The Rohingya People and the Right to Citizenship
by Christopher Ryan Maboloc
Hungry and dying, without water or medical
provisions, and pushed from territorial waters, the fate of thousands of
Rohingyas fleeing Burma who are stranded in decrepit wooden boats, once again emphasizes
that the claim that sovereignty above all else define for any country the
meaning of justice. This discussion all brings us back to Hegel and Hobbes and
what the meaning of an “imagined community” as coined by Benedict Anderson is
all about. For Anderson, a nation is a politically constructed concept. It
points to a perceived commonality and belief that people share in terms of
their identities which determine for them the very terms of their association –
social, political and economic. Self-realization, in this respect, depends on a
set of values that citizens in an associative relation share with each other. National
solidarity, which dictates how people frame national and foreign policies, is
grounded on those things that we think we owe only to our fellow citizens.
What the above means is that the common
good is tied to the idea of belongingness. Out of this sense of belongingness,
people begin to carry out their roles in the formation of the life of a nation.
The design of the state only has one aim in mind and that is the efficient
distribution of rights, duties and obligations that the sovereign power of the
people confers upon the government apparatus. What is real but not visible is
that the moral obligation of people is tied to a sense of identity which serves
to strengthen the meaning of the social bond. This bond does not extend beyond national
borders. Justice, in this respect, is based on a very tight or restrictive
moral claim – the right to citizenship. The right to citizenship is not simply a statutory right. It is a natural human right that the state owes its people on the basis of one's humanity.
Every year, thousands of young men from
the poorest countries in the African region die at sea or in the desert in their
desire to reach Europe. Although, the most affluent countries in the world are
trying to lure the best young minds from poor nations in order to equip them
with an education meant to advance their people’s progress, such has not been
enough to avert the tide of migration. In the issue of global justice, it has
been argued that the First World should open its borders to citizens from poor countries
on the basis of a moral claim – the moral duty to extend to all nationalities
the opportunity for human development. Thomas Pogge has argued that it is a
matter of human right on the part of the people in the Third World to be able
to enjoy the goods that citizens of rich nations have as a matter of rectifying
the uneven global distributive schemes which disadvantage the poorest nations
in the world. Pogge mentions historical injustices like colonialism and the
unfair global economic order in the world.
The above complicates the matter with
respect to the problem of the Rohingya people most especially if they do
attempt to enter the territorial waters of poor countries. Lifeboat ethics has
been used to justify depriving these people entry. Some countries contend that
they do not have much in terms of resources. But this position is rather
simplistic and bereft of any moral foundation. The basic point herein is that
at present, the Rohingya minority in Burma are suffering from abuse, exploitation
and political persecution. The military regime in Burma, reports say, is into
ethnic cleansing. The urgency of the situation then in this regard legitimizes
the point that we must appeal to a common sense of humanity more than anything
else if we are to do the right thing.
