So when Nathaniel Manheru chose to use my personal circumstances, albeit, for political expediency, to interrogate the issues related to identity and nationality, my initial reaction was to ignore the intrusion into my life, but then I thought of the implications of choosing to be silent when the lessons to be drawn from the debate are critical to the direction that Zimbabwe must take.
Column by Mutumwa Mawere
There are many questions that arise from Manheru’s provocation. These questions include: What is nationality? What is the difference between nationality and identity? What is statelessness?
By nationality, we mean the legal relationship between an individual human and a nation-state.
Identity encompasses the family name, the surname, date and place of birth, gender and also the nationality of the individual. Through these details, an individual will hold rights and obligations specific to their status (woman, man, child, handicapped, refugee, etc).
A person who chooses to establish a legal relationship with an adopted State does so because the choice confers some protection to the individual by the adopted state, and some obligations on the individual towards the State. Possession of citizenship is normally associated with the right to work and live in a country and to participate in political life.
Historically, nationality originated in an individual’s allegiance to a sovereign monarch that was seen pretty much in the same perspective as the one advanced by Manheru as a permanent, inherent, unchangeable condition.
This static and traditional concept of nationality evolved over time to a modern day construct that regards the assumption of nationality of another state as nothing to do with the rejection of the previous state. The progressive approach to nationality is informed by the doctrines of freedom and choice.
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Such an approach sees the change of allegiance for what it is and broadens the construction of citizenship to allow for non-exclusive relationship between the country of birth and the person.
Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a nationality”, and “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”. It is in the context of the right to change citizenship that we must concern ourselves in response to Manheru’s proposition that acquiring the nationality of a foreign state by a non-resident Zimbabwean represents renunciation of citizenship of birth.
The law of Zimbabwe deliberately presents no choice of renunciation to a person who voluntarily chooses to acquire the citizenship of a foreign state precisely because doing so would imply deprivation of citizenship prior to the person obtaining foreign nationality. Nationality does afford the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the State.
Citizenship does not change one’s physical identity, but its most common distinguishing feature is that citizens have the right to participate in the political life of the State, such as by voting or standing for election.
Although the term national can include citizens and non-citizens, the right to determine who is a national or not is vested in the state.
Zimbabwe has a nationality law that is informed by public international law and the reality is that foreign citizens are not allowed to participate in the political life of the country. The choice lies with the non- resident Zimbabwean individual who wishes to participate in Zimbabwe’s political life to return to the country and reassert the right to citizenship enshrined in the constitution. How to name our other fraction
Manheru makes the point that “then you have the whole issue of identity. Ordinarily, this should haunt you for all your life, stubbornly challenging your decision to be the other, your claims, juristic or otherwise, to any other person, any other culture, and any other identity other than what birth and upbringing conferred on you” forgetting that the true purpose of independence was to confer on citizens fundamental rights of freedom, choice and equality before the law.
In life, individuals make choices in the pursuit of happiness and the choice to participate in the political life of a society that one decides to live in is an affirmation of the rights entrenched in constitutions of any civilised country. To talk of being haunted by a decision made voluntarily is to miss the point. Electing to acquire the nationality of another State does not lead to any change in the identity of the person concerned to make valid the assertion by Manheru that acquiring foreign nationality represents a change of identity.
Manheru as a world traveller would be aware that every time he visits a foreign country and where immigration forms have to be completed, there is a provision for one to put not only the place but the date of birth. The place and date of birth form part of the identity of a person and to the extent that those variables do not change in life, the suggestion that acquiring foreign nationality changes one’s identity is preposterous.
Manheru, whose understanding of identity, citizenship and nationality is obviously limited, observed that “those who acquire new nationalities always resolve this paradox by calling themselves Britons of African descent” ignoring the fact that a person who is born black will always remain black notwithstanding the choices he or she may make in life.
Equally, white Africans will remain as such and when they do make choices to live in countries in which the majority of the people are white, there would be no basis for discriminating the person born in Africa and the person born in the adopted country. When I assert that Africa is my natural home and it gives me identity, I know what I mean.
Manheru chooses to see a self-created dilemma by stating that: “From Mawere’s piece, you get a distinct sense of an unresolved dilemma which may or may not be peculiar to him, but which may very easily raise a fundamental question for our émigré population” when in truth and fact no such dilemma could conceivably exist especially when regard is taken that the decision to depart from Zimbabwe is a consequence of exercising one’s constitutional right.
