This question can in no way be answered for you or for anyone else. And that is precisely the challenge that Josefa has attempted to take on in the last few years.

To stop thinking on behalf of others is a massive "political" challenge; but, at the same time, it is not so difficult if we first think about our own identity as "migrants" before judging others and placing that label on them. "Migrant", "refugee, "asylum seeker"; what about me, am I a migrant? Identities, affiliations, categories, any of these can be targeted.

In fact, the question is revolutionarily simple: "am I not, as well, a part of this migration that everyone is called to experience?" Thus, "migrant" is no longer an attribute, to migrate is no longer a right; but, much more radically, the term "migrant" is connected to my human condition: to migrate constitutes my "humanity".

Of course, we have to be careful not to mix everything up and create a disrespectful confusion. There are (spatial, temporal, intellectual, spiritual) migrations which appear or are experienced under duress; others seem voluntary; but most migrations are genuinely a manifestation of our vulnerabilities.

Nevertheless, for Josefa, we cannot be satisfied with watching the train of history and its exiles go by, but, forced or free, we need to be on that train, because, inevitably, I am a part of it, in a unique way, or, simply, in a human way.

Am I a migrant? We all have to be bold enough to ask that question.

Gilbert