Kim Rubenstein and Danny Ben Moshe
February 26, 2013
There is no reason why migrants cannot faithfully maintain dual citizenship.
Illustration: John Spooner.
It is staggering that with one albeit very serious case overseas, that of the Ben Zygier suicide, Ben Saul (The Age, 20/2/13) wants to turn back the clock of globalisation and multiculturalism. In so doing he demonstrates profound ignorance of the reality of the contemporary migrant experience and normative global legal practice around citizenship.
The essence of his argument is that for Jews in particular, although this may extend to other migrants, any shared loyalty with another country is contradictory, nothing less than a ''betrayal'' of Australia, with all the sinister implications this infers.
Once upon a time migrants left their old countries and severed ties with their homelands, but today with cheaper and more frequent travel and communication that facilitates and defines what we have come to know as globalisation, migrants maintain ties with the countries they came from.
This is also part of a process known as trans-nationalism. It is not the preserve of the Jewish community in Australia; it is something governments such as Australia and organisations like the World Bank and United Nations encourage because it facilitates bilateral trade, investment, cultural exchange and public diplomacy.
We need look no further than the Australian Diaspora to work this out. There are 1 million Australians living overseas. Is Saul arguing that they should sever affiliation with their Australian identity and heritage? Should they surrender their passports in demonstrations of loyalty to the UK, America, China or wherever else they reside? Or should they add to global cultural exchange by maintaining and expressing their dual identities overseas?
The problem with Saul's argument is that he takes the Zygier case to not only tarnish the entire Jewish community by invoking classical anti-Semitic allegations of divided loyalty and the enemy within, but he ignores the fact that in our globalised world with transnational identities, multiple citizenship - holding more than one passport - is increasingly the norm.
There is no contradiction in this reality with democracy and human rights, evident by the growth of acceptance of dual citizenship around the world and Australia adopting new laws allowing for dual citizenship in 2002.
The fundamental flaw in Saul's argument is his assertion that having a relationship with two countries (whether it be Kiwis in Australia with our neighbours across the Tasman, or Jews in Israel) is about making a choice between them, rather than being able to balance and maintain both, which is what trans-nationalism and our global village allows, encourages and thrives on.
Of course there are differences for Australia's relationship with New Zealand to Israel and her neighbours. Saul refers to Israel killing scientists in neighbouring countries. Australian security agencies are less concerned about close to completion attempts of New Zealand, New Caledonia or Papua New Guinea to develop nuclear weapons at the behest of their leaders who have explicitly called for Australia to be destroyed.
The failure of Saul's argument, and the great offence it causes many Jews, is that for the overwhelming majority of Australian Jews, irrespective of whether they agree or not with specific policies of the Israeli government, just as Australians agree or disagree with policies of their government, identification with Israel as their cultural and spiritual homeland is part of being a Jew. As it has been for millennia.
For want of a better analogy, it's like telling overseas Australians they can't identify with or support their footy teams any more. Disconcertingly, Saul invokes rationale espoused from darker periods of history calling on this boundary to be imposed because fundamentally the loyalty of Jews cannot be trusted.
Saul's claim that ''there comes a point where a Jewish person cannot faithfully be both Australian and Israeli. One has to choose'' is fundamentally wrong. While Pauline Hanson tried to revive such sentiments towards Asians and other migrants in the 1990s, this is an archaic notion and today's migrants in Australia and migrants all around the world have multiple identities that coexist and are balanced. Saul's view of citizenship is like marriage - you can only have one life partner.
Countries all around the world are acknowledging that citizenship is more like parenthood - you can have more than one child without that undermining your commitment to them, and we are all the richer for it.
Danny Ben Moshe is an associate professor specialising in trans-nationalism at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University, and Kim Rubenstein is a professor of law specialising in citizenship at the Australian National University.
