Through which lens do I view the migratory phenomenon? With what dispositions and intentions am I affected by the questions raised by our migrations? Moreover, am I still free of my "migrant being" and of my perceptions about our migrations?
In fact, I am certainly, in one way or another, determined, if only culturally, by the thinking with which I approach others in their migrant condition. Others, because they are related to me, or because they are a public or private authority, the media, a political entity, or a third party, condition my perceptions, both internally and externally, of myself.
If I surrender, without excess affection, to the perception I feel when I face another person, there is no doubt that this exercise, this experience, generates tension, even a struggle, oscillating between antipathy and sympathy, or, exceptionally, (is it really possible?) empathy?
But, in reality, in the face of the other-migrant, themselves, in their singularity or peculiarity, it seems to me that, when the time comes for the encounter, I will be another; another, affected, whose perception will be modified and can still be modified.
If I dare to think that I can exercise a semblance of autonomy in relation to others, the fact remains that our co-otherness becomes a source of transformation.
Perception is Migration.
Gilbert
