Symbolic eh?
Recent events brought up thoughts and questions on what it means to be a “citizen” of a country. Is it about a sense of belonging? Is it to escape unknown horrors? A few of us Canooks sat around over coffee and debated this.
First of all, we recommend everyone of any country, attend a citizenship ceremony; not only to see how government works, but more importantly to see the faces of the immigrants as they complete the last and final step in what is a very tedious process. In a room of a hundred would-be citizens, 13% of the world’s population was represented–that’s 25 countries! Staggering. As we looked at their faces, we wondered what kind of lives they left behind. Did they come to escape or to explore? Did they sacrifice everything?
Dressed up in formal pomp and display, a citizenship ceremony is a symbolic event to mark the transition from one life to another. A necessary rite of passage for some, an unthinkable proposition for others. For those who are citizens by default and who take it for granted everyday, we have to ask ourselves what would it mean coming from Sudan, Iraq, or even the USA? Perhaps they want certain freedoms, choice, democracy, or something less egalitarian such as being with someone they met online?
Certainly we can thump our chests and tout our rights and freedoms, but it means nothing until you can see it in the eyes of those who have made the journey; those who pursued the unknown–their smile says it all.