The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
The bus was still moving gently through the wet streets of London. The rain had almost stopped, but drops still slid down the windows, stretching the streetlights into long streaks.
Our discussion of migration and exile was like those drops. Just when you thought it had ended, it began moving again a few inches lower down.
I glanced in the mirror. The donkey was still beside the window.
‘Well, Mr Migrant, are you still upset with me?’
His ears twitched.
‘Under international law, does that mean a formal objection, or is your case still under consideration?’
The woman in red laughed.
‘Keep this up,’ said Lena, ‘and the donkey will get citizenship before any of us.’
‘And rightly so. He makes no grand political claims, gives no television interviews and abuses nobody on social media. He works, carries loads, and after all that we humans call him a donkey.’
Even the monarchist gave a little smile. That was good. Sometimes a small joke opens a door that ten minutes of political argument cannot.
‘But there’s still something I don’t understand,’ said the newcomer. ‘You keep talking about migrants and exiles. Where does a refugee fit into all this?’
Lena shifted in her seat. ‘A good question, because we often use these words as if they meant the same thing: migrant, asylum seeker, refugee, exile. But each has a different story.’
‘They’ve all left their countries in the end,’ said the monarchist.
‘True. But people who go out through the same door needn’t be leaving for the same reason.’
There was a short silence.
‘One goes to study,’ Lena continued. ‘One to work, one to join family, another for a better life. Someone else leaves because staying could mean prison, torture, death, or a threat to their freedom and safety.’
‘So the reason for leaving is the difference?’ asked the woman in red.
‘The reason matters. So does the possibility of returning.’
The possibility of returning. Those words stayed with us. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. After you have lived away from your country for many years, some words stop being mere words.
‘If someone can go back, are they no longer an exile?’ the monarchist asked.
‘It isn’t quite that simple. Exile isn’t only a legal status. It can be political, historical, even psychological. A person might have a passport but feel it would be unsafe to return. Another might legally be able to travel, but what drove them away is still there.’
‘What’s the difference between an exile and a refugee, then?’ the newcomer asked.
‘Now we’ve reached the difficult bit,’ I said.
The donkey gave a little bray.
‘Yes, Professor, you can have your say too. This whole discussion started with you.’
There was laughter in the bus.
‘Refugee has a specific legal meaning,’ Lena said. ‘Exile isn’t necessarily a separate legal status. A person can be a refugee in law and consider themselves an exile in personal and political terms.’
‘They could be both at once?’ asked the woman in red.
‘Yes.’
‘And a migrant?’ asked the monarchist.
‘Years later, that same person might call themselves a migrant, even if they originally entered the country under another designation. People’s identities aren’t always as tidy as immigration forms.’
‘Thank goodness the immigration authorities haven’t been put in charge of our philosophical identities,’ I said.
‘Don’t give them ideas,’ said the woman in red.
We laughed again.
‘But there’s another expression we often hear,’ the newcomer said. ‘Political refugee and social refugee.’
Lena paused. ‘Here we need to be precise.’
The bus stopped at a red light.
‘In everyday conversation,’ she said, ‘people may call one person a political refugee and another a social or economic refugee. We shouldn’t assume these are separate legal categories without explaining what we mean.’
‘So there’s no such thing as a social refugee?’ the monarchist asked.
‘People may use it as a social expression. But the main definition in the Refugee Convention contains no independent legal category called “social refugee”.’
‘What if someone has left their country because of poverty?’ asked the newcomer.
‘Poverty alone isn’t what the classic refugee definition describes. Someone who moves for work, a better income or a better life usually isn’t a refugee in the legal sense. But real lives are rarely so neat.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Poverty may be bound up with discrimination, persecution, war or membership of a particular social group. You cannot decide a person’s case from a single sentence. You need to understand why they are in that position and what danger awaits them if they return.’
The light turned green. The bus moved on.
‘So someone who came simply for a better life is a migrant?’ asked the monarchist.
‘In ordinary usage, yes. But we must be careful even with “migrant”. There is no single universal legal definition. Sometimes it’s used so broadly that it includes almost anyone who has changed where they live.’
‘The trouble begins when the words become moral judgements,’ said the woman in red.
We all looked at her.
‘We call one a “real refugee”, another “economic”, one “political”, another “social”. Then we rank them without knowing anything about their lives.’
‘Exactly,’ said Lena.
I said nothing. Looking at the passengers in the mirror, I realised our little bus had become an example of the very complexity we were discussing. Two people considered themselves exiles. Two were migrants. And one remained unclear.
‘Interesting,’ I said.
‘What is?’ asked the woman in red.
‘We’re talking about migration and exile, and the bus itself has become a little case study.’
Lena smiled. ‘How?’
‘Two exiles, two migrants, and one person whose file I still can’t make sense of.’
‘Who?’ asked the newcomer.
‘If I say, we’ll have another argument.’
‘You mean me?’ the monarchist said at once.
‘I never mentioned your name.’
‘You were looking in the mirror.’
‘I’m the driver. If I don’t look in the mirror, we’ll crash.’
The woman in red laughed. Lena put a hand to her mouth. Even the newcomer laughed.
‘All right,’ said the monarchist. ‘I’ll say it myself. I’m a migrant.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Lena.
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
He paused. ‘Because I came of my own accord.’
‘That sentence matters,’ Lena said. ‘“Of my own accord.”’
‘What, did somebody carry everyone else here on their back?’
‘Some people were carried here on history’s back,’ I said.
The laughter was brief. Everyone heard what lay beneath the joke.
‘Choice isn’t always a simple yes or no,’ Lena said. ‘Someone may have boarded the plane, bought the ticket and crossed the border themselves. But political, social or security pressures may have brought them to a point where they could no longer stay.’
‘Their body made the journey,’ said the woman in red, ‘but their circumstances pushed them.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I like that,’ I murmured.
‘Perhaps exile is less about leaving,’ said the newcomer, ‘than about being unable to stay.’
For a few seconds nobody spoke. Not even the donkey.
I glanced in the mirror. ‘And perhaps being unable to go back.’
‘Yes,’ Lena said softly. ‘That too.’
The street glistened under the lamps. The monarchist looked out. The woman in red had closed her book. The newcomer had clasped her hands together. For perhaps the first time in this conversation, nobody was trying to prove anyone else wrong. We were simply trying to understand how each of us had come to be on this bus.
The monarchist turned back. ‘A question.’
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘If someone has lived in exile for thirty years, are they still an exile?’
‘What do you mean?’
Nobody answered. Not even Lena. The woman in red looked at me. The newcomer gave a small smile. Coco was the quietest of all: she pressed herself against the newcomer, wagged her tail and seemed to listen thoughtfully. The donkey pricked up his ears.
I realised our next question was no longer just about immigration law. It was about time. Memory. Home. And perhaps this more difficult question: how many years can someone spend away from a place and still say they are exiled from it?
The bus carried on. So did our discussion.
—
Documentary note in the original
In international law there is an important distinction between ‘migrant’ and ‘refugee’. The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol provide a specific legal definition of refugee. Among its elements is a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
Unlike ‘refugee’, ‘migrant’ has no single, universal definition in international law. It can describe people who change where they live for various reasons, including work, education, family reunion or improved living conditions.
An ‘asylum seeker’ is someone who has sought international protection and whose application has not yet been finally decided.
‘Social refugee’, a phrase sometimes used in ordinary conversation, is not a separate legal category under the 1951 Convention.
Principal sources named in the original: the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1967 Protocol and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
To be continued.
Naser Kamali
London, on the upper deck of a numberless bus bound for Khalo’s home.
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