Thoughts on Emigration

Thoughts on Emigration

 

When I say that I would emigrate if I were not too old to do so, people often ask me where I would go.  My answer is that it is not all that important If one is in exile, one accepts that one can no longer play as full a part in life as one did at home. But on the other hand, one no longer feels the deep hurt which comes from watching one’s own beloved country, every hill, cliff, field, hedge , riverbank, wood,  spire, tower and gable,  every prayer, song and poem, every act of bravery and generosity, every martyrdom and sacrifice, all the great cloud of witnesses to greatness, kindness and goodness  that the educated patriot feels about him, being dirtied, twisted,  betrayed, despised, destroyed and mishandled by rogues or fools.

 

I am a northern person, of cold winters and misty skies, who has not the slightest desire for endless sunshine and boring blue sky. Give me a frosty morning, or a lashing storm, or a crisp, bright spring day, over anything Southern California can produce. Any country where you can’t come home to the lighted doorway of a warm kitchen on a frosty night, with your breath steaming in the cold, is not for me.

 

I’ve in the past considered making a serious effort to learn either French or German, languages for which I have a reasonable basis.   Strasbourg , or its near-twin Freiburg-im-Breisgau are among the most attractive cities on the planet. One is technically French and the other technically German, but both are really Rhenish, and set in the middle of a zone of high civilisation that should lift the spirit.   

 

Berlin is , for me, a thrilling city, set amid lakes and forests,  whose new Hauptbahnhof links it swiftly by rail to dozens of seductive destinations (Dresden in a morning, Prague, Warsaw, Cracow, Hamburg or Vienna in a day). It’s also not far from the piny, sandy shores of the mysterious Baltic  and I have not done one tenth of the exploring of Germany that I would like to do. I could never afford to live in Switzerland, perhaps the only real rival to England as an independent, law-governed free society,  though I am never happier than halfway up a mountain (I think somewhere about 5,000 feet is ideal). The part of Moscow called ZaMoskvaRechya, just south of the river near the Tretyakov gallery, is –thanks to the end of  Communism – one of the most appealing cityscapes I know, and maybe at a stretch I might be able to work my shrivelled Russian into a workable state after a couple of years.

 

I’ve a fondness for the Pacific North west of the USA, and imagine I’d feel much the same way about British Columbia round about Vancouver. I became something of a Canadian nationalist while I lived in the USA (I particularly liked seeing the Crown of St Edward on the cap badges of Canadian police officers, and John Buchan’s signs on the Ontario freeways proclaiming that it was ‘The King’s Highway’. In fact I’ve always tended to shrug off Canada’s political correctness, in reality not much worse than PC in the allegedly conservative USA. It strikes me  as a superficial thing, concealing an enjoyably free and robust way of life regulated by English law - except in beautiful Quebec, where I can gabble in atrocious French and be thanked for it.  I could even learn to love ice hockey.

 

Australia has much to be said for it, judging by Sydney, Melbourne (which has real trams) and Canberra, though it’s not the classless near-utopia that Nevil Shute portrayed, and the weather may be just a bit too warm for me . I’ve never been to New Zealand (one of my most regretted gaps in experience) and so perhaps tend to idealise it.  It’s annoying that they seem to have reduced their railways to a tourist rump, just when the rest of the world is discovering how suited they are to compact countries.  I found the Falklands quite appealing when I visited, though I wish they’d find a way of getting some trees to grow.

 

I like plenty of places, and could in theory live in them, but of course one has to work to pay one’s way. And that’s not so easy at my age. Whenever I see migrant workers scrubbing the floors or emptying the bins in London, I make myself remember that any of these people could in reality be professors of history or philosophy in their own countries, whose skills and knowledge are useless to them here. It’s an important truth to bear in mind, and even if I’m wrong it does no harm to treat them as if this might well be the case. Which of us is certain that he will never be a refugee, a slave or a prisoner before the end of his life? Not I.