This global isolationism is ruining lives
In all the misconceptions about the expatriate life, 2 of them are coming regularly: “we’re all entitled rich assholes earning shit loads of money on the back of another economy”, and “when things are not going well, we can just go home, easy”.
I won’t spend time remotely trying to debunk the first one, it would take pages to hardly convince anyone and distract us from the real point here: for a lot of us, going “home” is hardly an option, maybe even more in this COVID context.
Our life is elsewhere
We’ve lived abroad for years and with that comes friends, girlfriends and boyfriends. In many cases going home means leaving them behind because they also have a life and a job here, or they would simply not get a visa or a job where we come from.
Our jobs are elsewhere
Many of us leave because the job we’re looking for does not exists where we live. There is virtually no director of marketing in hotels in Belgium, I just could not do what I do in my home country. So, for a lot of us, finding a good job opportunity in our dream job implies living abroad.
Coming back “home” is not easy
Being abroad for years, you don’t belong anymore in your country of origin. Your social circle has moved on to other things, you gradually lost interest in the politics, the sport scene etc. because it was well, far away. Case of depression and inability to readapt when going “back home” have been well documented over the years, it is a trauma called “Reverse culture shock”. The longer time you’ve been away increases the impact, as does the reason of the return: an involuntary return will make it much harder.
The COVID impact
The pandemic had a double-whammy impact on expatriates. We lost our job, and that in itself is a pretty serious problem because it means losing your revenue stream, insurances, and home for people like me where accommodation is provided, and most of all our visas! No job, no visa and therefore the need to get a new one if we want to stay.
And that’s the double effect of the COVID, all around the world countries have been closing their borders to stop the spreading of the virus. I don’t mean to be negative, but I have news (or not): it didn’t work. Except for a very limited number of countries, the virus is now everywhere and keeping borders closed is, in my opinion, just a simple way to make it seem like you protect your country for politics who have little idea what else to do. It could have worked in January, and that is not even sure. The vast majority of the contaminations happen now in the community and we know how to slow it down: wear your mask, wash your hands, and make testing easily available.
At this moment with all the borders closed, we’re tearing apart families and couples all over the world as they can’t renew or get a new visa, can’t get back to their loved ones because the country they came back to does not allow them to go out anymore. One of the reasons I was by any means trying not to go back to Belgium is because it would have been complicated for me to come back to Indonesia, I would have had to prove it was an essential travel. Since when are we letting our government decide if we can leave the country or not?
We’re also preventing people to find new jobs, especially in hospitality where millions of jobs have been lost, as all over the world countries are putting restrictions in place to hire only nationals, which again is a good way to help your people but only as a consequence of them being harmed from another side, it’s a vicious circle.
I am fortunate, I have a new visa, I can stay in this beautiful country I’ve called home for 2 years with my girlfriend. I have an insurance, a bit of money aside and the help of the said girlfriend allowing to wait for the right professional opportunity, or build it ourselves. I am not alone in this boat.
We have to learn to live with the virus, it’s not going away soon, and we have to open the borders all around the world. Get people tested before they travel, when they arrive, put them in quarantine if necessary, but closing all borders around the world is not the answer anymore.
This global isolationism is ruining lives, we need to reopen the borders.
