Defining the Global Citizen: Immigration Policy in a Transnational World
Research Paper by Chelsea Bellomy
December 5, 2014
“Now say, would it be worse for man on earth if he were not a citizen?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and here I ask for no proof.” (Alighieri, 24)
– Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri was no doubt one of the most prominent literary and philosophical figures in Italy, and he was definitely right about one thing: the world is a better place when one is a citizen. Citizenship is the basis of our civil rights in the world, and perhaps most importantly our pass to freedom of mobility. But why should something that is so monumentally important to one’s life be left at the hands of political cultures with territorial values and nationalist goals at heart? Why, if citizenship makes earth a better place as Dante claims, should it not be afforded to all human beings, based on humanitarian justifications? The question of citizenship is monumentally important when discussing the rights of migrants. Immigration throughout the world and the lack of rights afforded to undocumented immigrants causes huge issues for many nations, specifically within the European Union. While many people in the 21st century see large amounts of immigration as a threat to a society’s social solidarity and geographic, political, and economic stability, they overlook concepts of a rapidly changing global world that implore the mixing of cultures into a transnational modernity. I make the argument that in order to combat issues surrounding migrants, specifically undocumented immigrants, it is important to develop transnational mindsets that are incorporated in citizenship laws and rights. Basic human rights and acceptance of others should be afforded to all people: citizens, residents, visitors, and refugees alike.
It is notable that some of the most important factors that lead to problems with citizenship are immigration and the incorporation of migrants into a nation. But it is essential to question what happens when a migrant is denied citizenship? Is denied asylum? Is denied acceptance? This calls into question the role that migrants play in a foreign society or lack thereof. Some examples of the lack of agency that is experienced by undocumented immigrants can by traced in the laws that restrict their rights of mobility, citizenship, civil rights, and political role among other things. Ultimately, binding laws and restrictions extended towards refugees strip migrants of a multi-national identity that could have been adopted with a proper integration into a new culture, specifically in the European Union. For example, the European Union Law prevents anyone seeking asylum from buying a train ticket or boarding a train. The Dublin Regulation states that migrants cannot leave the country where they first claimed asylum; thus many migrants who enter Europe through a country like Italy are stuck in that nation, often trapped in refugee camps or battles over documentation just to obtain a freedom of mobility.[1] International law states that nations have the right to determine their own regulations concerning citizenship and nationality, as long as their laws do not override rights of equality, racial discrimination, and the status of children and of refugees.[2] I argue that many European Union laws controlling migrant rights do not fall under these guidelines and are restricting the agency of certain people over others based on nationality, which is a violation of equality.
The lack of Agency experienced by refugees and undocumented immigrants is an issue that is often masked by the very discourse that we use on a daily basis to communicate. Many would argue that though languages connect the world, it is clear to see that languages are also binding. First of all, not knowing the language of the country of entry diminishes a refugee’s chance at understanding the social and more importantly political climate of that country, making it more difficult to obtain documents that lead to freedom and ultimately personal agency and the right to mobility. Additionally, even when one is communicating in their native language there are borders to the spoken and written word that inevitably effect our perceptions of the object of a language’s descriptions. Slovaj Zizek states that “we ‘feel free’ because one lacks the very language to articulate one’s unfreedom” (Zizek). This statement attests to the concept that many societies, specifically Western, do not even realize a lack of freedom or agency because they lack the discourse to understand or discuss this lacking. The first step towards building human rights for refugees and undocumented immigrants is to recognize this in discourse and begin to talk about it.
The ultimate realization that runs alongside with understandings of lack of agency among immigrants is that those with the freedom to agency collectively share the responsibility to act for people deprived of those rights. In her work, Hannah Arendt describes the concepts of two spaces in which we live our life, the ‘private sphere’, where one works and lives a personal life, and the ‘public sphere’, where one takes action. There is often a misconception, specifically among citizens who have been afforded many rights, that we all have access to this 'public sphere', and that it simply involves interaction with the general population as a whole, but this is a great fallacy. The 'public sphere', according to Arendt, is a space of action where someone has the agency to live a life they choose, articulate, and manifest his or her beliefs. It is important to understand that this acceptance in the public sphere is not a right that is afforded to all people, specifically refugees and undocumented immigrants in receiving countries, and this is something that needs specific attention in the realm of human and civil rights. Arendt states: “to what extent do we remain obligated to the world even when we have been expelled from it or have withdrawn from it?”[3] (Arendt, page 22). Arendt’s statement raises a question about how we define citizenship and the inclusion or abandonment of others. How can a society expect an immigrant to act as a citizen to that nation or sate when the immigrant is not accepted in their host country? I argue that there is a relationship between national identity and devotion to citizenship. If an immigrant does not feel included, or more importantly integrated, with the nation in which they are living, then that nation does not take form in their identity, and they cannot achieve a healthy citizenship mindset or civil relationship to the host culture. This is why I believe there is a necessity to take on a new definition of citizenship that migrates away from the strict concepts of territorialism and nationality, and works towards a cosmopolitan and transnational sense of citizenship.
The first step in achieving a transnational understanding of citizenship is to understand how the term relates to previous models of nationalism and geographic or cultural identity. Dima Mohammed, a researcher of multicultural backgrounds herself, describes transnationalism in comparison to assimilation. The speaker described ‘transnationalism’ as a way of finding enough common ground with a host society without losing yourself as you were in your home society. In contrast, 'assimilation' involves giving yourself over to a new culture in order to create common ground, and losing yourself in the process.[4] Along similar terms, in his work Migration and Citizenship, Rainer Bauböck states that the word ‘integration’ refers to a “societal cohesion as well as to a process of inclusion of outsiders or newcomers” (Bauböck, 11), whereas the word ‘assimilation’ is defined as “a two-way process of interaction between given institutions of a society and those who gain access that will also result in changing the institutional frame-work” (Bauböck, 11). In Bauböck’s description of assimilation, the term only applies to interaction between those who have been granted citizenship and those who make the laws in the host country, and therefore a host of other immigrants without documentation are left out of the picture without a voice. Bauböck’s quote may suggest that, like Mohammed’s definition, those who assimilate to a society give themselves up to that societies ideals, even politically, in order to earn the right to elements of societal cohesion. On the other hand, Bauböck’s ‘integration’ can be equated with Mohammed’s ‘transnationalism’, and it is clear to see that the meaning of both of the terms uses a more global mindset to approach issues of migrants concerning human rights.
The transnational mindset and approach to citizenship is important to promote because it is clear to see that there is a lack of transnationalism among many nations who are host countries. Italy is an example of a country that is expecting all of its migrants to assimilate rather than adopt transnationalism. Italy has had issues with immigration as the country’s population becomes increasingly saturated with immigrants entering Europe from Northern and Western Africa through Italy (specifically at the point of Lampedusa, a small island near Africa off the coast of Sicily). The increase of immigrants in Italy is fostering hardening attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, which only makes the transnational process more difficult if not impossible. An Italian I interviewed in Venice said that: “immigrants are a huge problem here, they don’t have documents and they receive 1,000 euro a day from the government so they are expensive” (Toso).[5] In 2002 the “Bossi Fini” law declared that immigrants caught without residence permits would be accompanied to the border and expelled immediately; this amendment was stated among other increasingly harsh amendments to laws concerning immigrants in Italy. Many citizens and immigrants protested this law as violating Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights but the laws were passed nonetheless. In response to protests that requiring fingerprints of immigrants was excessively strict, the mayor of Treviso Giancarlo Gentilini replied: "What's the problem? I think we should take prints of their feet and noses too."[6] This is just one example of how receiving nations are tightening their restrictions on immigrants in a lack of a global and transnational mindset that specifically violates human rights. Additionally it lacks consideration of migrants fleeing war torn countries and other situations of duress where their ability to migrate is a question of life or death. Italy has a low birth rate and aging population, so it should embrace the presence of immigrants to support its labor force. The lack of a global mindset seen in the treatment towards Italian immigrants is detrimental to migrants’ ability to obtain freedom and mobility and fails to uphold modern understandings of a global society.
The adoption of a transnational mindset concerning citizenship is so imperative towards progressive modernity because the reality is that a transnational world is inescapable.
All of us are – from different positions but nevertheless inextricably – involved in the signification of nationality and ethnicity, because none of us are outside of a postcolonial capitalism that performs transnationally (Noack, 9).
In his work Noack implies that none of us are beside the globalization that creates the mixture of cultural and transnational footprints that thread our nationalities together. Borders become increasingly fluid through scientific and technological advancements, and thus nations cannot avoid adopting a transnational mindset. Understanding concepts of transnationalism is ultimately the powerful beginning to building a stronger nation with global understandings of citizenship. “A normative version of citizenship embodies values and action.” (Riva, 694). To be a good citizen is to do more than have concern for one’s own territory, it is to go beyond caring for the people that are “like us”. To be a good citizen is to be a global citizen, and that means first recognizing who does and does not have agency, and then stepping into the public sphere to take action for those who do not. To be a good citizen, a global citizen, a transnational citizen, is to treat all people, as deserving of human rights. To push away undocumented migrants and refugees is unfeasible and counter productive in a modern world.
I end my paper with a look into the book The Butterfly’s Burden, written by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. When speaking about the poet’s novel a journalist from The Guardian defines the author’s work by stating: “the tensions between difference and similarity are neither articulated nor explained but entered into” (Sampson). Darwish lays out an abstract representation of topics related to foreigners in his work and specifically in the following excerpt from If I Were Another:
Awaken the guitar
and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts
the traveler to test gravity. I am only
my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.
Through layers of meaning, this fraction of the poem embraces the still abstract concept of transnationalism. The symbolism in this poem illuminates the relationship between foreignness and opportunities/rights. I will use the symbols in this poem to explain why the poet’s verses support my thesis of a need for a more transnational form of citizenship; to do this I will first explain my interpretation of the poems phrases:
“Awaken the guitar” – the ‘guitar’ as a symbol of creativity – this phrase lends itself to the call for the creation of a “song” that will rewrite citizenship and the way foreigners are treated
“The unknown and the route that tempts” – a transnational citizenship is the ‘unknown’ and it is a frightening concept because it means losing the bound senses of territorial nationality that was so widely accepted in the 19th and 20th centuries
“Test Gravity” – to test gravity as taking a risk into unknown territory, as in to leave behind the territorial instincts that lead us to fear the other - or to deny integration of the other
“I am only my steps” – ‘steps’ as actions, thus we are the action the take in the world
“You are both my compass and my chasm” – “you” as the foreigner in this poem, or the other, thus the foreigner can provide guidance or peril, the foreign is both a ‘compass’ and a ‘chasm’; an example of the foreign as a compass could be - if the nation that is accepting a migrant grants that foreigner citizenship or asylum, then their life course is changed forever and replenished with the opportunities and rights that accompany political forms of recognition such as citizenship
Darwish’s poem illustrates that in order to write a transnational future, we must lose our fear of the other, and we must work with foreigners, so that they may be our compass and not our chasm. A transnational mindset is not just an understanding of a cosmopolitan world but also an understanding of who has agency and who doesn’t. Countries with global agency should do something about those who have none. This adoption of the transnational mindset, this “testing of gravity”, this is what it means to be a global citizen.
Notes:
[1]Information on laws and regulation taken from Fortress Italy
Vice News. "Fortress Italia (Full Length)." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPipuzDqPpM
[2] Bauböck, Rainer. Migration and Citizenship: Legal Status, Rights and Political Participation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
[3]Arendt, Men in Dark Times, p.22.
[4]Mohammed, Dima. "“Discussing the Move: Personal Reflections”." Mobility Symposium. Wake Forest University. Casa Artom , Venice, Italy. 10 Oct. 2014. Lecture.
[5] Davide Toso - Toso, Davide. "Italian Citizenship." Personal interview. 23 Sept. 2014
[6] (ERRC, La Rebubblica)
Works Cited:
Alighieri, Dante, and John D. Sinclair. The Divine Comedy, Volume 3. Oxford: Oxford UP, USA, 1961. Print.
Arendt, Hannah. Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968. Print.
Bagozzi, Fabrizzia. "Immigrati, Oggi L." Europa Quotidiano. 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.europaquotidiano.it/2014/10/30/immigrati-oggi-litalia-e-piu-vicina-alleuropa/>.
Bauböck, Rainer. Migration and Citizenship: Legal Status, Rights and Political Participation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
Beasley Von Burg, Alessandra. "Toward a Rhetorical Cosmopolitanism: Stoics, Kant, and the Challenges of European Integration." Advances in the History of Rhetoric 14.1 (2011): 114-28.
Cairns, Stephen. "Agency." arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 13.2 (2009): 105-8. http://journals.cambridge.org.go.libproxy.wakehealth.edu/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6582856&fileId=S1359135509990182
Darwish, Mahmoud, and Fady Joudah. "If I Were Another." The Butterfly's Burden. Vol. Bilingual Edition (August 1, 2006). Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon, 2006. Print.
Mohammed, Dima. "“Discussing the Move: Personal Reflections”." Mobility Symposium. Wake Forest University. Casa Artom, Venice, Italy. 10 Oct. 2014. Lecture.
Docs Online. "African Immigrants in Italy." YouTube. YouTube, 11 Aug. 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0RDdJyd-hg
Donati, Sabina, and Ebooks Corporation. A Political History of National Citizenship and Identity in Italy, 1861-1950. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2013.
Faist, Thomas. Dual Citizenship in Europe: From Nationhood to Societal Integration. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2007.
"Harsh Immigration Law Passed in Italy." La Repubblica 7 Nov. 2002. Web. <http://www.errc.org/article/harsh-immigration-law-passed-in-italy/1598>.
Jewkes, Stephen. "Italy's Immigration Quandary." (2001). Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities. Web. <http://search.proquest.com.go.libproxy.wakehealth.edu/docview/222957329?pq-origsite=summon>.
Kastoryano, Riva. "Citizenship, Nationhood, and Non-Territoriality: Transnational Participation in Europe." PS: Political Science and Politics 38.4 (2005): 693-6. http://journals.cambridge.org.go.libproxy.wakehealth.edu/download.php?file=%2FPSC%2FPSC38_04%2FS1049096505050365a.pdf&code=9bdeff5bc1593273f111c69b82140018
Lakhous, Amara, and Ann Goldstein. Clash of Civilizations in an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio. New York, NY: Europa Editions, 2006. Print.
Noack, Ruth, ed. Agency, Ambivalence, Analysis: Approaching the Museum with Migration in Mind. Milano: Politecnico Di Milano, 2013. 9. Web. http://www.mela-project.eu/upl/cms/attach/20130708/172725825_1912.pdf
"Refugee and Asylum Seeker Populations by Country of Origin and Destination, 2000-12." Migrationpolicy.org. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/refugee-and-asylum-seeker-populations-country-origin-and-destination>.
"Roma Rights 1 2014: Going Nowhere? Western Balkan Roma and EU Visa Liberalisation." - ERRC.org. Web. 1 Dec. 2014. <http://www.errc.org/article/roma-rights-1-2014-going-nowhere-western-balkan-roma-and-eu-visa-liberalisation/4325>.
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1978. 1-28;201-208; 284-293; 321-328. Print.
Sampson, Fiona. "The Butterfly's Burden." The Guardian 8 Dec. 2007. Web. 5 Dec. 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/dec/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview1
Toso, Davide. "Italian Citizenship." Personal interview. 23 Sept. 2014
Vice News. "Fortress Italia (Full Length)." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPipuzDqPpM
Zizek, Slavoj. Welcome to the Desert of the Real!. London: Verso, 2002. 32-57. Print.
"5.2 Million Legal Immigrants Live in Italy." GazzettaDelSud. Gazzetta Del Sud Online, 13 Nov. 2013. Web. 3 Dec. 2014. <http://www.gazze
December 5, 2014
“Now say, would it be worse for man on earth if he were not a citizen?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and here I ask for no proof.” (Alighieri, 24)
– Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri was no doubt one of the most prominent literary and philosophical figures in Italy, and he was definitely right about one thing: the world is a better place when one is a citizen. Citizenship is the basis of our civil rights in the world, and perhaps most importantly our pass to freedom of mobility. But why should something that is so monumentally important to one’s life be left at the hands of political cultures with territorial values and nationalist goals at heart? Why, if citizenship makes earth a better place as Dante claims, should it not be afforded to all human beings, based on humanitarian justifications? The question of citizenship is monumentally important when discussing the rights of migrants. Immigration throughout the world and the lack of rights afforded to undocumented immigrants causes huge issues for many nations, specifically within the European Union. While many people in the 21st century see large amounts of immigration as a threat to a society’s social solidarity and geographic, political, and economic stability, they overlook concepts of a rapidly changing global world that implore the mixing of cultures into a transnational modernity. I make the argument that in order to combat issues surrounding migrants, specifically undocumented immigrants, it is important to develop transnational mindsets that are incorporated in citizenship laws and rights. Basic human rights and acceptance of others should be afforded to all people: citizens, residents, visitors, and refugees alike.
It is notable that some of the most important factors that lead to problems with citizenship are immigration and the incorporation of migrants into a nation. But it is essential to question what happens when a migrant is denied citizenship? Is denied asylum? Is denied acceptance? This calls into question the role that migrants play in a foreign society or lack thereof. Some examples of the lack of agency that is experienced by undocumented immigrants can by traced in the laws that restrict their rights of mobility, citizenship, civil rights, and political role among other things. Ultimately, binding laws and restrictions extended towards refugees strip migrants of a multi-national identity that could have been adopted with a proper integration into a new culture, specifically in the European Union. For example, the European Union Law prevents anyone seeking asylum from buying a train ticket or boarding a train. The Dublin Regulation states that migrants cannot leave the country where they first claimed asylum; thus many migrants who enter Europe through a country like Italy are stuck in that nation, often trapped in refugee camps or battles over documentation just to obtain a freedom of mobility.[1] International law states that nations have the right to determine their own regulations concerning citizenship and nationality, as long as their laws do not override rights of equality, racial discrimination, and the status of children and of refugees.[2] I argue that many European Union laws controlling migrant rights do not fall under these guidelines and are restricting the agency of certain people over others based on nationality, which is a violation of equality.
The lack of Agency experienced by refugees and undocumented immigrants is an issue that is often masked by the very discourse that we use on a daily basis to communicate. Many would argue that though languages connect the world, it is clear to see that languages are also binding. First of all, not knowing the language of the country of entry diminishes a refugee’s chance at understanding the social and more importantly political climate of that country, making it more difficult to obtain documents that lead to freedom and ultimately personal agency and the right to mobility. Additionally, even when one is communicating in their native language there are borders to the spoken and written word that inevitably effect our perceptions of the object of a language’s descriptions. Slovaj Zizek states that “we ‘feel free’ because one lacks the very language to articulate one’s unfreedom” (Zizek). This statement attests to the concept that many societies, specifically Western, do not even realize a lack of freedom or agency because they lack the discourse to understand or discuss this lacking. The first step towards building human rights for refugees and undocumented immigrants is to recognize this in discourse and begin to talk about it.
The ultimate realization that runs alongside with understandings of lack of agency among immigrants is that those with the freedom to agency collectively share the responsibility to act for people deprived of those rights. In her work, Hannah Arendt describes the concepts of two spaces in which we live our life, the ‘private sphere’, where one works and lives a personal life, and the ‘public sphere’, where one takes action. There is often a misconception, specifically among citizens who have been afforded many rights, that we all have access to this 'public sphere', and that it simply involves interaction with the general population as a whole, but this is a great fallacy. The 'public sphere', according to Arendt, is a space of action where someone has the agency to live a life they choose, articulate, and manifest his or her beliefs. It is important to understand that this acceptance in the public sphere is not a right that is afforded to all people, specifically refugees and undocumented immigrants in receiving countries, and this is something that needs specific attention in the realm of human and civil rights. Arendt states: “to what extent do we remain obligated to the world even when we have been expelled from it or have withdrawn from it?”[3] (Arendt, page 22). Arendt’s statement raises a question about how we define citizenship and the inclusion or abandonment of others. How can a society expect an immigrant to act as a citizen to that nation or sate when the immigrant is not accepted in their host country? I argue that there is a relationship between national identity and devotion to citizenship. If an immigrant does not feel included, or more importantly integrated, with the nation in which they are living, then that nation does not take form in their identity, and they cannot achieve a healthy citizenship mindset or civil relationship to the host culture. This is why I believe there is a necessity to take on a new definition of citizenship that migrates away from the strict concepts of territorialism and nationality, and works towards a cosmopolitan and transnational sense of citizenship.
The first step in achieving a transnational understanding of citizenship is to understand how the term relates to previous models of nationalism and geographic or cultural identity. Dima Mohammed, a researcher of multicultural backgrounds herself, describes transnationalism in comparison to assimilation. The speaker described ‘transnationalism’ as a way of finding enough common ground with a host society without losing yourself as you were in your home society. In contrast, 'assimilation' involves giving yourself over to a new culture in order to create common ground, and losing yourself in the process.[4] Along similar terms, in his work Migration and Citizenship, Rainer Bauböck states that the word ‘integration’ refers to a “societal cohesion as well as to a process of inclusion of outsiders or newcomers” (Bauböck, 11), whereas the word ‘assimilation’ is defined as “a two-way process of interaction between given institutions of a society and those who gain access that will also result in changing the institutional frame-work” (Bauböck, 11). In Bauböck’s description of assimilation, the term only applies to interaction between those who have been granted citizenship and those who make the laws in the host country, and therefore a host of other immigrants without documentation are left out of the picture without a voice. Bauböck’s quote may suggest that, like Mohammed’s definition, those who assimilate to a society give themselves up to that societies ideals, even politically, in order to earn the right to elements of societal cohesion. On the other hand, Bauböck’s ‘integration’ can be equated with Mohammed’s ‘transnationalism’, and it is clear to see that the meaning of both of the terms uses a more global mindset to approach issues of migrants concerning human rights.
The transnational mindset and approach to citizenship is important to promote because it is clear to see that there is a lack of transnationalism among many nations who are host countries. Italy is an example of a country that is expecting all of its migrants to assimilate rather than adopt transnationalism. Italy has had issues with immigration as the country’s population becomes increasingly saturated with immigrants entering Europe from Northern and Western Africa through Italy (specifically at the point of Lampedusa, a small island near Africa off the coast of Sicily). The increase of immigrants in Italy is fostering hardening attitudes towards undocumented immigrants, which only makes the transnational process more difficult if not impossible. An Italian I interviewed in Venice said that: “immigrants are a huge problem here, they don’t have documents and they receive 1,000 euro a day from the government so they are expensive” (Toso).[5] In 2002 the “Bossi Fini” law declared that immigrants caught without residence permits would be accompanied to the border and expelled immediately; this amendment was stated among other increasingly harsh amendments to laws concerning immigrants in Italy. Many citizens and immigrants protested this law as violating Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights but the laws were passed nonetheless. In response to protests that requiring fingerprints of immigrants was excessively strict, the mayor of Treviso Giancarlo Gentilini replied: "What's the problem? I think we should take prints of their feet and noses too."[6] This is just one example of how receiving nations are tightening their restrictions on immigrants in a lack of a global and transnational mindset that specifically violates human rights. Additionally it lacks consideration of migrants fleeing war torn countries and other situations of duress where their ability to migrate is a question of life or death. Italy has a low birth rate and aging population, so it should embrace the presence of immigrants to support its labor force. The lack of a global mindset seen in the treatment towards Italian immigrants is detrimental to migrants’ ability to obtain freedom and mobility and fails to uphold modern understandings of a global society.
The adoption of a transnational mindset concerning citizenship is so imperative towards progressive modernity because the reality is that a transnational world is inescapable.
All of us are – from different positions but nevertheless inextricably – involved in the signification of nationality and ethnicity, because none of us are outside of a postcolonial capitalism that performs transnationally (Noack, 9).
In his work Noack implies that none of us are beside the globalization that creates the mixture of cultural and transnational footprints that thread our nationalities together. Borders become increasingly fluid through scientific and technological advancements, and thus nations cannot avoid adopting a transnational mindset. Understanding concepts of transnationalism is ultimately the powerful beginning to building a stronger nation with global understandings of citizenship. “A normative version of citizenship embodies values and action.” (Riva, 694). To be a good citizen is to do more than have concern for one’s own territory, it is to go beyond caring for the people that are “like us”. To be a good citizen is to be a global citizen, and that means first recognizing who does and does not have agency, and then stepping into the public sphere to take action for those who do not. To be a good citizen, a global citizen, a transnational citizen, is to treat all people, as deserving of human rights. To push away undocumented migrants and refugees is unfeasible and counter productive in a modern world.
I end my paper with a look into the book The Butterfly’s Burden, written by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. When speaking about the poet’s novel a journalist from The Guardian defines the author’s work by stating: “the tensions between difference and similarity are neither articulated nor explained but entered into” (Sampson). Darwish lays out an abstract representation of topics related to foreigners in his work and specifically in the following excerpt from If I Were Another:
Awaken the guitar
and we might sense the unknown and the route that tempts
the traveler to test gravity. I am only
my steps, and you are both my compass and my chasm.
Through layers of meaning, this fraction of the poem embraces the still abstract concept of transnationalism. The symbolism in this poem illuminates the relationship between foreignness and opportunities/rights. I will use the symbols in this poem to explain why the poet’s verses support my thesis of a need for a more transnational form of citizenship; to do this I will first explain my interpretation of the poems phrases:
“Awaken the guitar” – the ‘guitar’ as a symbol of creativity – this phrase lends itself to the call for the creation of a “song” that will rewrite citizenship and the way foreigners are treated
“The unknown and the route that tempts” – a transnational citizenship is the ‘unknown’ and it is a frightening concept because it means losing the bound senses of territorial nationality that was so widely accepted in the 19th and 20th centuries
“Test Gravity” – to test gravity as taking a risk into unknown territory, as in to leave behind the territorial instincts that lead us to fear the other - or to deny integration of the other
“I am only my steps” – ‘steps’ as actions, thus we are the action the take in the world
“You are both my compass and my chasm” – “you” as the foreigner in this poem, or the other, thus the foreigner can provide guidance or peril, the foreign is both a ‘compass’ and a ‘chasm’; an example of the foreign as a compass could be - if the nation that is accepting a migrant grants that foreigner citizenship or asylum, then their life course is changed forever and replenished with the opportunities and rights that accompany political forms of recognition such as citizenship
Darwish’s poem illustrates that in order to write a transnational future, we must lose our fear of the other, and we must work with foreigners, so that they may be our compass and not our chasm. A transnational mindset is not just an understanding of a cosmopolitan world but also an understanding of who has agency and who doesn’t. Countries with global agency should do something about those who have none. This adoption of the transnational mindset, this “testing of gravity”, this is what it means to be a global citizen.
Notes:
[1]Information on laws and regulation taken from Fortress Italy
Vice News. "Fortress Italia (Full Length)." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Dec. 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPipuzDqPpM
[2] Bauböck, Rainer. Migration and Citizenship: Legal Status, Rights and Political Participation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
[3]Arendt, Men in Dark Times, p.22.
[4]Mohammed, Dima. "“Discussing the Move: Personal Reflections”." Mobility Symposium. Wake Forest University. Casa Artom , Venice, Italy. 10 Oct. 2014. Lecture.
[5] Davide Toso - Toso, Davide. "Italian Citizenship." Personal interview. 23 Sept. 2014
[6] (ERRC, La Rebubblica)
Works Cited:
Alighieri, Dante, and John D. Sinclair. The Divine Comedy, Volume 3. Oxford: Oxford UP, USA, 1961. Print.
Arendt, Hannah. Men in Dark Times. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968. Print.
Bagozzi, Fabrizzia. "Immigrati, Oggi L." Europa Quotidiano. 30 Oct. 2014. Web. 2 Dec. 2014. <http://www.europaquotidiano.it/2014/10/30/immigrati-oggi-litalia-e-piu-vicina-alleuropa/>.
Bauböck, Rainer. Migration and Citizenship: Legal Status, Rights and Political Participation. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006.
Beasley Von Burg, Alessandra. "Toward a Rhetorical Cosmopolitanism: Stoics, Kant, and the Challenges of European Integration." Advances in the History of Rhetoric 14.1 (2011): 114-28.
Cairns, Stephen. "Agency." arq: Architectural Research Quarterly 13.2 (2009): 105-8. http://journals.cambridge.org.go.libproxy.wakehealth.edu/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=6582856&fileId=S1359135509990182
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