Dual Citizenship

I find myself substantially in agreement with J. Kelly Nestruck on Dual Citizenship and it is not because he is a critic and I am an emerging playwright. Goodness, no.

I was born in Scotland and came to Canada (on a DC-3) at the age of five weeks. I reached the age of sixteen completely unaware that I was not Canadian but in fact British. It was only when we were about to return to Scotland for a vacation that we discovered the misconception. We hastily applied for my citizenship but there was not enough time to get a passport based on it. So I applied for a British passport. And a formidable thing it was at that time, with its stiff dark blue cover, the crest in gold, and the threatening language inside, commanding in the name of her Majesty any foreigners who might impede my travels to hop it.

I met my wife. We went to Romania. In the bad old days. Both on Canadian passports. She had been required to renounce her Romanian citizenship when her family emigrated (and she was able to emigrate because her mother was German -- we have a photo of her stamped "Etnic"). When we tried to visit the country again (when conditions were very much worse) Isabella was informed the law had changed: since she had left as a minor, the renunciation was invalid. But for a sum of $500 she could renounce it for good, or for just $80 she could elect to keep it. (The Romanian bureaucracy was ingenious at finding ways to extract funds from the most unexpected places.) Keeping her citizenship was hardly a bargain at this time, but she could not bring herself to give it up either, and so we did not go.

In the late eighties I was seized with the idea of working in England (because I could). I got a British passport and Isabella a certificate of Right of Abode. I worked in London for six months and then we lived in France for six months. I opened a bank account in France. "Monsieur Campbell est un European." said the clerk. I glowed with pride. Isabella, who speaks four European language, was the Canadian. In the village they referred to us as "le petit couple Americain".

It was on our return to Canada in the queue at immigration that I thought "Shit! I hope this works!" because I had not brought my Canadian passport. The immigration officer looked at my British passport and said with a note of triumph, "Ah hah! Where's your landed immigrant stamp?" I stammered that I was in fact Canadian but had been a year in the U.K. and had used my British passport while there. He seemed disappointed that I did not have a British accent and let me through.

And there. That's how I regard dual citizenship. As a convenience or a nuisance, as circumstances dictate, with some sentimental value. Indeed, I incline to the view that Canada and the United Kingdom (and Romania etc.) are different jurisdictions merely. And that the nation is a fantasy created by the state to perpetuate itself. Or rather, an exploitation of the natural affection people have for home.

At an audition workship for Yes or No! (notice how I worked that in? smooth, eh?) during a break, an actress, Neda was speaking in Arabic to Majdi, the director. She explained to me:

Neda: We are from the same country.

Majdi: No. You are from Syria. I am from Lebanon. They want to swallow us.

Neda: We speak the same language! We eat the same food!

Majdi: We like the Syrian people. But we don't like the regime.

Neda: Regime, regime! All over the world, who likes regime?