BORDER ISSUES
Nearly everywhere I go in the world, I need a visa. Filling out countless papers is part of my life as a Russian citizen travelling abroad. Then, when I finally get the visa, I have to face the humiliating process of separate border controls at EU airports. While my EU friends simply show their passports and enter any EU country they wish, I have to answer intrusive, tiresome and often ridiculous questions from the border police. Each time I feel suspicious, soulless eyes gradually stripping me of my self-confidence.
Of course, I want to live in a safe world. But at the same time, I don’t want to be automatically treated like a potential criminal every time I go on holiday. I don’t want to face segregation because my passport does not have the proper color and the proper insignia. I cannot help but associate the notices at EU airports – “Non-EU” and “EU only” – with the notices “Arians only” and “Jews not welcome” in the Nazi Germany of the 1930s. After all, didn’t the Holocaust start with this kind of labeling?
The EU is a great thing. Living in it, I have witnessed how much it has helped the reconciliation of nations and how it enabled the many sided cooperation of its citizens on different levels of everyday life. Here, I have been inspired to cherish the ideals and values of human rights, democracy, tolerance, equality, multiculturalism. But, above all, I have learnt that people are people everywhere. Once you let this simple truth flow through your veins, you will understand why I perceive it as a slap in the face every time I have to leave my Czech and German friends at an airport border control and stand under the “Non-EU” sign, answering arrogant questions. It only lasts minutes, but during those minutes, I am forced to question the sincerity of the ideals I have been taught again and again in the European Union educational institutions.
Another slap in the face comes when the border officials tell me that, only because of my citizenship, I am allowed to stay in their country for only a certain period of time. Nobody gave us the right to prevent each other from travelling freely or living anywhere on Earth by creating artificial borders and discriminating on the grounds of citizenship.
I assure you: until we create a World Union with the same rights and duties for everyone and no segregation whatsoever, we are living in the past.
Last time after I had passed the UK border control and was sitting in the bus from the airport – the two repulsive notices still clear in my memory, the never-ending questions still ringing in my ears – I noticed a five- or six-year-old British girl sitting opposite me. She looked at me and, although I was a complete stranger to her, gave me a bright and friendly smile. At that moment, I forgot the notices. At that moment, I saw what the future must be like.
Of course, I want to live in a safe world. But at the same time, I don’t want to be automatically treated like a potential criminal every time I go on holiday. I don’t want to face segregation because my passport does not have the proper color and the proper insignia. I cannot help but associate the notices at EU airports – “Non-EU” and “EU only” – with the notices “Arians only” and “Jews not welcome” in the Nazi Germany of the 1930s. After all, didn’t the Holocaust start with this kind of labeling?
The EU is a great thing. Living in it, I have witnessed how much it has helped the reconciliation of nations and how it enabled the many sided cooperation of its citizens on different levels of everyday life. Here, I have been inspired to cherish the ideals and values of human rights, democracy, tolerance, equality, multiculturalism. But, above all, I have learnt that people are people everywhere. Once you let this simple truth flow through your veins, you will understand why I perceive it as a slap in the face every time I have to leave my Czech and German friends at an airport border control and stand under the “Non-EU” sign, answering arrogant questions. It only lasts minutes, but during those minutes, I am forced to question the sincerity of the ideals I have been taught again and again in the European Union educational institutions.
Another slap in the face comes when the border officials tell me that, only because of my citizenship, I am allowed to stay in their country for only a certain period of time. Nobody gave us the right to prevent each other from travelling freely or living anywhere on Earth by creating artificial borders and discriminating on the grounds of citizenship.
I assure you: until we create a World Union with the same rights and duties for everyone and no segregation whatsoever, we are living in the past.
Last time after I had passed the UK border control and was sitting in the bus from the airport – the two repulsive notices still clear in my memory, the never-ending questions still ringing in my ears – I noticed a five- or six-year-old British girl sitting opposite me. She looked at me and, although I was a complete stranger to her, gave me a bright and friendly smile. At that moment, I forgot the notices. At that moment, I saw what the future must be like.
