A good friend of mine got citizenship today. I’m having lots of feelings: relief, deep joy,  hopefulness…

Those are all good things and yet I’m crying as I type this.

I’m crying because it was so brief, and so banal. A plastic flag, a pledge, a photo with the mayor. For those for whom its a legal formality, that’s probably enough but for those for whom it’s a lifeline I wonder…

If I were colouring you a picture the pencils would have names like FEAR (that my visa will be cancelled and I would have to make a choice between leaving my son behind or denying him the opportunity of life in Australia). DESPERATION (the visa is temporary, and constantly needs to be renewed, life feels like a cycle of filling out forms, keeping appointments, meeting my lawyer. There is barely time to recover before the hamster wheel turns). TRAUMA (I need to go to the ASRC for food but I have a Centrelink appointment. If I miss the appointment, they’ll cancel the payment. If I wait at Centrelink for 3 hours, I  will miss out on food… I’m allowed to work now, but not too much. It needs to be 15 hours so that Centrelink don’t nag about Jobseeker. But 15 hours tips me over the income threshold. Three-quarters of the money I earn gets deducted by Centrelink. I can’t get ahead.)

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs talks about the things we need for survival: shelter, food, sleep, clothing. The level above those basics is: personal security, employment, resources, health…

Our societal system for “supporting” refugees and asylum seekers makes a full time job and mental load of balancing on a knife’s edge for survival for a long time… for a long, long time.

There were 37 new citizens today. From 20 different countries. I wanted there to be a party. I wanted to hear different languages, dances and songs. I wanted to hear cries of “sher-hoooooo!” to ring in the rafters, and ululations of joy so loud they make my ears hurt. I wanted an elder to cleanse us in smoke, to wash away the tears, grief and anxiety of waiting, to herald in and bless this new season on Country.

So many are still waiting.

They wait in Nauru, PNG, in community detention, they wait in Footscray.

This is the pledge:

From this time forward, under God,
I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people,
whose democratic beliefs I share,
whose rights and liberties I respect, and
whose laws I will uphold and obey.

The kingdom is here, and not yet.

We have work to do, and we just got some new recruits.