Josh Jackman writes:
“If you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means.”
If Theresa May is trying to appeal to Jews or young people, it’s not going well.
She may have been addressing “people in positions of power” who avoid paying taxes or fail to take care of their employees, but the assertion rang out with an underlying, broader meaning.
For the 75 per cent of millennials who voted Remain, for everyone who considers themselves a part of Europe and the Western world, for anyone who wants to travel and become ensconced in a different culture - the message is clear.
You are not a British citizen.
Not a true one, anyway. A true citizen wouldn’t want to experience foreign countries, wouldn’t want to take on board a variety of values, cuisine or ways of living and become a more interesting, understanding human.
No, you should stay in Britain. Limit yourself. Become entrenched in views that people close to you hold and don’t expand your worldview even a tiny bit.
You are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t belong here, in post-Brexit Britain, in this version of Britain where the Home Secretary wants firms to release lists of their foreign employees and the Prime Minister says foreign doctors will be working in the NHS for an “interim period”.
Take your foreign land-loving self to a foreign land, you, who appreciates and enjoys other cultures as well as the one they are attached to with a passport.
And what of Jews? The British Jewish community, like most Jewish communities, has a deep, traumatic history of immigration and mixed ancestry.
Like many of our readers, I have roots in central and eastern Europe, with a bit of Brazilian thrown in from when one side of my family escaped the Holocaust.
But May’s choice of phrase eliminates that painful but important history. It tells you to forget the cross-global routes your family took for safety, survival and prosperity.
Added to that is the community’s connection to Israel.
A citizen of the world is simply someone who feels at home in multiple cultures - like, say, Israel. An overwhelming 93 per cent of British Jews say Israel plays a part in their Jewish identity, and nearly three-quarters say it is an important or central part.
But if you are a citizen of the world, if you - like hundreds of Israel Tour or Gap Year participants do every year - discover you feel at home in Israel, then you might as well move there.
Because as far as May is concerned, you are a citizen of nowhere.
May’s statement was rank with the kind of isolationist, anti-globalisation feeling that has pervaded a populace which is frustrated and wants to lash out at something.
We’ve seen it take hold in the US, where around 40 per cent of the country is planning to vote for an actual, bona fide racist who says terrifying things about Muslims and Mexicans, and is loved by Jew-hating white supremacists.
If the emerging pattern of xenophobia continues to grow and spread through government-encouraged rhetoric, count me out.
Better a citizen of anywhere - or indeed, nowhere - than a xenophobic citizen.
Josh Jackman is a staff reporter for the JC
