How Much is Enough?

Give people enough rope and they'll hang themselves. Or, if they're really intent on the matter at hand, they can hang you. Not you per se, not the material you, but what you represent and hold dear if they take issue with your values. If you're tolerantly generous-minded and don't mind too much bending over backward now and again with the intent of giving a little to achieve the larger purpose of peace between dissenters, you may pay for it.

Let's look at immigration for example. As good an example as any, since that's the purpose of this discussion. People will emigrate from their country of origin for distinct reasons; they're unhappy with the opportunities for economic success in a depressed or non-existent economy, they've been persecuted as minorities, they reject outright the social or political system of their birth countries and determine to leave.

On qualifying for entry as immigrants to a new country they have an obligation as new residents and eventually citizens, to accept the overall societal values expressed by their adopted country, just as they accept the very social values that gain them the freedoms that their rejected country denied them. On moving to a new country in another geography with other values the immigrant should feel motivated to become integrated if for little other reason than gratitude to the receiving country.

All the more so if the receiving country was originally identified as a place of refuge, a country which offered freedom from persecution, freedom to practise their religion, freedom of association, of ideology. That guarantee of freedoms also obligates the newcomer to respect the freedoms equally guaranteed to others. The universal laws and protections guaranteed to all are not a matter of choice.

The obligations that rest with citizenship are no less to be recognized and acted upon as the obligations that the state has toward its citizens. Once accepted into a new country should immigrants agitate against social mores and practises that offend their views shaped in another culture and another tradition? Should religious observance of one group be given ascendancy over secular laws enacted for the well-being of the whole?

In a tolerant country like Canada much of the population extends a real effort to ensure that all of its parts feel equally at home and protected under the law. Efforts are made at the municipal, provincial and federal level to ease certain restrictions so that offence will not be taken by vocal minorities who, having found their voice and having discovered that they have clout, sometimes begin to demand too much of their host country.

It's the other way around; all the citizens of the country, regardless of origin have a responsibility and a duty to practise their personal beliefs within the umbrella of protections that the country provides. All are viewed as equal among equals, in an egalitarian society. Customs that were deemed normal and acceptable in the country of origin, however, that run counter to those deemed normal and acceptable in the new country should be left behind where they belong.

Customs and mannerisms demeaning or degrading to gender, sexual orientation, other religions or popular culture should be either dropped or confined to the privacy of one's home. Unless they involve physically damaging children like the practise of infibulation, or inculcating in one's children hatred for other minorities. Canadian citizenship should not be taken lightly, it confers an obligation upon the holder to be respectful of the laws of the land and the rights of others.

When citizenship is treated as a lifestyle-enhancing add-on for individuals who decide that Canada may offer benefits additional to those which they found in their original countries yet another dimension is added. To hold Canadian citizenship cannot be seen as a lifestyle convenience like purchasing a second, summer residence like a lakeside cottage for fuller enjoyment of life.

Transient citizenship which still entitles the passport-holder to paid-for medical and hospital care, and a refuge when things begin to look dicey in their other country of residence identifies people as quasi-citizens without a real obligation to the country. Dual citizenship-holders who celebrate the practical utility of being able to make the choice, when the stars are aligned, of one or the other as it suits them, insult Canada and Canadian citizenship.

"Citizenship, whether through birth or naturalization, implies belonging. It implies a basic commitment of intellectual and emotional loyalty. It is a thing of value. And yet, in recent years the diminishing value of Canadian citizenship - the creation of the hyphenated Canadian with divided loyalties, the perception that immigration policy now permits the rich to buy their way into the country, the idea that citizenship is a matter of rights and not of obligations - means that the opposite has also come to be true.

"Few passports are safer than a Canadian one; it opens borders and doors...it carries no legacy of political or colonial resentment. For many people, as a result, Canadian citizenship merely means access to a passport that allows return to the (dis)comforts of the former or ancestral homeland with the assurance of safe haven should plans go awry, or should political instability necessitate flight." Neil Bissoondath