One day I was browsing the Expats Malta Facebook group, when a discussion about pros and cons of living in Malta caught my eye. The group is too active for me to find it again, but basically (<- that′s a strongly beloved word among the locals) it was a flood of reactions to a British person criticizing healthcare, streets, and people′s attitudes in Malta. Soon enough she was told to go back to her country.
It inspired me to draw this comic.
Click on the image to enlarge it
I can understand that unless they don′t like it themselves, most people want to hear positive things about their country. Yet they must understand that reasons for moving to places are extremely diverse. Most of the time people understand migration as following one of these two models:
- Absolute individual will: a migrant moves to places because s/he assessed their qualities and chose the best place for living. They should not complain, because they made a free choice.
- Absolute determinism in the hands of fate: a migrant escapes war or uses the only program available for working abroad, or they move to a country they don′t like because they have been posted by their company, or they moved because of their partner, who happened to live in a country they don′t like.
The reality is somewhere in between. People use whatever opportunities they can find, and a job or study opportunity is often enough to make one move places. This doesn′t remove their right to critically discuss other aspects of living there.