Second Class Citizens
History is rife with people being denied their basic rights as citizens by their own government.
Today, I got sidetracked and took a fascinating detour into Canada’s fairly recent changes to citizenship laws - Bill C-24.
It is a truly absurd example of how governments can take away the rights of some of its citizens, in effect making them “second class” without so much as any public uproar or even said “second class” group even knowing about it. Basically, now the government, through an immigration caseworker, can revoke the citizenship of a large group of Canadians (those with citizenship in other countries - which many probably don’t even know they have and won’t until the day comes when Canada wants to take theirs away for some reason or another). Read more here.
This got me thinking of all the other great nations of the world that have had large classes of second-class citizens in their midst. Purposefully created second class even while saying how great and wonderful their nation is.
First, what does “second class citizen” refer to? Well, it is quite simple. Everyone in a country should have inalienable rights, guaranteed in one form or another. As the Oxford dictionary puts it -
a person belonging to a social or political group whose rights and opportunities are inferior to those of the dominant group in a society.
What usually happens is that the government (or dominant group) wants to get rid of or change the behavior of a minority or group of citizens. However, it is problematic and mostly impossible to just make them disappear (unless a Nazi or Khmer Rouge or Maoist). And in any case, that would cause rebellion.
So, the next best option is to pressure the minority to change their behavior and become like the “noble” class that rules them and tells them right and wrong. How do you pressure them? Well, you take away their rights (and refer to them as privileges for argument's sake). Soon, they’ll fall in line, not wanting to live poor, forsaken at the end of the line.
And that’s how it has been throughout history.
It’s what is happening to those who won’t get vaxxed. It’s what Palestinians experience in Israel, especially after the passage of the Nation-State law. Ever wonder why there are so many Muslims in Bosnia where once there were few? Well, the wily Ottomans enacted strict laws against Christians, putting them at the back of the line, so many converted to Islam to get to the front of the line. The same happened with Jews throughout the Middle Ages. I’m in fact a Jew whose family in the 1700s Switzerland converted to … yep, you got it, to get to the front (or near the front) of the line. Given a last name by the local Christian lord - Deubelbeiss (bite of the devil).
I could go on and on and on … our history is just concentrated with hate and the suppression of others. Niggers, Indians, Abos, Romani, Untouchables, Hutus, Zulus, Rohingya, Karen, Uighurs and on and on and on …
May I also mention the unvaccinated? Now, second class, in borrowed shoes, despite there being no truth or rhyme or reason to the suppression of their rights in society.
We haven’t learned from history and never will. Best, I guess we can do is speak out about it, refuse to normalize it - give it a name.
All true knowledge begins by calling things by their right names. Kung Fu Tze.