Many people in the modern world have several passports at once
Entering Arab countries with an Israeli passport will, of course, still be at least difficult, but for these purposes you can get some other passport. Fortunately, in many countries in recent years this procedure has become less burdensome.
While in Russia the best minds led by Nikita Mikhalkov are inventing rituals of oath to the motherland, British citizens dissatisfied with Brexit are studying the prospects of obtaining a passport of some European country. For example, Estonia, which willingly grants citizenship rights to serious investors in its economy.
Can love for the motherland be measured by the number of passports? And is a passport turning into an ordinary commodity, an object of purchase and sale? Observer BBC Mikhail Smotryaev asked Oxana Morgunova, a research fellow at the International Institute for Migration and Gender Issues, about this.
– I think the times when love for the motherland was expressed in a passport are reflected only in Mayakovsky: “I pull out from my wide trousers…” It seems to me that the document itself, like the stamp in a passport about marriage, for example, also means nothing. We are interested in the set of obligations and opportunities provided to us by the state with which we enter into a civil contract. We enter into this contract either by birth or by voluntary choice.
In the first case, we were born in one country or another, which tells us: you will live, work, we will guarantee your human rights, your pensions (although now this is not always the case). In return, you, for example, will serve in the army, will not engage in illegal activities, and so on.
This is a civil contract, so I, frankly, do not really understand why this is made into a big event. The opportunity to conclude a second contract or change an existing one has existed for a very long time.
– That is wonderful, however, when concluding this contract, not only the state, but also, so to speak, the “passport holder” assumes certain obligations. Imagine that you have passports of two countries that happen to be in a state of military conflict. Having two passports, you have two sets of obligations that suddenly come into conflict with each other. What do you do?
– These obligations can indeed contradict each other. On the British passport, in particular, it is written that possession of this document does not release you from obligations to another country. And an Israeli passport will mean that you will go to serve in the army.
You see, there are obligations related to the economic situation, freedom of movement, and force majeure circumstances. So, military confrontation in the 21st century should still be considered force majeure.
I see neither bad nor good in this. This is how the world is developing. We have already said more than once that the nation-state is in a contradictory state. It cannot provide you with what you want – British pensioners, for example, go to live in Spain because they want sun, because in Britain, although there is free healthcare, people go to third countries for treatment because they do not want to wait years in line.
Such a paternalistic attitude of the state towards citizens, like, my children, I will take care of you, just be loyal to me, is practically no longer working anywhere.
– However, crisis is crisis, but it cannot be said that nation-states are leaving the stage, as optimists trumpeted about 20 years ago. The events of the last year or two rather confirm the opposite – the concept of the “nation-state” is again in demand.
– You know why? The same Brexit showed that there are huge groups of people who still hope that the state will provide them with the “guarantee ticket” it issued. Why anti-immigration sentiments, why Brexit, why nationalism? Because there is an idea that if we now get rid of those who bother us, then the state will again fulfill its obligations towards us, the beloved.
– Brexit, and in a broad sense, the political life in the “golden billion” countries in recent years, is a sign of clear nostalgia for the bygone century, when everything was simple and clear. But if a significant part of our fellow citizens wants to go back to the 19th century, we must also accept that in that era “citizens of the world” did not exist. Obligations to one country implied the absence of obligations to others.
– You know, this idea – that you have obligations to the country – is very late. It seems to us that they have always existed. In fact, there were obligations to the landowner, to a specific city. The nation is generally a very late association, it is the 19th century, it is an imagined community, when people, without meeting face to face, feel a certain commonality with each other. Therefore, arguments that this is, they say, a time-tested scheme that cannot be abandoned are incorrect.
– There are, however, many countries where the idea of a second passport is not welcomed by the state. Japan, for example.
– Also Lithuania, Latvia.
– Ukraine too. These countries, as it seems, declare their independence at the state level, perhaps overly aggressively, at least by the standards of the 21st century. True, at some point this passes.
– Yes, yes, I think so too. These are such “growing pains.” It is no coincidence that there is a special term for these countries: “nationalizing states.” That is, it is a kind of process of searching for themselves in which they are.
This is a rather complex thing, because in the logic of not having a second passport, arguments of "hold and not let go" may prevail, or there may be considerations of nationalism in the best sense of the word – preservation of traditions, culture, a manifestation of protective policy. After some time, everything will become more definite. Otherwise, it would turn out that what were we seeking independence for, if everyone suddenly decided that, in addition to loyalty to little Latvia, for example, they would also be loyal to some other state?
I would generally allow people to have even 120 passports, because if they have responsibility to 120 states, then the chances for peace on the planet are much higher. That's a joke, but there is something in it.
– Trends in recent years already allow us to talk about passports of Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, the Basque Country, and others. On the economic level, the world has long been global, even though everything is made in China, but on the emotional, and sometimes political level, the division into us and them sometimes takes on features of almost primitive communal system…
– The fact is that at the basis of this division still lies economic imperfection. And if this happens, it makes sense to look around and understand what exactly. Because if in Scotland, with an area of 85 thousand square kilometers and a population of 5 million people, the width of roads is calculated by the number of people traveling through that territory, then it will never have good roads if it does not become independent. This is me telling you, who is absolutely not a supporter of Scottish independence.
There are certain economic and social aspects, cultural aspects, for example, feeling like a second-class person, which underlie talks about secession and independence. For example, Brexit is a very provincial idea. It shows that a person thinks very narrowly, based on the very small life experience that their native street or village can allow them to acquire.