Wednesday, August 13, 2014



The issue of "Loyalty" and Our Fight for Dual Citizenship explained: One of the main objections to dual citizenship lies in a suspected conflict of loyalties. Here, a distinction may be made between conflicts specifically mentioned and less explicit general doubts about the necessary degree of loyalty. One such possible specific conflict is that in the event of war a state depends on the undivided loyalty of the nationals it can call to arms in its service. Further, it is assumed that participation in a country´s political life – as a voter or office-bearer – could be adversely affected by divided loyalties.

With regard to the first objection, it should be pointed out that wars involving the mass drafting of civilians in countries such as Tanzania are unlikely. Like most modern armies, the Tanzania armed forces are constantly developing in the direction of having a smaller body of specialists, so that the non-availability of dual citizens for mass conscription in the unlikely event of war would not compromise the ability of a country such as Tanzania to defend itself. This would in any case only affect dual nationals from a country with which there was armed conflict.
Proponents and opponents of dual citizenship, meanwhile, agree that persons holding important public offices should give up their second citizenship. As regards electoral behaviour, however, critics of dual citizenship perceive the danger of "instructed voting", whereby dual nationals vote according to the will of the government of their other nationality. However, it seems doubtful whether the state of origin is actually able to make its nationals living abroad behave in a certain way. In particular, experience in many countries where dual citizenship is permitted shows that in practice this does not lead to any appreciable influence on the part of a foreign state. The bottom line We need to make sure the 629MPs understand this! ‪#‎wecan‬ ‪#‎wewill‬ ‪#‎diaspora‬ ‪#‎weunited‬ ‪#‎dualcitizenship‬ ‪#‎letsgo‬

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