Author: Autumn Coalwell
May 30, 2024
Abstract
The concepts of “citizenship” and “nationality” are perilous concepts that are used as tools to control and remove the rights of vulnerable populations and minority groups around the world. In many countries, citizenship and nationality are being used as weapons to create “stateless” classes of people, usually members of vulnerable ethnic and religious groups, to remove their rights to resources, movement, and employment. In many cases where statelessness exists, concepts of “us” and “them” have been established in a process known as “othering” to divide a population and determine who does and does not have access to rights and resources.
Citizenship determines who has a right to access resources and to remain within (or travel across) national borders. It also determines who has the legal rights and protections of the state in which they reside. As defined by Brittanica, nationality is “a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and language, and who usually live together in a particular country” or “the fact or status of being a member or citizen of a particular nation” (2024). Thus, the definitions for nationality and citizenship are easily confused, and often considered to be overlapping. The major difference between nationality and citizenship is the emphasis that nationality has on shared history, traditions, and language. Both citizenship and nationality are inherently exclusionary concepts used to control and remove people and populations considered to be “other.” Although Article 5 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a nationality” and that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality,” many modern political discussions fail to see citizenship and nationality as human rights issues. I will examine and discuss the background on “citizenship” and “nationality” and how these statuses do not afford adequate protections and rights.
I will review several examples of ways that citizenship can be misused to control ethnic minority groups through the process of “othering.” I will examine the situation of the Rohingya refugees of Myanmar, how the concept of “national races” in Myanmar has been used to remove their citizenship and rights, and their perilous status and livelihood in the Bangladesh refugee camps. I will be reviewing the lived experiences of one woman, Farida Begum, who, as of her interview in 2016, resided in the Nayapara Refugee Camp in Bangladesh for almost 24 years. I will briefly explore the issue of “statelessness” as witnessed in other countries, such as the situation in Kuwait, where the many classes of nationality have created a class of native “noncitizens” who lack access to the rights of citizenship or the protections of the state.
I will be using a qualitative text-based analysis to summarize and connect the experience of refugees experiencing “statelessness” with the national and international laws that have allowed these situations to arise. The reason that I have chosen a qualitative text-based analysis is that it will allow me to examine a wide range of experiences of individuals who have suffered from “statelessness” and how this has impacted them. In addition to this text-based analysis, I will be exploring the theory of “othering” and how that can act as a framework for understanding other issues with citizenship and nationality.
Migration, or the movement of people from one location or region to another, is not new; humans have been migrating since the beginning of time. The idea of nationality, however, is a relatively new concept in human history that has led to the disenfranchisement of vulnerable peoples and populations globally. The United Nations definition of “refugee” has long been considered too narrow of a definition to encompass the refugee crises that the world is witnessing in the modern day. Until we recognize that every individual has an international right to resources, employment, housing, and migration, we will continue to witness the creation of “stateless” classes of people caught between borders and without basic rights. We must examine our ideas of “nationality” and find a way to provide protections that transcend borders and do not force individuals to rely on the tenuous protections of the state.
Literature Review
In The Human Right to Citizenship (2022), Barbara von Rütte discusses international refugee status and the issues that come with it. As the author states, national citizenship determines who has a right to access resources and to remain within a country’s borders. It also determines who has the legal rights and protections of the state in which they reside. Therefore, citizenship is often used as an exclusionary process by which to control and remove people considered to be “other”. Although Article 5 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a nationality” and that “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality”, many modern political discussions fail to see citizenship as a human rights issue. As argued by Ulrike (2013), prior to 1993, the United Nations concept of “rights” solely focused on collective rights and not on the rights of the individual as an international citizen. After 1993, this view changed to include the “individual” rights of the citizen, but the implementation of this change has been a challenge. Kesby (2012) argues that, in the modern day, nationality “risks usurping humanity” (p.39) and that the concept of nationality is at risk of putting human rights solely in the hands of the nation-state. Kesby explains the difference between citizenship and nationality, and that, in theory, citizenship can be removed but nationality cannot. As Kesby states, “Nationality relates to legal membership of a state for inter-state purposes”. However, as we have witnessed in Myanmar, the right to nationality (and, thus, the right to legal national membership and inter-state travel) can be removed by the state. The author suggests that the international legal framework needs to be revised to consider nationality as a more dimensional set of rights including domestic and international legal status, political agency, and inclusion.
As discussed by Alam (2018), the Rohingya people are a clear example of the perilous nature of national citizenship. An ethnic minority in Myanmar, the Rohingya people have long been on the edge of citizenship and rights in a country with a complicated human rights track record. The Rohingya people are outliers from the largely Buddhist population of Myanmar in part due to their Islamic beliefs, despite having resided in the territory of Myanmar for hundreds of years. In the new constitution of 2008, the author notes that it became difficult, and maybe even impossible, for many Rohingya to claim citizenship in Myanmar (Alam, 2018). Indeed, the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, 2008) states that citizenship can only be gained if an individual was a citizen at the time that the constitution was enacted or if their parents were citizens. And, although the term “national race” is used 31 times in the 2008 constitution, the document fails to define what constitutes a “national race” in Myanmar.
As a result of the laws surrounding citizenship and national race, when conflict arose between the Rohingya population and the Buddhist majority population, the Rohingya were treated as “resident foreigners” and “migrants”, and it was recommended that they be removed from the country or handled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). However, the UNHCR does not have the authority to register refugees who are displaced domestically. This ability to remove citizenship from national-born citizens of ethnic minority groups illustrates the dangers inherent to modern-day citizenship (Alam, 2018).
Cheesman (2017) further discusses the root of Myanmar’s race conflict and the division of the people that has led to the ostracization of the Rohingya. “Taingyintha,” the country’s national race categorization system, has determined what ethnic groups are considered “national races” and worthy of full citizenship and protections within the country. The Rohingya people are one of the ethnic minorities that has been excluded from this system of national race, and thus they have been given, at best, second-class citizenship in their country of origin. In the process of developing their new laws around national race, the government of Myanmar classified the Rohingya people as “Bengali” people who were only residing in the territory of Myanmar. Thus, they would be excluded from any form of national citizenship. Regarding the taxonomic classification of different resident populations, the author states “taxonomy recommends itself for translating a political idea like national races into a truth regime for differentiation, domination and exclusion of populations.” This can be witnessed in other countries as well through the treatment of ethnic, religious, and migrant groups, and is an example of the ways that citizenship classification can be used to exclude vulnerable populations from accessing rights.
As another example of “statelessness,” Kohn (2011) discusses the citizenship classes of Kuwait and the resulting “statelessness” of many citizens. The Kuwaiti constitution recognizes multiple classes of citizens. Article 1 and Article 2 citizens, or “full” citizens, are those who were settled in Kuwait prior to 1920 and their descendants. Article 3 citizens are “foundlings” or abandoned children of unknown parentage, and Articles 4 and 5 allow for citizenship through naturalization. Although Kuwait is a signatory of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which bars countries from discriminating on the basis of ethnicity, discrimination still occurs at a national level. For example, Arabic-descent individuals receive preference for naturalization over other ethnic groups. With the recent revisions to the Nationality Act, a class of stateless people known as “bidoon” have lost their ability to access citizenship even though many of these groups have lived in the country for generations. This is another example of the way that citizenship and taxonomic classification of residents can be used as a method to exclude populations that are seen as “other” from the enjoyment of citizenship and human rights.
In contrast to these ideas, Cabot (2019) discusses the refugee experience in Greece alongside the plight of the Greek people. The overlapping refugee and economic crises in Greece have created a precarious situation for residents and migrants alike. The idea of “citizenship” is a gray area in this sense, as even native residents who hold citizenship are excluded from resources due to the economic situation. Individuals can be “internal refugees,” not due to displacement but because of the loss of rights and livelihood in their own country. Despite their economic woes, the Greek people continue to accept and welcome refugees, even when they are unable to fully care for their own people due to economic recession. Many of those who are recipients of aid are simultaneously involved in the distribution of aid. In these situations of precarity, citizens and noncitizens alike can become “brokers” of resources, such as with the social pharmacies and social clinics. The example of Greece illustrates the gray areas of citizenship: this gray area can help to provide support for those who fall outside its definition, but it can also fail to support those who fall within it.
Finally, it is important to discuss the global fallacy of foreign aid. A 2017 report by the US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics has calculated the amount of money flowing between wealthy “developed” and poor “developing” countries (Hickle, 2017). While it is commonplace to believe that developed nations are helping to fund the developing world, the reality is a stark contrast. While the developed world sends money to developing countries and funds development projects, they are taking far more from developing countries through interest payments, income on investments, and, primarily, through unrecorded capital flight. Companies that purchase from the Global South or produce in the Global South intentionally (and grossly) undervalue their resources and products to avoid paying taxes to developing countries. For every $1 of aid that developing countries receive, says Hickle, developing countries lose $24. “Poor countries don’t need charity. They need justice”.
Theoretical Framework and Methodology
In Historicizing Fear: Ignorance, Vilification, and Othering, Boyce and Chunnu discuss the theory of “othering,” how it contributes to the vulnerability and marginalization of groups, and how it is used as a political tool to instill fear and exclude marginalized groups from resources and rights. The concept of “othering” creates arbitrary concepts of “us” and “them,” typically founded on national origin, skin color, cultural practices, or religion. The authors use several examples to explore this theory of “othering,” both from recent history and more distantly.
In one example, the authors explore Donald Trump’s use of “othering” to play on the fears of white voters during the United States 2016 election. According to the authors, Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election signaled to conservative white voters that they were no longer the majority voters. The resulting fear that these voters had of the Obama presidency led to an increase in their fear of and hatred towards minority populations. Donald Trump was able to rally support by tapping into the far right and encouraging white voters to fear immigrants and people of color, painting them as perpetrators of violent crime and other illegal acts. Donald Trump used division, rather than unity, to compel voters. After building up this fear, he promised to find solutions and “Make America Great Again,” vowing that he was the only candidate who could do so. This resulted in his victory in the United States 2016 presidential election, an illustration of the power that “othering” can have in the political process. As stated by the authors, “Trump’s creation of the intimidating and even monstrous Other is not a single or isolated event but instead mirrors what is happening around the world, particularly in western and central Europe where majority white populations are told by right-wing politicians that their way of life is threatened by immigrants and nonwhites” (p.6).
Using a much earlier example to illustrate this concept, the authors discuss the Tang Dynasty of China. The Tang Dynasty ruled from 618-907 CE, during which time the majority of what is now China was united. However, the Han northerners viewed the southerners with a level of fear and disdain, illustrating one of history’s first known examples of “othering.” The reason for the northerners’ fears of the indigenous southerners was rooted in their fear of southern China; this region of China, subtropical Guangzhou, was viewed as a wild and dangerous territory. This region also contained diseases that the northerners had no immunity to. Thus, the Han people began to view the indigenous people of Guangzhou as wild, dangerous, demonic, and diseased. The authors explain how the increase in immigration from the north to the south and the assimilation of the indigenous peoples helped to break up and dispel this idea of otherness.
In subsequent chapters, the authors discuss how other actors, such as the media and musicians, can promote concepts of “otherness” and stoke fears against these othered groups. The theory of otherness is represented pervasively throughout human history as a tool to exclude specific groups of people from resources, rights, and society. I will be using qualitative data through an analysis of the experience of a Rohingya refugee to further explore this theory of “otherness” and the impacts, both short and long term, that it can have on vulnerable communities, and how this concept of otherness ties into the inherently perilous nature of national citizenship.
Case Analysis
For my case analysis, I began by reviewing the experience of a Rohingya woman named Farida, as discussed in the novel Human Flow: Stories from the Global Refugee Crisis (Weiwei et al, 2020). Farida is from Myanmar, but as of her interview in 2016, she had been residing in the Nayapara refugee camp in Bangladesh for almost 24 years. During her interview, Farida expressed her gratitude to the Bangladeshi government for providing them with shelter and for the Bangladeshi people and police providing protection to the refugees. However, she stressed that, despite living in the camp for almost 24 years, she could see no future for her family there. “We want a lasting solution. We want to go back to our homeland with full citizenship, or to a place where we can live peacefully and get the same rights as other people in the world” (Weiwei et al. 348–349). Farida explained that, despite the provision of shelter in the camp, the refugees did not have rights or citizenship, access to jobs, or access to higher education or certification. Because of this, they were unable to truly continue or build lives. She also stated that it was difficult to make any money in the camps, even enough to purchase a cup of tea. This illustrates the challenges that refugees face globally and the dangers presented by the concept of citizenship. Refugees lack rights and protections from their countries of origin, and under international law, the rights afforded to them are very minimal and bare bones. Although refugee status may give them access to food, water, and shelter, it does not give them the social or political rights they need to build or continue their lives.
John McKissick of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the Nayapara camp revealed more about the refugee situation in Bangladesh. McKissick explained the camp living conditions as “overcrowded” and “miserable,” stating that the lack of jobs, space, resources, and education means that refugees have no meaningful livelihoods. This leads to increased violence, domestic violence, and even attempts to escape on boats to other countries in search of a better life. Many of these attempts at escape end in tragedy. Despite having shelter and protection, refugees cannot create a life in the camps, and there is a lack of international willpower for repatriation and resettlement of the refugees into safe countries (Weiwei et al, 2020).
In another interview, Abou Ahmad, a resident of Lebanon’s Shatila Refugee Camp, discusses the precarious nature of life in refugee camps. Abou’s family was expelled from Haifa in Palestine in 1948 and sought shelter in Lebanon, where they were placed in the Shatila Refugee Camp. Although things began well in the camp, Abou shares that, starting in 1975, the camp endured several massacres at the hands of the Syrian regime and Lebanese militants. As residents of a refugee camp, they had no rights, no weapons, and no one to protect them (Weiwei et al, 2020). As discussed by European Network on Statelessness (2022); European Union Agency for Asylum (2023); and Molavi (2020), the Palestinian people can be considered a “stateless” people, since many have been expelled from their homeland, their ability to travel or cross international borders has been severely restricted, and many countries no longer recognize their nationality.
Discussion and Implications
Through the analysis of existing literature and research, we have seen the perilous nature of the concept of "citizenship," and the ways that this concept can be narrowed and restricted to exclude individuals native to a region solely because of differences in culture, heritage, religion, and skin color. Citizenship determines who has the right to reside within borders, and who has access to jobs, resources, land, medical care, and the political process. However, citizenship is not a guarantee, even for those residing in their country of origin. This has been illustrated through examples from Myanmar and Kuwait, where the politics of national race have been used to recategorize citizenship and remove the basic rights from vulnerable populations, despite these populations having legally resided in their native region for many generations. As a result, we can conclude that race and religion have been used as barriers to the attainment or security of citizenship for vulnerable populations. As we have discussed, this is a form of “othering,” which is a process of creating arbitrary concepts of “us” and “them” founded on national origin, skin color, cultural practices, religion, and other factors.
We have explored the theory of "othering" and how it explains the perilous nature of citizenship. In examples from around the world and throughout history, we can witness the effects of "othering" as a tool to disenfranchise and exclude individuals from rights, resources, politics, and community. In fact, the process of “othering” has been a very successful political strategy in many senses. In a prominent example, Donald Trump recently used this strategy, playing on the fears of white conservative voters, to win the 2016 election. This stoking of the fears of the majority works to create a heightened sense of danger that causes them to fear and exclude minority groups. This was the same tactic that Adolf Hitler used in Nazi Germany to disenfranchise the Jewish people, the same tactic used to justify slavery, and the same tactic used to justify the assimilation and genocide of indigenous groups in the United States. Politicians are not the only ones who use “othering,” however. The media, interest groups, and individuals who have wealth and fame have all used “othering” to gain views, profit, and attention. In many cases of “othering,” the conditions that vulnerable populations live in are ascribed to their image in the general population, as we have seen in the example of the Guangzhou people during the Tang Dynasty in China. We can also witness this effect in the United States: Many politicians and members of the media prefer to display migrants as dangerous or unclean. In reality, it is not migrants that are dangerous or unclean, but the conditions that we have placed upon them through the removal of safe migration routes and processes. Although many in the United States make it sound like refugees can simply walk across the border, that is not the reality. The process for being accepted as a refugee is long and arduous, and only a very small percentage of refugees are actually accepted into the United States.
Finally, we have examined the case study of Farida, a Rohingya refugee from Myanmar, to see the implications and results of “othering” in practice. The government of Myanmar has created a refugee crisis through the disenfranchisement and attacks on the Rohingya people, an ethnic group that has resided within the borders of Myanmar for generations. Due to the differences in religion between the Rohingya minority and the Buddhist majority, the government of Myanmar has constructed legal classifications of national race to exclude the Rohingya and other minority groups from citizenship. Further, the government of Myanmar has initiated attacks on the Rohingya people which has led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people, many of whom now reside in refugee camps in Bangladesh. As Farida explains in her interview (Weiwei et al, 2020) the residents of the refugee camps have no future in the camps. They do not have access to jobs, advanced medical care, higher education, training, or certification. Their homes are makeshift shelters that have plastic sheets for roofs. These camps were not intended to be long-term solutions, but they have now been open for over two decades due to the humanitarian crisis and conflict within Myanmar’s borders. Although refugee status may give them access to food, water, and shelter, it does not give them the social or political rights they need to build or continue their lives. Further, the story of Abou shares the perilous nature inherent to life as a refugee and the lack of rights and protections that they face (Weiwei et al, 2020).
As a first step, we must implement changes to humanitarian work processes to ensure that the voices of the people in refugee camps and humanitarian crises are being heard and that humanitarian processes are supporting, not depreciating, their rights. We need to find ways to pass international laws that will hold governments accountable for valuing the lives of soldiers over non-combatants, and work to create strong protections for civilians in times of war that can actually be enforced.
We also need to change our focus from the creation of refugee camps to an international commitment to the voluntary resettlement of refugees. This means that we should be finding safe and permanent resettlement options for all refugees who would like to be resettled rather than forcing them to live indefinitely in overcrowded refugee camps. Before we are citizens, we are all humans. Under this concept, the protection of refugees is the responsibility of every nation, and by committing to the voluntary resettlement of other countries’ refugees we can form stronger connections to help improve global conditions. To implement this, I propose that we conduct an international study to determine how many refugees each United Nations member state would be capable of accepting and resettling (based on the country’s resources, land, and employment availability). Based on that number, we could determine what percentage of refugees should be welcomed into each country. These new repatriation processes would need to be closely monitored to ensure the safety and well-being of refugees in their host countries.
Finally, Western nations and other former imperial nations must take responsibility for their role in refugee crises. Imperialism and colonization are at the root of many of today’s refugee and humanitarian crises, and corporate greed continues to destabilize and increase poverty levels in countries in the global south. It will require a sustained and coordinated global effort to prevent refugee crises from happening in the first place through the prevention and prosecution of global corruption and the prioritization and enforcement of human rights.
Conclusion
Migration is a process as old as the human race itself. However, the idea of nationality and citizenship are relatively new concepts in human history. In this paper, we have reviewed the ways that citizenship, nationality, and othering can (and have been) used as barriers to human rights.
The United Nations’ definition of “refugee” is not only too narrow in definition, but it fails to provide sufficient solutions to refugee crises. We have witnessed the creation of “stateless” peoples who are lacking the basic rights and protections afforded to citizens. These “stateless” populations are typically labeled migrants or refugees, but even “citizens” under their own national definition can experience a deprivation of rights and protections under the state.
We must examine our ideas of “nationality” and find a way to provide protections that transcend borders and do not force individuals to rely on the tenuous protections of the state. We need to change our focus from the creation of refugee camps to an international agreement to voluntary resettlement of all refugees. Accepting refugees is the responsibility of every nation, and by committing to the voluntary resettlement of refugees we can form stronger connections and ensure that in our own time of crisis, other countries would be willing to support in return.
We also need to improve conditions in refugee camps and create processes that allow refugees to have a political voice and work towards improving their living conditions until they can safely return home or be repatriated. Finally, we must revise and expand our definition of refugee to cover a wider variety of humanitarian situations and help to prevent the exclusion of national and international rights.
Glossary
Bidoon – In Arabic, this word means “without nationality.” This term is used to refer to a stateless people of Kuwait whose ancestors were not considered citizens at the time of the country’s independence. Bidoon are classified as illegal residents by the government of Kuwait, even though many bidoon families have lived in Kuwait for generations and have no ties to other countries (Minority Rights Group, 2023).
Broker - A person who acts as an intermediary to buy and sell goods or assets for others.
Capital flight – When large amounts of capital (money) or assets (resources) are removed from a country and brought to another country. This typically results in a profit gain for the receiving country and a profit loss for the country of origin.
Citizenship - The particular legal bond between an individual and their State, acquired by birth or naturalization, whether by declaration, choice, marriage or other means according to national legislation (European Commission, n.d.). Many sources also connect citizenship with the right to reside in a country and take part in political processes.
Disenfranchise – to deprive a person of the rights and privileges provided to free inhabitants of a nation-state.
Fallacy – A mistaken belief based on unsound judgement.
Marginalization – Treatment of a person or group of people as insignificant or powerless.
Migration – Movement from one location to another, often (but not always) across national borders.
Nationality – Noted as “a group of people who share the same history, traditions, and language, and who usually live together in a particular country” / “the fact or status of being a member or citizen of a particular nation” (Brittanica, 2024).
Nation-state – A sovereign territory, typically with inhabitants who share culture, history, and language.
Naturalization – The process by which non-citizens can become citizens of a nation-state / The admittance of a foreigner to a status of citizenship.
Ostracization – To exclude a person from a society or a group.
Othering – The creation of concepts of “us” and “them” to exclude vulnerable populations from rights and resources afforded to the general population.
Refugee – “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion” (UNHCR, n.d.).
Repatriation – To return a person to their country of origin.
Resettlement – The movement of people to a second or third country that has agreed to admit them and allow them residency.
Resident foreigners – aka “Resident alien”, a person who is not a citizen or national of the country in which they reside.
Rohingya – A member of a Muslim ethnic group inhabiting Western Myanmar.
Statelessness – Lacking the rights and protections of nation-state membership.
Taingyintha – Concept of “national race” that has been introduced in Myanmar to determine which residents have the rights and protections of the nation-state.
Taxonomic classification (in relation to social studies) – The practice of grouping people into hierarchical categories of classification.
Vulnerable populations – Populations that are at risk of persecution, social disadvantage, and/or poor treatment due to their ethnicity, religion, gender, citizenship status, and other stigmatizing factors.
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