Being a person of two nationalities

Like many people here in Australia, I was flabbergasted with the resignations, in rapid succession, of (first) Senator Scott Ludlam and (then) Senator Larissa Waters for the reason that they both recently learned that they were ineligible to sit in the Australian Senate because, in addition to being Australians, Senator Ludlum was also (shock, horror!) a New Zealander and Senator Waters was also (also shock, horror!) a Canadian.  Given an old (and, in my humble opinion, outdated) provision in the Australian Constitution, people holding dual citizenship are ineligible to sit in either house of the Australian Parliament.

OK, OK, they should have checked it out, but it appears that both acted in good faith.  Each seemed to believe honestly, prior to this week, that their Australian citizenship was their sole citizenship.  And this thing has been a running political sore here in Australia for years.  Politicians of all sorts and conditions, regardless of their party or their ideology, have innocently run foul of this outdated constitutional provision.

The fact that they were both articulate members of the more pragmatic wing of Australia's left-of-centre Green Party is also curious.  I hope this doesn't mean that the "fundamentalist" wing of the Greens will use this as their chance for a political comeback.  To the members of the Parliamentary Greens, I'd say (paraphrasing Oscar Wilde) "To lose one of your best members is a misfortune.  To lose two seems like carelessness."

But, anyway, this affects many of us.  There are some nations whose citizenship, once acquired by birth, is almost impossible to lose.  

• Italy, for example, has a number of parliamentary seats for the representatives of Italians living abroad. 
• Many Australian males of Greek heritage are reluctant to visit the land of their parents' (or even grandparents') birth during their young adult years, even for the wedding or funeral of a close family member, for fear of being drafted.  (This may be - at least partially - an urban myth, as every version of this story I've heard began with the words "This happened to a friend of a friend .....", but you get the idea.)

However, this is all part of my own story.  In January of 1980, I flew from the United States to Australia when invited to accept a position as a minister of a Uniting Church parish in Tasmania.  I stayed.

For anyone who left the nation of their birth to move to some other country, and then stayed permanently, there is a sense of mental and emotional dual nationality, even if there is no legal dual nationality.  Personally, while I've lived here in Oz for more than half my life, I'm still enough of a Yank to celebrate Thanksgiving Day every year, to support the Mets and the Steelers, and to get a tingle down the spine when singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" or "We Shall Overcome".

It moves in three stages.

• The first stage lasts about two to four years, or at least until the first visit to the "old country".  You are filled with nostalgia for the country you left and find everything different about your new land rather objectionable.
• After this, there's another stage, which lasts about ten years or so.  You are not really "at home" in either country.
• Finally, after about twelve to fifteen years, you regard yourself as being "at home" in either country and (even better) moving towards becoming a "citizen of the world".

From my perspective, the angst of the first two stages is well worth the sense of global integration found in the third.

And, really, for a person of dual nationality (whether legally or emotionally), particularly when the countries are both democracies with friendly relations with each other, the only time we really experience any conflict of interest in our loyalties is when teams representing the two nations play each other in the Olympics or some other international sporting competition.

Anyway, Scott, enjoy some "fush and chups" in your post-political career.  Take some time, Larissa, to go "oot and aboot".  Know that there are also plenty of us who, while not legally of dual nationality, are still people of mental and emotional dual nationality.   Welcome to the tribe.