to not
burn the house down being a guest for a
while
is pleasant especially if your host
makes you feel welcome and comfortable
but how is it to be a guest in a foreign
country
not as a tourist but as an immigrant
and when do you stop being a guest
what does it take to make you feel at
home one day
with all the rights and obligations
that entails when i was a kid
i saw refugees from africa on tv
how they received food from the red
cross
i felt pity for them and i felt
fortunate
to not be in their situation
but suddenly my life changed
i myself became a refugee in norway
i was 18 years old and i remember
how i was standing in a line to get food
from the red cross
together with refugees from africa and
other conflict areas of the world
how did this happen well
i grew up in kosovo in the former
gustavia
a country torn apart by wars
in 1990s a war that made me a refugee
standing in a line in norway to get food
and staring at the iconic flag of the
red cross
made me feel small and miserable
left the queue and found myself a hiding
place
where i could cry
but i decided to accept my faith and
made the best of it
it can feel humiliating to get food from
humanitarian organizations
but in the same time you must be
grateful for all the help you get
all of us can come into situations where
we need
help from others i also comforted myself
that this situation was temporary that i
was a guest in norway
who was to return home again as soon as
the war was over
but i ended up living permanently in
norway
and i do not feel as a guest anymore
norway is my home now
in all cultures and religions there are
traditions of hospitality
in india and nepal it is said that
the guest is god they have stories
about how god transformed himself into a
guest
and then rewarded his host
for the hospitality
so the guest is a test from god
in the culture i come from a guest is
holy
ethnic albanians have something they
call bessa
which is a kind of loyalty guarantee and
which means that you have to protect
your guests
strangers who are in danger and knock on
your door or to be
welcomed in and taken care of
this tradition was used when the jews
sold
refuge at muslim and christian families
during the world war ii
despite cultural differences i think
we can distinguish between two types of
guests
guests you appreciate and guests you
tolerate
imagine having a party at home some
guests
you would very much like to have there
others
you invite just because you have to and
some may even show up
without being invited it is similar
with immigration policies around the
world
in most countries there is a system
of distinction between desirable
and less desirable forms of immigrations
governments actively facilitate the
arrival of
skilled migrant workers and experts that
they need
they can feel welcome from day one
asylum immigrants on the other hand may
not feel
welcome in the same way how was it for
me
actually i felt quite welcome in norway
because most people had sympathy with
war refugees from the balkans
but for a very long time i felt as a
guest
and a stranger in my new country
and there are three main reasons for
that
firstly i had a temporary stay in mind
as guests usually have
secondly i felt i had to be grateful and
polite
and not behave as if i were at home
in kosovo i would complain about
something without blinking
but here i thought what will norwegians
say
maybe they will say oh here comes a
foreigner
who complains and tells us how to do
things in our own country
instead of being thankful that we let
him be here
thirdly i was constantly reminded
of my role as a guest by both those
who welcomed me showed curiosity
by asking me where do i come from how it
is in my home country and how i like
norway
and those who told me to go back home
when you think you have forgotten this
guest host
thing such remarks pulls you back
and makes you really feel alienated
again
shifting from being a guest to feeling
at home
is the journey in itself
had i only focused on negative comments
i have received
it will be very hard for me to feel at
home
but in this journey in feeling more and
more at home
two factors have been crucial one is my
social mobility other is positive
signals i have received
from my fellow norwegians
i felt more accepted as i took higher
education
and became part of the middle class this
kind of class journey
makes you safer not only financially but
also
socially and identity wise you simply
feel more confident in yourself
go home comments makes less of an
impression
when you have a secure job and a
position in society
with norwegian friends and a network
around you but how is it
for those who are socially marginalized
they can feel more alienated in the
terms of identity
there are even people who are born here
of immigrant parents
and still don’t feel at home in norway
passport and the citizenship
is not enough to give you a sense of
belonging
we are talking about feelings here
it is in the host’s best interest
to make new members of the society feel
welcome
for me a welcoming society is not a
society that opens
borders for unlimited immigration but a
society that is good
on including the migrants they have
accepted
as a guest or as an immigrant you will
get
mixed signals from the whole society
globalists have a more flexible approach
to the term home and are thus in
principle
more hospitable the idea here is that
people
should be able to move freely in search
for a better life
this is what we humans always have done
throughout our history
we have moved from one place to another
and thus
changed the world and ourselves for the
nationalists
on the other hand the nation state is
the home
the idea here is that everyone should be
the master in their own house and treat
other nations with respect
without nation states no
freedom or security or any welfare state
that’s why borders and control are
necessary for nationalists the global
village
is a kind of utopia
both positions have good points
but the problem with nationalism is when
you consider the nation state
to belong only to people who share same
culture
and ethnic background when you consider
minorities
or immigrant groups as uninvited guests
or even wars as intruders
as a threat so the question is
how do you come to terms with all this
how welcoming the society is when you
arrive is beyond your control
but you should not base your perception
of the host population
solely on what examines say about
immigrants
if you do so it will be harder for you
to feel
at home i’m not saying that you should
ignore racism and discrimination
but just remember especially
when times get rough that most people
are kind
the transition from being a guest to
feeling at home
is not something that happens overnight
it is a natural
adaptation process so my advice
to migrants who have settled in the new
country is
try to feel at home and try to take
responsibility
for yourself and for your new community
in our time identity issues
get greater attention than social
inequality
but neither of them are static
i started in norway as a poor refugee
who received food
from the red cross but now i belong to
the middle class
i started as a guest and a stranger
but now norway is my home i wish my
father was still around
so he could see how i made my journey
and how much value it is on
becoming a new member of the household
we who live together in nation state
have different backgrounds
we cannot and should not just delete
them
we do not necessarily have same past but
we have a common future
a common destiny that’s what defines
a society we are in the same boat rather
we live in the same house