KENYA SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA)


7TH February 2004

 

KSDA’S STATEMENT ON DUAL CITIZENSHIP

 

“Dual citizenship will not stop economic, immigration and other criminals from operating in Kenya if they have a reason or strategy of doing so. The argument by delegates that foreigners will take advantage of dual citizenship to spell doom if it is introduced in the Constitution is myopic and smacks of lack of understanding of the international situation”.

 

Kenyans abroad are demanding that dual citizenship be included in the draft of the new Constitution being written at Bomas, not because of artificial reasons but because of real advantages of adopting both the Kenyan citizenship and citizenships of other countries. Kenyans and their organizations around the world have already articulated several economic, social, political and cultural reasons in favor of dual citizenship. KSDA wishes to add its voice to the on going campaign for the inclusion of dual citizenship in the new Kenyan Constitution being drafted at Bomas.

 

In Europe, the concept of  “Fortress Europe” draws its oxygen from the need to keep non white people out of Europe. While Europe has opened its boarders to European citizens to move freely across the continent, millions of immigrants who have legally settled in the continent continue to suffer State racism and discrimination especially when they have to cross boarders. This is especially so for Africans who have refused to dump their original citizenships for different reasons in favor of European citizenships.

 

At European airports where European Union rules are in force, there exists different entry reception desks for Europeans and non Europeans. European passport holders zoom through European airports without hostile and degrading treatment while non Europeans are normally subjected to a host of security rituals by racist immigration officials looking for fault lines to deport a “suspicious looking” traveler. In fact, Africans are routinely stripped naked at European airports by racist immigration police “looking for drugs” as they try to cross boarders.

 

Non European passport holders continue to suffer humiliation at these airports and, sometimes, even denied entry because of a special clause in the European Union Constitution which prohibits “undesirables” from entering or moving across Europe. This is after they have gone through the rigors of expensive visa acquisition and brutal security checks at their points of departure. Deportation of immigrants who have settled in Europe are common simply because they are not European citizens.

 

As the new Constitution is being drafted, Kenyans who have settled abroad have a unique opportunity of beating racist and discriminatory foreign immigration policies by adopting citizenships of foreign countries without losing their Kenyan citizenship. Nationals from the advanced capitalist countries continue to enter Kenya smoothly while Kenyans do not have this advantage because of their “Third world status”. There is no better way of beating the current harassment at boarders than arming Kenyans with the lethal weapon of dual citizenship.

 

There are different circumstances in different countries. We do not want to repeat the tens of arguments in favor of dual citizenship that have already been articulated by Kenyans in different forums. But, whatever way you look at it, the overriding factor is that the world is increasingly becoming a small village and any possibility of hastening this process should be encouraged. It is absurd that delegates at Bomas are advancing nationalistic arguments to demolish the chances of Kenyans taking advantage of dual citizenship at a time when “Internationalism” is the buzz word in many fronts of struggle.

 

With the level of bribery and corruption in Kenya, anybody with resources can still become a Kenyan citizen and create havoc if that is the intention. Terrorists have conducted successful operations in Kenya with the loss of hundreds of Kenyan lives, not because of immigration loop holes but because of Kenya government’s support of American imperialist policies at home and abroad. Kenya is a dumping ground of numerous bogus consumer products from abroad while the country in now one of the major connection points of International drug traffickers, all under the outdated single citizenship clause in the Constitution.

 

Operatives within the government during the Moi dictatorship conspired with foreigners to successfully loot billions of Kenyan shillings in what became known as the Goldenberg scandal, not because of immigration loopholes but because of the existence of a domestic Mafia cartel whose work in the government was to design ways of looting the Kenyan economy. Today, the Goldenberg scandal is the subject of a major Commission of inquiry which has nothing to do with dual or single citizenships.

 

The whole of the Kenyan economy is under firm control of foreign multi national companies. State property that was acquired with tax payer’s money is being sold to foreign multi-national companies through privatizations under the single citizenship clause. Foreigners do not have to become Kenyan citizens in order to buy profitable State enterprises which even Kenyan citizens cannot purchase because of the huge amounts involved. The latest on the market after the sale of over 60 State enterprises is the Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Power and Lighting Company, Kenya Commercial Bank and the National Bank of Kenya.

 

Dual citizenship will not stop economic, immigration and other criminals from operating in Kenya if they have a reason or strategy of doing so. The argument by delegates that foreigners will take advantage of dual citizenship to spell doom if it is introduced in the Constitution is myopic and smacks of lack of understanding of the international situation. Many Kenyans who have stuffed billions of stolen tax payer’s money in foreign bank accounts did so under the single citizenship provision in the Constitution and they colluded with several crooks from other countries who did not have Kenyan citizenship.

 

Sweden, an advanced capitalist country that should fear exploitation of dual citizenship by opportunistic nationals from the ex-colonial world or former Stalinist states of Eastern Europe, is one of the latest countries in Europe to have accepted dual citizenship. Why should Kenya, a “Third world country”, deny its citizens abroad the obvious advantages of dual citizenship when several countries in the advanced capitalist world which run bigger risks of the so called “dual citizenship abuse” have already accepted it? 

 

Dual citizenship will enable Kenyans to stand for Office and vote in Parliamentary elections, not just in European countries where such rights are reserved for citizens but in many countries across the world. It will enable qualified Kenyans to take up jobs reserved for citizens in countries of their residence while it will also empower Kenyans abroad to participate in several decision making processes in their country’s of residence such as referendums. Dual citizenship is not a stupid idea.   

 

There is also the bogus argument that dual citizenship will “destroy Kenya” in ways that cannot yet still be estimated. The reality is that Kenya is already a destroyed country where nothing works. 11 million people are unemployed, not because of dual citizenship but because of the deep crisis within a system which even Narc cannot resolve. In Mailindi district, 200,000 Kenyans out of a population of 315,000 are facing starvation. Workers are being retrenched under the new government because foreigners controlling the IMF and World Bank have said so. Whoever says that dual citizenship “will destroy Kenya” should look at the evidence which points to an already destroyed country which KSDA believes, requires a Socialist revolution to open the way for the country’s reconstruction.

 

Infrastructure has collapsed, the health care system is in disarray, the Education system is in crisis, mass poverty is destroying families while the government cannot maintain several social services because it is broke after money was looted by politicians. The state of hopelessness is such that even the new Narc government has failed to deliver on its basic promises to the electorate as it deals with an internal power crisis that has been taking it from one retreat to another.

 

Crime rate is high because idle youth are unable to find jobs even after completing University education under the system. The crisis within the transport system is resulting in the death of 2,600 Kenyans annually through road accidents. Politics has been converted into big business by politicians who deceive the electorate to make them MPs so that they can share in the looting of tax payer’s money. There is already chaos in the country even without dual citizenship!

 

Kenya is bleeding and in a changing global village, the country needs political, economic, cultural and intellectual resources from Kenyans abroad as the search for a solution to the crisis facing the country continues. Adopting dual citizenship is one way of encouraging Kenyans abroad to maintain links with the country and to contribute, in whichever way they can, to the identification and provision of solutions to the crisis. In the circumstances, KSDA, strongly argues for the inclusion of dual citizenship in the new Constitution. This could be the best New year present for Kenyans abroad by delegates at Bomas.

 

Okoth Osewe

Secretary

Kenya socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA)

 

Published by Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA)
email: harakatips@hotmail.com

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