Home, Home Again...

Somewhere in the rear-view mirror the debate on Identity Cards smoulders on in the three-ring flea-circus of obscenity that is the British Political Scene. Sitting high up here, drinking my beer and tossing another handful of coins upon the Mahogany Ridge, it all seems to be very far away. I would never carry one of those blasted things. For a start I refuse to be treated like a criminal on day release by politicians who all deserve a life sentence themselves. Secondly it will be totally ineffective. We can't even find our Luton Taliban twits and illegal aliens never mind ask them for their paperwork. Finally, I don't have a clue what would be on it. I can just see it now: "Tony Emmerson. Citizen Of…erm… Living In…dunno… Last Seen… Propping up the bar in Libra being rude about Lefties."

Some would call it an Identity Crisis, but just like hapless lightweight Prime Minister Jimbo Callaghan didn't actually say, crisis? What crisis? Admittedly I don't have rubbish piling up in the street, just empties piling up in the laundry room, and hopefully my career is destined for greater longevity than Ol' Dead Callo, but the sentiment is the same.

I no longer consider myself British. My contact with the Old Land is restricted to the occasional email, telephone call, and now Skype. I have no feel for it any more. I don't understand it and don't want to understand it. Its institutions may prosper or crumble, its governments may come and go, its celebrities may abuse each other on live television, but it now means little more to me than the shifting sands of a thousand dead empires. The United Kingdom is of as much interest to me as the Czech Republic is to the average Brit. I never refer to Britain as "back home", even for idle convenience.

On the other hand I cannot be Czech. I do not speak the language, I have only a passing knowledge of its pre-Communist history, and I am permitted to walk these streets only by the blessed intervention of the loathsome Eurocrats who hoovered up border controls like some unnamed politicos hoover up coke.

In all ways that counts this is home. A place to warm my bones beside the fire. I am comfortable in the bars and streets and sports venues and music clubs in a way that I am not in Britain. I like the people. I love the food. However if I end up behind the other sort of bars it will be my British passport that I whip out in order to make good my exit. Just as there is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole so there is no such thing as an expatriate in a foreign jail. I would invoke Queen and Country at the first sniff of trouble, and then deny every utterance once the storm was over.

Such is the paradox of the international runner, the migrant with his knicker-elastic caught in the Eurotunnel train door. In this confusion there is liberation and, at times, peace.

No longer strung out on the identity parade of nationality, political affiliation, or geography of birth, I am free to live the life that I choose. I am guilty of moral abdication. I should care who wins the next election in Britain but I don't. Which ever power-crazed blowhard scuttles up the greasy pole my wallet is out of reach and therefore so is my vote. British education burns day by day. Where's my fiddle? I gather we won something in the cricket, but who is "we"? I'm more bothered about Slavia Praha getting into the hockey playoffs. Things are looking good in that respect.

The phrase "Citizen of the World" is much overused, and often by the sort of people that I like to poke with a big pointy stick. However if I was ever forced to carry a million-dollar biometric luggage label I would like that to be my nationality. It would not be the most factual statement but it would be the most truthful. Not in a "we are one" bong-philosopher's global circle-jerk kind of way, but as a simple statement that national identity is not what it once was.

Borders drawn by the seas will gradually fade in the same fashion as the borders drawn by diplomats after a particularly long lunch. Day by day the land masses shift and shuffle, powered by a terrible violence beneath our feet that makes even the most CNN-friendly military campaign pale into impotent insignificance. Political and Social institutions rise, fuck up, and fall. These things may provide labels but they do not provide true identity. They do not make a home.

Home is truly where the heart is; not because the scribes at Hallmark have a point, but because our heart is the only thing that we can ever hope to own. Slipping out of the shackles of nationality, political party affiliation, and institutional career fraternalism is hauling up the anchor and heading out into the ocean alone. And with nobody to tell you who you are you will have to start working it out for yourself.