Life Lessons | Personal Essays
How I Became A South African, Australian, EU Citizen And Soon A Canadian All At The Same Time
This world is crazy right now, and this confirms my suspicion
I rarely write about my personal life. The first and only personal piece I wrote on Medium was, I Remember The Time, and it was a painful exercise. I wrote straight from the heart, and my lack of experience in this type of writing clearly shows in that article. It's a journey, and I have a lot to learn.
But. When something close to home happens, I have now developed the habit of just starting to write about it, which is what brought me here.
I was on a video call with my eldest son and his wife early this morning. They shared the good news of now having full PR (Permanent Residence ) status in Australia. Unlike my other two sons, he followed my career path in IT and became a 'specialist' in one area of IT—the dreaded tech-bro way.
They went to Australia a couple of years ago on an invite from an IT company specializing in a specific field within a particular industry. The weirdest part is the PR was not fast-tracked because of my son but my daughter-in-law.
She has her master's degree in early childhood intervention from a South African university. You have to complete additional exams in Australia to 'upgrade' your South African degree to an Australian degree ( huh? ). She completed that and is now busy with her Ph.D. and working for the Australian Government.
Australians are serious about health care. Really serious. Truckers be damned.
Before I continue my Australian story and that of my future Australian grandchildren ( God willing), let me tell you about my journey in the European Union.
My second eldest son is a rebel in a good way. It's just the way he's been since early childhood. A free spirit. A self-confessed hater of the 9-to-5 office-bound lifestyle. A show-your-middle-finger-to-bureaucracy type of guy. He works for a company with its HQ in Belgium and a massive investment in the service industry in South Africa and other African countries.
He ravels in exploiting the greed of corporations for his benefit and everybody else he can share it with. So he has Belgium citizenship, and so do his parents. By extension, he also has EU' citizenship.'
I don't know how that works, but I'm a special kind of rebel in my own way at this stage in my life.
My youngest son is busy with the last two years of his Civil Engineering internship with a company doing work in South Africa and Africa. Their HQ is in Canada, and my son and a bunch of his colleagues have the option to continue their Civil Engineering studies in Canada. There is a worldwide shortage of Civil Engineers.
He is keeping a close eye on the Canadian truckers, though. Their short-term victories will influence his strategy when he and his colleagues move to Canada. He is GEN-Z. They plan to silently show the millennials to shut the F up and do things. My two older sons are millennials.
As parents, we are forced to study the dynamics of these labels.
That forced me to label myself as a GEN-F-around-and-find-out.
I was born and raised in South Africa, as you probably figured out. By some flawed bureaucratic logic, I've become a global citizen. I will have more choices of where to live during the last years of my life. Something that would have been difficult, if not impossible, for me to fathom during my teenage years under an evil South African Apartheid regime.
My children and grandchildren will pave the way as their forefathers did. So will the children and grandchildren of families all over the world.
Truckers be damned.
There are more good people than bad people on this planet we call home.
I am now forced to respect Australians and the Australian way of life. The chances that my grandchildren will adopt that way of life are now a reality.
The same goes for every other country in the world.
After my call with my son and his wife this morning, I spent two whole hours studying my 'options.' Here's what I found out.
I passed the eligibility test under the ‘870 Sponsored Parent Visa'. Imagine how that story will be told around the family campfire in the decades to come. "My great-great-grandfather was an 870."
As an 870, I can stay for five years in Australia take a 15-minute flight to New Zealand. Stay for one weekend in New Zealand. Fly back to Australia and stay for another five years as an 870 until I die.
What can I say? I'm a rebel, and New Zealand is cool like that.
The same rules apply to my second eldest son and his soon-to-be wife. She is a rebel too. She has the bluest eyes I've ever seen. You know? The kind that the orange trucker wanted to import to America? They both want their kids to look like me in my profile pic. Neither black nor white but with blue eyes. They reckon it will be the ultimate insult to truckers that ask stupid questions—just a human being with an 870 as a grandfather.
Here's the thing, though. I do not want to live in Australia. Nor do I want to live in any country in Europe. People move to countries for economic reasons. Deep down, everybody wants to live close to their roots.
I would prefer to have a roof, food, and clothes in a place close to my extended family. I would love to visit my children and my grandchildren at least once a year. I am sure they would want to do the same, which would make it at least twice a year no matter in which country they live.
Maybe the truckers will have a change of mind and attitude and establish a worldwide network. They travel from border to border as it is now. They can quickly partner with the shipping industry to transport families to families worldwide.
Truckers for families with no flags. Who would have thought?
As for my family and me, we don't see color. Only blue eyes and a lot of LOVE.
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