My Prairie Gazette

Since the war in Lebanon the issue of double citizenship became a hot political topic. Simple minded citizens are able to raise only one kind of question: are you loyal to this country or to your “other” country?
I wish it was that simple.

You see, I was born in a country where my citizenship and “ethnicity” were not the same. In Europe in most languages the ethnic thing is defined by the word nationality… I know, for Anglo-Saxons it is confusing because in English nationality = citizenship. Not so in other parts of the word. Millions have in their ID (and in many government records) two rubrics: citizenship and (lacking a better word) ethnicity.
E.g. Czech citizen and ethnic German. Romanian citizen and ethnic Hungarian. Ukrainian citizen and ethnic Russian. And so on.

Now, I have left the country where they considered me a “stranger” (potential enemy) - however, by some administrative mistake, I am still a citizen of that country. I don’t have a passport anymore, but didn’t loose ever my citizenship. Then I moved to the country where I was supposed to belong - based on my ethnic background. Well, after about ten years I realized: I am again a foreigner, despite being able to speak the language without an accent. During those ten years spent there I became a citizen of my new country.

Finally, when I got totally fed up with the whole Eastern European circus - I came to Canada. I am a Canadian citizen. And I don’t even like to call myself “hyphenated” Canadian. It’s enough to be an invisible minority… with three citizenships. But I live here, I plan to die here, I work here, I blog here. Yes, my loyalty is here. I have never thought about “divided” or “double” loyalty until the media started this hysteria. More recently about Stephane Dion, the new leader of the Liberal Party.

To define where is one’s loyalty solely based on citizenship - it’s a tricky business. I wouldn’t go there.