What is citizenship? (appointments)
30/09/2005Citizenship, even though it is a very vague concept and without substance, has become one of the most common fighting flags today. Its internal power of legitimation is so great that its simple invocation seems to try to justify a whole set of objectives and utopias.
The biggest confusion involving the use of the complex concept of citizenship is that between citizenship and human dignity. Although both ideas have a strong correlation with each other, human dignity is linked to the individual whereas citizenship as a whole. If in a, when we focus on the individual, we must focus primarily on a state / society relationship for the individual; in the other, the direction is reversed: we think how it can be part and act on those.
There is also a tendency to include in the idea of citizenship a set of actions aimed directly at improving the living conditions of the individual and his environment. This trend presents some risks by placing the entire state apparatus that is directly linked to the exercise of citizenship at the service of practices and objectives that end up promoting inequalities in the social body.
Before being the result of the three generations of rights, citizenship is the result of the Arendtian thesis of the right to have rights. When we think about consolidating and exercising citizenship, we must focus on the individual's belonging to the city (the Greek polis). This belonging, anyway, should not be interpreted as possession but as the possibility of being part of.
When we adopt this second view, we can see that citizenship implies recognizing itself as a member of a group and, at the same time, be recognized as a member. It is precisely a quick and careless reading of this second condition that leads to the confusion between citizenship and human dignity.
As we are dealing with a set of particular characteristics (is limited by politically given geographical boundaries; is managed by a political-administrative apparatus that is controlled and directed by a small portion of the members of the group), we must think of this belonging according to the characteristics of the set.
Another difficulty that we have when thinking about what citizenship is comes from the multiple roles played by each individual. We can be small-farmers, family parents, members of a religious community and citizens. Any of these roles does not negate that of a citizen, although I can, in some cases, limits-it.
An individual, recognizing himself as a member of his country and being recognized by him with the same status, he is automatically raised to the status of citizen because he now has a series of channels for participation at his disposal, control and influence of political and social institutions focused on the whole. These channels range from the right to vote to the right to be voted; freedom of expression to the possibility of taking political office.
On the other hand, this alone is not enough. For the individual to be in fact a citizen, he needs to consider himself a member of the country. More than a mere psychological issue, this involves an intricate political-social complex. Garantir a "igualdade perante a lei" it is not a sufficient condition when there is political inequality (without going into the problems that acute economic-financial inequality brings to Brazil).
Unable to perceive himself as a member of his country, the individual develops his daily activities outside the channels and places of participation in public life, thus preventing any action that may come to influence society as a whole. Thereby, is forced to stay in a reactive position, when not passive. Thus, improvements in their living conditions are seen more as benefits, instead of being the result of your public participation.
To keep in mind that this condition is not a pure result of a personal choice,. we must face the challenge of how to create mechanisms and actions that enable the individual to feel like a member. For full citizens – those who observe the two conditions of citizenship – to deny the existence of this challenge or to avoid dealing with it, is to deny one's own citizenship.
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magazine Author
Test – October 2001