Lamentations of the Exiled

"How long have you been away?" 

"Fifteen years." 

"Fifteen years?! How can you stand it? Don't you miss it? Aren't you 
ever going back?" 

"Yes, I miss it, but you do what you have to. When I first came here, 
I told myself I would be back home in five years or less. Now here I
am almost two decades and still counting.

Am I ever going back? I don't know. Twelve years ago I could have 
given you a definite answer. Ten, five years ago, I would have told 
you yes without hesitation. Now? I just don't know." 

The words send a chill down my spine. He is someone I respect very
much. He's intelligent. He's articulate. He's very passionate about
his beliefs. He unfailingly optimistic about things…in short, he 
could have been me. Actually, to be more precise, I AM him; fifteen 
years ago. I am his ghost of Christmas Past. 

Everyone has their reasons for leaving their home country--better 
education, the promise of a better life, political expediency, etc. 
It doesn't matter because when we get here (wherever "here" happens 
to be), we are all exiles of some sort. For some, it makes no
difference since they have no intention of going back to their 
countries. They embrace their new lives to the fullest, infused with 
self-congratulation and gratitude at the rare moments when they spare 
a thought for the people and country they left behind; thankful to 
have escaped the horrors that continue to plague the unfortunate in 
their homelands. 

And then there are those like me, who, even as they build a life in 
their country of exile, even as they dig deeper and more solid 
foundations in other lands, cast a longing eye to the homes of their 
hearts. We are the "keyboard activists", who follow every event in our
homelands with breathless anticipation, fingers poised over keyboards 
to send words of praise, of chiding, of encouragement, of displeasure, 
to the numerous newsgroups of fellow exiles. We are the perennial 
protesters and demonstrators, who camp out at our embassies to protest 
our governments' policies, who refuse to patronize companies whose 
operations in our homelands are detrimental to the welfare of our 
fellow citizens.

We are the student activists, who organize our fellow students and 
encourage them to share in our vision of a better future for our 
nations. We are the doctors, the engineers, the computer scientists, 
the lawyers, the students, the accountants, who, even as we sit behind 
a desk at work or in class or in a research laboratory, ponder on how 
we can use our knowledge and expertise to benefit our countries. 

Yet, tinged with the hope and the desire to return is the mouth-drying, 
nausea-inducing Fear. The dread of finding out that we don't fit in 
anymore with "our" people and in "our" society (how many friends do we 
have left? How many people can we relate to?). The fright of realizing 
that we've been gone too long and everything has changed beyond our
ability to cope. The terror of acknowledging that we have become too
used to the customs and conveniences of our adopted nations. The horror
of giving in to the panicky little voice inside us that says we can't 
make a difference. The more we desire to achieve a level where we can
affect the outcome of things in our countries, the deeper we find
ourselves enmeshed into the fabric of life in the lands of our exile. 

And always, accompanying this maze of terrors, is the bigger, less 
acknowledged fear that in a decade, in two decades, we will be the ones 
having the conversation at the beginning of this article; that when a 
newly-arrived traveler bursting with irrepressible optimism and an 
unquenchable spirit asks us, "are you going back? How can you stand it?", 
we, of the repressed spirit and the quenched optimism, will reply, "I 
don't know." 

--
Raliat Oluyemisi Sunmonu
University of Maryland. 

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