But arent you a citizen?This is the first question most Italians ask me when I tell them that I can't go home.The pandemic is causing confusion in Australia. It may have made sense 18 or eight months ago when a new quarantine system had to be set up, or even before there was a vaccine.Now, I have questions that I don't know the answers to. One question in particular: Why?My partner and I were both ready to leave when her contract expired. We shipped our items, gave notice to the landlord about our apartment and said goodbye. We set out on what we believed would be our last hike.We had just arrived in the mountains when our flights were suddenly cancelled. This was a week before we took off.We have been resilient over the last 18 months. We already had a contingency strategy. We are still struggling to find housing, work and visa extensions due to the Australian immigration cuts.There were more than 33,000 people still waiting to fly on a subsidised Dfat flight before arrivals were reduced by half. This number will rise to a lot more.This number does not include many people. Many people want to return home, but they aren't registered. Everyone who has a commercial flight booked is advised not to register, even though they may be cancelled. This does not apply to those who have given up and are content to remain where they are. Frustration, rejection, and expense all have their own inexorable logic.We hear from people back home that assistance is available. They are prioritizing those who are most in need. It is actually an online auction. You are sent a booking code and tickets disappear in minutes.There is no organized queue and very little time for planning. These subsidised flights cost more than regular flights. The subsidy is for Qantas.Financial assistance is a loan. You must prove that you cannot borrow the money from anyone else. If someone suggests that I may be able draw on my superannuation for business-class tickets, I can only look at them as a freelancer.After I received my second dose of vaccine, I was again confused about why I couldn't go home. The doctor was aware of the Sydney outbreak. She said it was seasonal and that is why we were pushing here. It's a race against winter.I replied that only 9% of Australians have been vaccinated. Above her mask, her eyes widened in horror.Why? Why?Register to receive email updates every morning from Guardian AustraliaWe all envied Australia's early successes in controlling the virus. It would have given time for a world-class vaccine campaign. Instead, it has squandered its opportunity. It is hard to explain.It is tempting to think that it will always work if you draw a line around an island. This is consistent with decades of increasing xenophobia and offshore detention as well as centuries of penal colony paranoia.States want to be in control. Morrison knows that locking down the country is an election winner. If you can only stop the boats, everything becomes an invasion.Words like incursion can be used even between states. Every outbreak is an opportunity to shift blame and increase policing. Just as Behrouz Boochani said in No Friend but the Mountains, Australia is still a prison.It all feels familiar to me as a fiction writer. The language is predictable, even the language: The Centre for National Resilience sounds almost dystopian to me.Fortress Australia is very selective, as evidenced by the stories of hate-speech celebrities who have escaped Australia despite the cap. If we had enough money, it would be simple to return home quickly. Wealth is what really matters. The border around Australia is not an actual border. It's a filter. Although it might be satisfying to deport bigots, it only reinforces the fact.Being stranded can be a difficult logistical and emotional task. I miss my friends and family.My books Australian release will be missed. I had to move the launch online. It's worse for many.Many people have lost their loved ones, missed milestones, or are still separated from their partners or sick family members because of this pandemic. Australian migrants feel just as lost as we do. We will never see our families again. Arent we citizens? This is nothing when compared to the years of torture we've put asylum seekers through.The future is not uncertain this time around. It doesn't feel like Covid-19 is disrupting our lives at the moment. Citizens or not, it feels as if we are the ones being abused by our nation and that its cruelty knows no bounds.
