Saturday, August 23, 2008 Batuhan: Tale of two teams By Allan S.B. Batuhan Foreign Exchange
IT'S never easy being a citizen of two countries.
In the old days, people like these used to get shot, hung or worse—both, for making the mistake of professing loyalty to more than one sovereign.
Fortunately, those times when you could not foreswear the land of your birth—although the same land could do so to you at any time—are long gone. These days, states are much more sanguine about the idea of their subjects changing allegiance to another. Most are now even enlightened enough to allow them to swear loyalty to more than one flag—a thought that never would have crossed their minds soon after the two World Wars.
Many of us will be old enough to remember our grannies and gramps telling us about how their Japanese gardeners and domestic helpers—long considered by them to be “Filipinos” for having settled a long time locally – later turned out to be “sleepers”—members of the Japanese kempeitai (Secret Police) and military intelligence posted in advance of their invasion of the country. My wife tells me one such tale about her own grandfather—although this one had a fortunate twist in that the “gardener” used his position in the military to gain reprieve for her lolo, who would surely have been shot for aiding and abetting the Filipino guerrillas.
Of more recent vintage are the second generation Asians (descendants of people from the Indian sub-continent) living in the United Kingdom, whose loyalties came into question when it turned out that a few in the community had been planning attacks against their own British countrymen—some like the infamous London underground bombers—with devastatingly lethal effect.
Of course, not all of them are secret jihadis—most are law-abiding citizens who serve the Queen just as loyally, if not more so, than native-born Britons. It is just the few in their midst who are causing all the mayhem, who have unfortunately given them all a bad name.
And hence to my earlier lament—it is not easy having divided loyalties. Much more so during the quadrennial years of the Olympics.
I found this truth out for myself during the opening days of the ongoing Beijing Olympiad.
Logic tells me that Team GB—with its array of sure medal winners and hopefuls—is the easy choice to support. After all, this is the team of the land where I have spent as many years of my adult life as the actual place of my birth.
But my heart tells me that rather than the triumphant-looking team following the equally triumphant looking Union Jack down the track of the Olympic Stadium, it is the ragtag coterie behind the Tri-Colour that I ought to be rooting for, notwithstanding that from the very first starting gun, all its hopes for medal glory would have vanished as quickly as the gun’s smoke had cleared.
Modern states have understood it now, for the most part.
Duality of citizenship is not one to be prohibited, but something that should be encouraged. Late adopters, like the Philippines, have figured out that rather than losing citizens, it is actually gaining them back, by allowing them to renew their vows before the land of their birth once more, even as they are also now subjects of another state.
However, in doing so they have not helped to resolve the agony of those people caught in such a situation.
For even if the choice today need not be as stark as which state one should bear arms for in time of war, the dilemma of who to clap and cheer for – the medal-laden team of the adopted country, or the valiant and unbowed, yet sadly medal-less team of the native land – is just as soul-searching an exercise to experience.
