Nobody Home Nobody Home
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“The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move” by Sonia Shah, Bloomsbury, London, 2020
Opinions

Nobody Home

There’s Nothing Wrong with Migration
Paulina Wilk
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How did we start associating the word ‘migration’ with danger and problems? After all, the history of animals and plants are all a tale of one great journey. Life on our planet is in constant movement along many surprising paths. And yet for centuries, scientists and politicians have been painting a dark vision of the perils of being in movement. Sonia Shah claims that it’s time to change our tune.

Information services all over the globe are teeming with migration news: overpopulated refugee camps in the south of Europe and by the borders of Bangladesh; more and more pontoons and haphazardly made boats taking off from the shores of Libya or sent away from Australia; growing numbers of people moving from villages to larger towns and cities every day; families walking the desert to try and cross the border from Mexico to the US. Recently, the attention of the world has

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Out of America Out of America
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“Homeland Elegies” by Ayad Akhtar, Little, Brown and Company, New York 2020
Opinions

Out of America

A Tale from the Second Generation
Paulina Wilk

The United States is a bitter land. Born as a colony, deep down it remains one to this day. Its top priority – accumulation of wealth – was encased in the ideals of equality that were to remain of secondary importance forever. To strip America of its false promises, to expose its ruthlessness and only then, having done it all, declare his love for it – this is a feat that America’s unwanted son managed to accomplish.

To his homeland, Ayad Akhtar is a troublesome child. He does not fit. He doesn’t match the stereotypes that arrange the world into various xenophobic categories, but he doesn’t fall into the slot reserved for those basking in the American Dream Fulfilled, either.

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