STEVEN BOYKEY SIDLEY: The sudden, surprising lurch towards fascism
'The videos and audio of terrified and crying toddlers at US Southern borders require little exposition to amplify their horror'
I have never been an immigrant. Not really, Yes, there was a time when I moved away from this country, South Africa, to another, where I stayed for 17 years. But the country to which I moved was mainly white and English-speaking and secular (at least in the city where I lived), as was I. And my Jewish ancestry melded well in that place, which was founded on a plinth of religious freedoms. So my outsider status was muted by familiarity. An immigrant, perhaps, but not a particularly foreign one, not a poor one, and certainly not a refugee. Some time ago, I met an Uber driver in Cape Town, an immigrant and refugee from another African country, riven by war. He wanted nothing for himself, his young wife. They had no friends, lived in a shack. He told me about his dream. He dreamed that one day his baby son would have a passport. Every 16-hour working day of his life was dedicated to it. A place for his son to call home. A dream for him, a right for the rest of us.
Immigrants have ...
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