The privilege of being able to return home

It means knowing every time we leave that the passport we’re holding is a political object that represents rights and privileges together, that a return ticket isn’t just a piece of our logistical organization, but – as we were saying before – what’s missing for migrant people in how they manage their idea of time, that is, the promise that a decision we’re making is reversible, that we can change our mind, that we can go back, that we can break a continuity, that we can leave a place we don’t like. We never stop to think, precisely because we can do it, that every time we cross a distance we can do it in both directions. It’s a bit like that David Foster Wallace story, you remember the fish and the water and they ask the fish what water is and we don’t know what it is, the fish don’t know what water is because they live inside it and we don’t know what it is not to be able to go back because for us a trip whether it’s a work trip a trip to go to war a trip a vacation a trip to go see…