Guy Faulconbridge and Natalie Thomas

CANTERBURY (England) – Europe needs to show compassion and not barbed wire when welcoming migrants, according to Abdulrazak Gurnah from Tanzania, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021.

Gurnah who wrote about imperialism’s legacies on uprooted people in his books said that he was shocked to be called by the Swedish Academy for information regarding the prize. He thought it was an automated cold call.

His poetic description of the feeling of migrating was that of leaving family behind and living in an unfamiliar society.

According to him, he thought the British government treated asylum-seekers with suspicion.

Gurnah (73), said that “currently, it seems like the government is quite nasty about people who seek asylum or people looking for admittance to this country.” He spoke out in his garden next to an Acer tree, Canterbury, south England.

They are surprised that someone from such difficult areas would desire to move to a country with prosperity. What is the surprise? It would be a great idea to travel to a country with more prosperity. “This response is somewhat mean.”

Gurnah was born in Zanzibar and is now Tanzanian. He said that migrants didn’t come with anything – they just wanted to work.

He was amazed at the courage and determination of people who traveled so far from their home countries to start a new life.

This somehow seems immoral. You know that they use the phrase “economic migrant” – almost as though it were a crime to call someone an economic migrant. “Why not?”

He said that “millions upon millions of Europeans have invaded the globe for exactly that reason” over many centuries.

He also said that the other half of this equation was how people feel they have to take such dangerous journeys in search for a better life.

But you need to question “What is so terrible about their situation that they would do such horrible things and take such risk?” He said.

He said that Europe should reconsider its migration policy.

He stated, “With greater compassion than with wire barbed – instead of a kind discourse that Europe is being destroyed.”

Gurnah stated that he did not advocate free-for all “open-season” migration, but said there shouldn’t be an antagonistic or abusive representation of migrants.

He said that Brexit had shown a “certain meanness about Britain” – and there was another story about migrants far beyond Europe’s borders.