In 2022, I never imagined that a petition would become the starting point of my journey as a songwriter, activist, and storyteller. In truth, my exhausting journey had begun long before.
My journey as an indie writer, later songwriter, activist, and storyteller had begun already back in 2005, when I wrote and self-published my memoir. In 2015, I re-published that memoir to raise awareness about the plight of refugees worldwide, particularly around integration and education.
Years later, the journey continued musically - with a song called “80 Million People.” Back then, I wasn’t chasing streams or algorithms. I was chasing answers. I was asking a simple, human question: Why do people have to wait so long to be seen, heard, and treated fairly?
That question led me to launch the #HumanityB4Nationality petition. Around the same time, I released “Blood Is Always Red”, following “80 Million People,” a song written during the pandemic when borders closed for some — but never opened for others.
Music has become my way of translating statistics, policies, and bureaucracy into something people could actually feel.
Three years later, I’m still waiting.
The Petition: 2022
The petition focused on the long waiting times and unequal treatment faced by immigrants and asylum seekers. It wasn’t abstract for me. It was personal, lived, and urgent. Thousands of lives are paused in administrative limbo, while decisions drag on for years.
In response, I received an official answer from the European Commission in Brussels. The letters acknowledge the humanitarian crisis, emphasize solidarity, funding, coordination platforms, and reference long-term frameworks such as the New Pact on Migration and Asylum.
They explain why different groups of refugees have been treated differently over the years. They outline processes, structures, and future intentions.
And they also contain one crucial admission: the current efforts are not enough.
What the response does not contain is just as important.
There are no timelines. No accountability. No concrete remedies for people who have already been waiting for years. Waiting itself - as harm, as loss of time, stability, and dignity - is never addressed.
On paper, everything sounds humane.
In real life, everything still takes too long.
Three years on, the system still moves painfully slow. Waiting times remain excessive. Families remain separated. Futures remain postponed.
From “Blood Is Always Red” now to “Red Carpet”
Before and during the petition period, I released “80 Million People” and “Blood Is Always Red.” Both songs were written in the middle of the pandemic - a time when many experienced restrictions for the first time, while millions had already been living without rights, homes, or certainty for years. What am I saying? For decades!
Those songs asked listeners to feel what statistics usually hide: powerlessness, helplessness, and the absurdity of blaming people who have nothing. They have already lost everything in life and are still treated like trash.
Now, years later, those songs have a follow-up.
“Red Carpet” asks a sharper question: Who gets welcomed, and who gets watched? Who is celebrated, and who is tolerated? The contrast couldn’t be louder.
Alongside it stand two more songs:
“Invisible Borders” – about the lines we draw that don’t exist on maps but rule entire lives.
“Generation After Generation” – a fierce indictment of power, greed, manipulation, and the long-term consequences of leaders and systems that toy with humanity. It is about karma, legacy, and the uncomfortable truth that destruction does not stop with one era — it rolls on, generation after generation.
These songs exist because the situation hasn’t fundamentally changed.
Why I’m Writing This Now
This post is a reminder — to my readers, to institutions, and to myself. 20 years and I'm still fighting for justice!
I didn’t stop caring. I didn’t stop waiting. I didn’t stop creating.
Music became my way of documenting time. Every song marks a chapter of waiting, resilience, and refusal to normalize injustice.
While we wait for answers from the UK, while policies are discussed and redrafted, lives continue in slow motion.
And so I keep writing and I keep reminding.
Because humanity should never be conditional.
🔗 You can follow the full journey and petition here:
#HumanityB4Nationality on my blog!
🎶 Listen to:
on LilyAmis.Bandcamp.com
This is not the end of the story.
It’s a checkpoint.
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A Note for Anyone Who Feels Like They’re failing, like I do sometimes!
If you are trying to change something — a system, a mindset, an injustice — and you feel exhausted, discouraged, or invisible, hear this:
You are not failing.
Change is slow not because your effort is weak, but because the resistance is strong. Systems don’t move easily. They defend themselves. They wait for people to give up.
The fact that a problem still exists does not mean your work was pointless. It means your voice was necessary. Witnessing, documenting, creating, and refusing to look away all matter — even when results are delayed or invisible.
Awareness is not a switch. It’s erosion. It’s water against stone. And stone always pretends it isn’t cracking.
So be proud of the years you showed up. Be proud of the work you did when no one was applauding. Be proud of caring in a world that often rewards indifference.
History rarely thanks people in real time. It remembers them later.
If you’re tired, rest — but don’t doubt yourself.
If you’re discouraged, pause — but don’t erase your impact.
Keep going.
Not because it’s easy.
But because it matters.
