This
week David Cameron announced the possible creation of powers to
cancel the passports for up to two years of UK nationals who travel
abroad to fight for the Islamic State. The measures are designed to
counter the 'existential threat' posed to Britain by 'extremists'.
Civil liberties campaigners have accused the Government of 'dumping
suspect citizens like toxic waste', because the plans would
effectively make people stateless by stripping them of their
citizenship.
If
you're interested in freedom and equality then there are plenty of
arguments against this proposal. For me, what's most sickening about
it is it's such a blatant wielding of sovereign power over people,
and in a way that completely ignores issues of race and class among
other factors.
But
the notion of citizenship is not one that sits easily within an
anarchist perspective. Theoretically at least, to criticise this
proposal – and effectively argue in favour of citizenship - can
also feel problematic.
Citizenship
is
conventionally thought of as membership of a political community -
the nation - contained within a political territory - the
state. The
'benefits' of
membership exist as
rights and responsibilities conferred upon us
by a political authority. Hence,
citizenship
is fundamental to state sovereignty and vice versa, so
being pro-citizenship
is a problem if you are anti-state.
But
what about thinking of citizenship without a state?
If
we strip it back to basics, citizenship can be thought of as a set
common of agreements between people on what we see as our rights and
responsibilities to each other. I could say that it is a system that
seeks to instil and guarantee care and equality between people. In
doing this it is a part of making a community and therefore a part of
making a political – power-full – space. Citizenship adds up to a
set of agreements that make us recognise each other as political
subjects.
The
problem is that citizenship within a state is something so far
removed from the idea of agreements between consenting people. Within
a racist, patriarchal capitalist system that has a long history,
citizenship is distorted beyond recognition as an agreement that we
ever consented to.
Furthermore,
within the framework of the state, citizenship has become thought of
only as a legal status that is given to people by the state;
something that is static and unchanging. From this perspective it is
rarely approaches as a process that is enacted by people, and
re-created all the time in the way that people behave as citizens or
not. It is a legal status too, but it is also defined by the way we
behave, and in that sense is beyond the views of the government as to
who or what is a good citizen. We enact citizenships and in doing
that, change it. In that sense citizenship is dynamic. Through our
action we reinforce, as well as contest and hence change what
citizenship is and means.
Some
say it is this very distinction that is the problem; that if we need
to tell each other we are equal, then there's some kind of inequality
already present for that to be necessary. But I think this
unnecessarily presents social organisation as inherently negative or
authoritarian. Whereas wherever people live in common, having ways to
make visible hierarchies can be an incredibly positive way of
nurturing equality that would be extremely difficult without them.
Citizenship can enable equality.
Coming
up with ways that people can enshrine care, well-being and equality
into their relationships with each other is very much a concern of
anarchism. So I don't think its citizenship per se that's the
problem, but how it's used within the state system.
Thinking
of citizenship in terms of agreements of care that politicise its
subjects enables us to separate citizenship from the state, because
it enables recognition that we enact or create citizenships all the
time, in many different spaces and communities beyond the state. Acts
of citizenship are acts where people recognise each other as valuable
in and of themselves. In that sense they happen between people who
might already be excluded from citizenship / denied certain rights.
People without papers coming together to discus how to organise their
camps in Calais is an act of citizenship even if it is not generally
recognised as anything political at all. Whenever a group comes
together and discusses how they want to be together, that is a little
act of citizenship.
I
am against Cameron's proposal because I am against the dominant
conceptualisation of citizenship that is implied in it; that sees
citizenship only as a web of rights conferred by the state. So the
issue for me is not about how to be anti this proposal and also anti
citizenship, but rather that we talk about citizenship in a different
way, and continue to focus and explore the citizenships that we
create and enact in our localities.