By Nick Mangwana
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| ZANU PF UK Chairman; Cde Nick Mangwana |
This writer was under the impression that the dual
citizenship debate was now water under the bridge. How could it not be? First
there is Chapter 3 in our constitution then there are the 2 cases of Mutumwa
Dziva Mawere v Registrar General and 3 others. This was one of the first cases
to be heard before the Concourt since its inception under the New Constitution.
Then there was the case of Farai Daniel Madzimbamuto v Registrar General and 3
others. But here is a challenge to every
Zimbabwean out there, check your passport.
Even if you collected it yesterday you will see, “A citizen of Zimbabwe
who is eighteen or above may not be a citizen of another country. A citizen of
Zimbabwe who makes use of the passport of another government commits an
offence. …”.
The first thought was this was old stationary stock. But no the
New Constitution has been in effect for 2 solid years this May. This issue
cannot be hanging. It is one of those constitution issues that has already seen
2 challenges and yet appears to be still hanging. There is an argument here
that the legal issue has been settled by the highest court in the land which
was constituted to safeguard and vindicate the citizens’ rights. Maybe it’s
time to look at the moral argument of Dual Citizenship. Maybe here there is a
case of a bureaucrat somewhere imposing their own personal sentiment and whim
on a nation.
Dual Nationalisation or Dual Citizenship used to be quite a
contentious issue with most nations frowning upon it. Imagine that in the 1930s when the League of
Nations came into being it came up with a declaration that, “All persons are
entitled to one nationality, but one nationality only.” This was the thinking
85 years ago. The world has moved on. In those days a woman who married a
person from a different nationality was forced to abandon the nation of their birth
and adopt that of their marriage. Maybe on divorcing reverse the process. How discriminatory
was such a system? But thankfully this type of archaic thinking has been
banished to the dustbin of history by many progressive nations including our
own. There are some people that still harbour the discredited dinosaurian
notion that Dual citizenship is a catalyst for treason and other subversive
crimes. Nothing can be further from the truth.
It has already been proved that some of the most fiercely patriotic
people in the world have Dual Nationality.
But still having said that one has to see things from the
point of view of those that are opposed to this idea. Some argue that Dual nationality is a
subversion of democracy as some people vote in 2 polities and determine the
fate of those 2 sovereigns. It’s not very clear why this is a subversion of
democracy but the issue of people determining the fate of a place they don’t
live in might sound like a fair point. And maybe the add the fact that it might
also be considered to undermine the principle of one person one vote. Imagine the thousands of Zimbabweans
participating in the UK General Election on the 7th of May; help
determine the direction of British Politics.
Then come 2018 the same group help swing the vote in some direction by
determining the course of Zimbabwean political outcomes. To those that oppose extra-territorial voting
that seems quite unfair. What gives a person a right to vote in an election? It
seems currently in Zimbabwe it’s some combination of citizenship, age and
residence. Zimbabwe is one of the
countries that have embraced modernity. Despite the debate around Diaspora
Voting which still rages on, it has to be made clear that Zimbabwe does allow
Diaspora voting. The writer is a registered voter in Zimbabwe and always makes
sure his registration is in order despite having lived outside the country for
a bit of time now. Any other Zimbabwean has the same opportunity and
entitlement to do so.
What some Disaporean are asking for is the country to
facilitate “extra-territorial voting”.
That is a debate in which those that oppose it have always asked whether
people who are not subject to most decisions a government makes have a right to
choose such a government. This subject has been tackled in this column in the
past but will always be referred to as some Disaporean feel quite strongly
about it. Words such as enfranchising and disenfranchising will continue to be
used until a proper position is arrived at. At the moment the strategy seems to
be just to ignore it and wish it all away. But it will probably help with the
uptake of the Diaspora Bond to the address this issue in the Diaspora Policy in
one way or the other.
All these policies have frankly very little to do with Dual
Citizenship which is nothing but pragmatic tolerance. And tying the issue to
extra-territorial voting policies is just a red herring. One of the most sacrosanct principles of sovereignty
at international law is the prerogative of a country to set its own immigration
rules on who can and cannot be a citizen. But when the Constitution got worded
the way it was in Chapter 3 and the Concourt interprets it the way it has in
the 2 cases cited above it leaves the arguments against dual citizenship weak
and flimsy to a level they can actually be considered petty resentment.
Citizenship
might come with loyalty but the writer is happy to bet his mortgage that if for
example the US was to go to war with Zimbabwe, and those with dual
nationalities were to go war they would certainly fight on the side of
Zimbabwe. There should be no debate on where the loyalty of those in the
Diaspora lies. It is with Zimbabwe. .
Prohibiting Dual Citizenship was and is one of those issues that have
always been very difficult to enforce anyway.
A lot would remember in 1992 when Bruce Grobbelaar publicly surrendered
his British passport in a blitz of media frenzy only for him to retrieve it quietly
soon after. 1995 he then surrendered
both passports as part of his bail condition in a legal bother he was going
through. And there was Zimbabwe’s then Chief Immigration Officer Elasto Mugwadi
saying that Bruce had not violated Zimbabwean Immigration Law because, even
though he had retrieved and kept his British passport together with his
Zimbabwean one, the fact that he had not used the British passport exonerated
him from any accusations of violating Zimbabwean law. Does it sound ridiculous? May be it actually
is. One can see that both at law and in reality, positions don’t come more
ambiguous than that. The suggestion seems to be that it’s ok to have a foreign
passport as long as you don’t use it. Close readings of the quoted passport
condition above seems to support Mr Mugwadi’s then statement actually.
If such a high profile person could get away
with it, how many good people out there would be turned into criminals by this
out of touch condition? Any vague and vexatious criminalisation of a whole
Zimbabwean community is indicative of a practice that is not fit for
purpose. Enough of this equivocation. Zimbabweans need a clear position on Dual Nationality. The law seemed clear enough but the practice
remains confused or maybe it’s just confusing.
The idea of treating citizenship like a marriage where one
is forced to abjure to forsake all others and any flirtations with others no
matter how innocent is considered disloyal has passed its use by date. Citizenship is not a marriage where having
another is synonymous to bigamy. Those who have chosen to take another passport
have only done so for the mere purpose of immigration and travelling convenience.
They have just avoided xenophobic victimhood by shifting their status. This has
also helped them with accessing employment and education but their emotional
fidelity rests with Zimbabwe. How else would they remain so engaged with what
happens in their motherland if they were emotionally disinvested? This is not just some mundane transnational political
pastime. It is because that passport is just what it is; a travel document.
Everything about them is Zimbabwean. Of course there those that have said they
would never get a passport of another country no matter what. This is a
laudable principle but it does not make them any better patriots than those
that did. There are also a lot of Zimbabweans that took other citizenship
through a process called naturalisation but have desisted from taking the
passport of the other nation. Now where do those stand? Because the passport of
Zimbabwe is only saying that you shouldn’t have another passport and there is a
snowball chance in hell of the Zimbabwe State ever finding that out anyway. Taking a second citizenship is pragmatism and
not disloyalty to the motherland.
Dual Nationality is an irreversible side-effect of
globalisation. Any attempts to thwart it
might just slightly delay it but it cannot be stopped. The people of Zimbabwe spoke in the
referendum of March 16 2013. The learned judges spoke and continue to speak
loud and clearly. It is now down to the bureaucrats to accept this post-modern
phenomenon. The Government of Zimbabwe is
regularly accused policy inconsistency.
Rightly or wrongly, time can be spent hurling hypotheticals over this,
but the Zimbabwean Passport provides enough anecdotes for one to reach an
anecdotal conclusion that the accused is found guilty of the charge in this
case.
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