Stockholm Syndrome and First-Generation Immigrants in Nova Scotia: A Quick Reflection

Stockholm Syndrome among racialized immigrant communities in Canada has always been a thing, but I got to taste a very real version of it at a recent one-on-one conversation with another first generation immigrant in the Nova Scotian Muslim community. The unsaid gist of what he was telling me - in relation to my equity-seeking posts - was basically, “how dare you be so free when my colonized mind never allowed me to be?” 

There are depths to this trauma manifestation, this syndrome, in the colonized psyche that go beyond idolizing the oppressor and adopting their language and logic. There is also a sense of wanting everyone else who fits the category to be shackled by the same disease; a desire by the oppressed for the perpetuation of the cycle of oppression so as not to be alone in their trauma. “If I’m not free, then neither should you,” kind of thing. 

Another psychological layer for this desire for perpetuation may be guilt. Oppression trauma involves a very real layer of guilt in relation to equity-seeking efforts and groups. The oppressed immigrant is between a rock and a hard place when they have finally moved to a community which they perceive as safer, more prosperous, or generally more conducive to their human rights and that of their immediate family. On the one hand they want to celebrate and enjoy this relative safety and / or prosperity, and on the other they feel that they may have let down their "less lucky" peers. This gets even more complex than typical survivor guilt when the immigrant in question comes from an area of the world that has been significantly stunted by colonization. For such an immigrant, they have found their so-called liberty on soil and within systems that have had a direct hand in the colonization of their original homeland. So in a way equity-seeking efforts within our Canadian system confront that guilt when all the immigrant wants to do is survive the transition and be happy. Talk about complex feelings. 

I wish equity and inclusion work can address this syndrome more extensively in Canadian society; it’s almost easier for me (a racialized first-generation Canadian woman from Egypt) to struggle for equity within racially privileged groups than it is with fellow immigrants. The resources, the science, and the general discussion of equity in Canada seems to primarily target racially privileged audiences. Where’s the work addressing the survivors of oppression in immigrant communities at that level of complexity? How do you navigate being an ideological minority within an already minoritized group? Where’s that guidance and who should give it? Like this meme, as an equity-seeker you're fully prepared to hear white supremacists say things like “if you’re not fully in then why don’t you go back home?!” But dealing with hearing that from someone who looks like you and has similar complexities of experience-existence is a whole other ball game that no one is coaching.

And in case you're wondering, this IS my home now, and I'm out to make it better.