“Our eyes will see what had been written on our foreheads.” The Arabs declaim this as an expression of fate: your fate is predetermined; there’s no escape. I leaned toward the mirror—all but my eyes covered with a turquoise face-mask—and I wondered if God had written this day on my forehead, if He did so in Arabic or English, and whether this phrase was mentioned in the Quran.
I thought of when I was a child, an adrift and dejected child, and whether I ever imagined a day such as this one. All my life, I had thought, I’d be searching until I found a place to call home, and now here I was: a twenty-year-old who had been in Canada for a little less than five years, and was attending my citizenship ceremony; my ceremony of finally belonging, of finding home.
I went out of the washroom, after a short episode of rumination, and looked at my twenty-year-old friend, who was staring out of the window. She was wearing a grey sleeping dress and no underwear. I wondered why she wasn’t, since it wasn’t hot at all, and whether or not she would’ve felt as comfortable had I not been a queer man. I also thought of all the times I got called a “faggot” or was threatened with violence for holding a man’s hand, and how much work is still left to do in order to ameliorate the status of queer and trans Canadians.
“A colonizer of a Croatian descent helping a Libyan become a colonizer,” I said to her, giggling.
“Yup!” she smiled.
Later, in line to be admitted into the courtroom for the ceremony, I took a few selfies to ensure that I looked as gorgeous as I could. I was wearing my black prom suit and, what I consider to be, my fancy shoes from three years before; a black tie and a white shirt with black dots, which I purchased two days ahead of the ceremony. In the courtroom, I was so enraptured that I ran out of thoughts, a rare occurrence for my brain. I only gazed at the Canadian flag while smiling at my friend, who took photos of me—ecstasy beaming through her eyes. I did notice, though, the racial diversity among the staff: A Brown hijabi lady welcoming the citizens-to-be, another Brown woman stating the rules of the courtroom and introducing the judge, who, I remarked, is of an Asian descent. So enthusiastic to become a citizen was I that I didn’t even contemplate the political significance of the presence of a non-White judge, and whether he was still confronted with perpetual alienation due to his non-White ethnicity. Does he get asked where he’s really from as he grabs coffee before conducting citizenship ceremonies? Does he even drink coffee? For the best results, make it a sildenafil cialis Continued point to elicit that pain and then giving it a try. This dysfunction is quite common among women and to help those women cialis buy have been manufactured and launched in the drug market in the form of conventional allopathic medicines and chemical based cosmetics. Readiness to 50mg generic viagra travel from on-shore to off-shore sites can be essential for specified positions available. buy viagra cialis There were consumers who could just not get over with the test. I pondered upon none of that until weeks later. In fact, I was even no longer bothered to pledge allegiance to the monarch, for I had comprehended the meaning of the oath in the few months prior to the ceremony: Canada is personified through the queen and, in pledging allegiance to the queen, I’m pledging allegiance to my country.
When the judge spoke, I didn’t pay much attention to his words. All of my strength and focus went toward holding in my tears. I didn’t desire to stream another St. Lawrence. I felt my feet rooted to the ground as I stood for the oath and, later, the anthem, reminding myself that it’s a stolen land with which I fell in love. I repeated the words to the oath in English and French as loudly as I could, and sang the anthem from the bottom of my heart without shedding a tear. I don’t usually mind crying in public; I’ve cried at coffee-shops, buses, and sidewalks. That day, however, I knew that my lachrymose eyes would go on for hours, if I let them be. (I’ve been sobbing ever since, whenever I remember the ceremony or that I now have a home).
Afterwards, I meandered down the sunlit streets of Vancouver alongside my friend, uttering, probably more than I should’ve, as if in an attempt to pronounce to the whole world and, more importantly, myself my new status as a Canadian citizen: “It’s my first time crossing the road as a Canadian citizen.” “My first time looking back at you as a Canadian citizen.” “My first time drinking water as a Canadian.” I reiterated sentences along these lines for hours, even after we took the ferry back home to Victoria, even after I lost myself to the reflection of lights on the immovable waters of the Pacific.
I was born and raised in a country that hated me, and that, despite my intense desire not to hate it, it forced me to hate it, too. At a young age, I realized that hate, just like love, is overwhelming. I immigrated to Canada from Libya with my single mother and two brothers in 2013. The story of how my family ended up here, I feel, is for my mother to tell and I’ve no right to divulge it. I still wonder what my life would’ve been like had I stayed in Libya, envisioning myself like debris of a hideous building or the ghostly remnants of a corpse. It comes to my mind, too, how much more arduous it would’ve been to tread through life as an openly queer man in a country with no respect for human rights in general, let alone sexual minorities.
Canada is not a utopia—we live in anything but a post-racial or gay friendly society—but it’s in no way comparable to the country I was born in and never loved. I’m fully mindful of my privileges as a colonizer and a citizen, and I’ve got so much faith in this country. Canada has hurt and disillusioned me quite a lot, but it had also embraced me long ago and I embraced it back. In spite of, and because of, everything, Canada remains the home I’d been looking for since I was a child.