Saturday, February 1, 2014

Define "Passport"

Germany has been discussing dual citizenship in earnest for a good two decades and the new government wants to make it easier for immigrants and their children to hold dual citizenship.

The debate has been lively and weird, and an article by a German scholar in Die Welt fuels the arguments by claiming the plans are no more than a blind giveaway of citizenship.

Historically, to be a German citizen, one of your parents must have been German. This excluded children of immigrants, a situation that grew so bad that the government relented and put a "make your choice" system in place. Children of non-citizens were given the choice between their parents' citizenship and German citizenship as young adults.

Plans to extend this are being ridiculed as going from "being German" to "also German". "Germans' sense as a nation is broken", says the scholar author of the article, calling for greater "integration" of immigrants.

The reader comments in Die Welt support his views with the exception of one.

So, does Germany have a problem with diversity?

Yes, but not in the sense you'd first think.

We at the K-Landnews like to think that the immense pressure on immigrants is really a reflection of the fact that there has never been a German nation in the "legal theory" sense of the word.

What is a passport then?

A travel document the government can take away from you rendering you about as free as a cow in a feed lot?

A symbol of belonging to a bigger entity, a culture, a community of shared values and history?


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