Agus – 27.02.2020 – Utrecht/Netherlands

γειασας! My name is Agus, Agustina but nobody really calls me that. I’m 25, from Buenos Aires and got this lovely book from Marucha in January (yeah I’m writing this end of February cause I suck, but moving on). I’m currently based in the Netherlands, Utrecht to be exact, but that’s not what we’re gonna talk about, cause honestly, a Master in law and the Netherlands are not the most exciting combination now are they?

I’ve wondered what to write about for a bit now: Greece, Palestine, the Netherlands? And I decided to talk about it all. Because what I want to talk about is privilege, our privilege, yours and mine. Our privilege is hidden in small things we take for granted, like owning a small booklet we call passport that allows us to move basically anywhere in the world, or the fact that we can uproot ourselves wherever we want. This story starts and ends with privilege, because it was my privilege that got me to Greece, and it was my privilege that got me out.

You see, when you live in a refugee camp for a year you start looking at things differently, you start seeing things you never saw before. You don’t see it in the big things, you don’t see it in the egregious human rights violations, or in the horrifying and inhumane conditions people live in. Those things are too big, too distant, too mainstream in a way.

I remember the first time I recognised it. I had been on Samos for a month, and we were sitting with my guitar class in the park, learning the chords for ‘Shape of you’ by Ed Sheeran (their choice not mine I promise), and an army plane flew by, startling us all. I’ll never forget the look of plain fear on Naser’s face, the way his eyes flashed and his arms moved to cover his head. The way he looked at me helplessly, as if saying “not again”. The thing is, I was scared of a noise, a noise that I couldn’t really place. He was scared of what that noise had caused in his life, what that noise meant, what that noise stood for. He was scared of the memories that noise represented, memories that I can’t even begin to describe, that I have no way of relating to, because they’re too painful, too unfair, too real.

And that, my friends, is privilege. Because privilege is intrinsically not about money or resources. Privilege is me being oblivious to what the sound meant, it’s me waking up in the morning and not worrying about my safety, it’s me being able to make my own decisions, in my own terms. Privilege is what’s allowing me to write this right now, and you to read it, wherever and whoever you are.

I guess what I’m trying to say, or what I’ve learnt in the past year, is that being privileged is like having a huge birthday cake that you didn’t necessarily ask for handed to you. What defines you is not the fact that you have the cake, but what you do with it. So, will you eat it all or will you share it?