There’s no mystery to this. The failure of a nation begins with the abdication of responsibility to political leaders Citizenship is one of the most vexed issues in the human story. From the ancient Egyptians to modern times, who is deemed a citizen of this or that city or state has been at the core of what constitutes a human being with rights in this world. The first thing that is done in any colonial or imperial enterprise is to redefine the idea of the citizen. Usually the colonising power revises downward the citizenship content of the indigenes, and revises upward their own status. During the colonial enterprise, the indigene was no longer quite a citizen as citizenship then was determined from the centre of power, with the queen or king at its head. The indigenes were deemed to be living on the periphery. They were outsiders in their own land. This was true with the Romans in Britain, with the Greeks in Persia, with the Spaniards in Peru, and with the English in India and Africa. Continue reading...
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