LL-L "Demographics" 2007.04.12 (03) [E]

Thu Apr 12 20:46:51 UTC 2007

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  12 April 2007 - Volume 03

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From: Ed Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Demographics" 2007.04.12 (01) [E]

At 07:14 AM 04/12/07 -0700, Paul wrote:

Australia's population is around 20 million, so British residents are
currently 6.5% of the population.  But that figure won't include huge
numbers of UK-born Australian citizens.  Thaey could easily double the
figure.

Yes, it's all a bit tricky, as until the 1970's some time, every British
citizen who came to Canada was automatically a Canadian citizen, so I
suspect the number is also actually higher in Canada.  Taking into
consideration everyone with British heritage, we probably still have a
smaller percentage, as I suspect that we have larger percentages of other
nationalities than you.

*Ed Alexander*
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Demographics

I thought that, unless they have been stripped of it or have gone out of
their way to lose it (both of which happen very, very rarely), all British
citizens retain their British citizenship, no matter where and no matter if
they acquired other citizenships. So the same applies to British people in
Australia, whether they have Australian citizenship in addition or not.  We
don't really know if these people with dual citizenship are counted as
British in those countries.  I rather suspect they are not.  So the actual
numbers must be a lot greater than those reported.

Canada and Australia now have the same type of citizenship law as does
Britain. (I don't know about New Zealand.) Its philosophical basis appears
to be that citizenship is inalienable, whether acquired by birth or by
choice.  It affords citizens'  foreign-born children the same citizenship
and their grandchildren special rights regarding immigration and citizenship
acquisition (in the case of Britain a type of remigration allowance for
those with at least one grandparent having been a citizen).

I have a feeling that this is the thing of the future.  Why, even
Germanynow allows emigrants to apply for retention of their German
citizenship when
they acquire another one, and those that lost their German citizenship
earlier may now apply to have it restored (if they are wealthy enough ...
and if they can prove connections, Germanness and German language
proficiency ... and it helps if they declare that they are willing to drop
other citizenships ...)!  That really tells you that things are beginning to
shift.  However, it seems to me that in this case ethnicity (including
culture and language) is a prerequisit (thus echoes of the old "country =
ethnicity" model), while in the case of Australia, Britain and Canada it is
not. (It would be interesting to see if a person would be acceptable in
Germany if they didn't speak German or Low Saxon but only Danish, Frisian,
Sorbian or Romany, which are official minority languages.)

Mind you, other countries have had citizenship laws similar to that of
Britiain for a long time.  I remember that even in the 1960s and 1970s many
young American, Canadian and Australian men traveling to Greece or
Yugoslavia as their ancestral countries found themselves drafted as soldiers
there. Australian friends of mine that were born and raised in Israel are
unable to get rid of their Israeli citizenship no matter what they do, and
their Australian-born daughter, whose birth was only registered in
Australia, is likely to get drafted if she visits her grandparents in
Israel.  One of my current neighbors is in a similar situation; while she
visits relatives in Israel, her American-born son stays home.  (But let's
not forget that many, probably more, Jewish people do want to serve in
Israel and acquire citizenship for that purpose. I personally know two
persons that have done that.)

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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