The world watches in trepidation while yet another European election threatens to bring in right-wing populists – this time in Italy. It’s pretty exasperating to see this constant tussle between inept centerist parties and their far-right adversaries. Europe needs change, but its people keep looking in the wrong direction, choosing the worse over the simply bad.
Sometimes it looks like we have to either fight tooth and nail or flee, like those Russians now massing on the borders and trying to get out, because the state eventually came knocking on their doors. Or like the Israeli leftists who leave to countries where they can learn to shrug off the local politics. Or the Brits who fled Brexit, or refugees everywhere. Sometimes living in another country is simply less painful. If you live as a resident outside you native country’s borders, the army recruitment center isn’t going to come looking for you or your children. It’s true that you’ll have less power and influence, and will probably be unable to create change either in the country of your citizenship or in the country of your residency. In the conditions of today, that’s the price that you pay.
One day, in a more stable world, the purpose of nations will be to serve their citizens and safeguard the environment. Citizenship could be abolished and replaced with residency. You live in a nation of your choosing and both you and the nation enter into a contract. You pay your taxes and the nation provides you with the social services that you need. That’s the basis. On a local level there are other commitments, in order to build a sense of community, since loyalty anyway works more naturally on a local level, while “patriotism” and “nationalism” are usually encouraged artificially, by politicians, for extraneous or nefarious objectives. In the 21st century, it has become more important for everyone everywhere to pledge our alliegance to the planet than to the nations that are working together to destroy it.