Posted on 08/10/2006 7:25:32 AM PDT by Pokey78
Right. That’s it. Entre nous c’est terminé. After 42 happy years I am getting a divorce from America. From the very emerging of my childhood consciousness I have been aware that in the eyes of billions of people around the world I have won first prize in the lottery of life. I possess it, the thing competed for by everyone from Rupert Murdoch to the most desperate Mexican wetback, and I have it by simple dint of my nativity, on the Puerto Rican Health Scheme, in New York General Hospital, NY, NY.
I am entitled to an American passport. I must confess that this knowledge used vaguely to tinge my sense of identity. My brothers and sisters are British, and so are my parents, and I would like you to know that I am a loyal subject of Her Majesty, speak in an English accent, and for years I have travelled exclusively on a British passport. But my first passport was green, and when we landed at Dover or Heathrow I felt secretly cool to be the one to present his document to be stamped.
Mine were the credentials furnished by the most powerful nation on earth, and signed by former secretary of state Dean Rusk; and when the going has got tough in England it has sometimes crossed my mind that I could yet activate the Schwarzenegger option and flee to the land of opportunity, perhaps beginning as a short-order chef in Miami before winding up as Colorado senator and, inevitably, president.
Always glowing at the back of my mind has been the light from that unused escape hatch. Let’s face it, folks, we manage to endure so many of our earthly captivities by fantasising that we have somewhere a half-open door to another job, another career, another life, or indeed, if we are religious, a life of the world to come. The mere thought of that door is a consolation, even if, as things turn out, we never actually go through it.
Well, as of this week I slam that door shut, and in some indignation. It is not just that I no longer want an American passport. In fact, what I want is the right not to have an American passport, and it is that right, astoundingly, that the Americans are reluctant to give me.
Last Sunday lunchtime we were boarding a flight to Mexico, via Houston, Texas, and we presented six valid British passports. As soon as the Continental Airlines security guy saw my passport, he shook his head. ‘Were you born in New York?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever carried an American passport?’
Yes, I said, but it had long since expired. ‘I am afraid we have a problem,’ he said. ‘The US Immigration say you have to travel on an American passport if you want to enter the United States.’ B-but I’m British, I said, and my children chorused their agreement. Had the guy stuck around a moment longer, I would have told him how jolly British I was — but luckily for him he’d gone off in search of reinforcements.
When the ranking officer arrived, the story was the same. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to go to the US Embassy tomorrow morning and get a new American passport.’ But I don’t want an American passport, I said, inspiration striking me. I tell you what: I renounce my American citizenship. I disclaim it. I discard it.
‘That’s not good enough, sir,’ he said. ‘I need some official document saying that you are no longer American,’ and that, of course, is the point of this piece.
I make this formal, public, and, I hope, legally valid renunciation, because as a result of this moronic rule I had to ask my wife (who bore this latest cock-up with amazing good humour) to take the children on her own to Houston, and I then had to spend a stonking sum on another ticket. Because the Americans insisted I was American, and that it was only as an American that I could travel to America, America was the one country that I had to avoid.
So I circumnavigated America. I flew via Madrid, managing to beat the rest of my family to Mexico by 45 minutes; and yet I still seethe. It’s not just the stupidity of the rule that gets me. It’s the arrogance. What other country insists that because you can be one of its nationals, then you must be one of its nationals? Imagine if we told all British-born Americans that they could not arrive in this country except by use of a British passport. I haven’t seen anything so insanely possessive since the negotiations on the Common Fisheries Policy, when the Irish used to claim that the cod stocks of the Atlantic were still Irish in their fishy souls, even though they had long since emigrated to Portuguese waters.
As far as I can interpret the psychology of the rule, which has only been applied since 9/11, it is part of America’s new them-and-us mentality, the Manichaean division of the world into Americans and non-Americans, obliterating any category in between. Listen, buddy, the Americans seem to be saying. You got a right to be American? Then you do us the courtesy of travelling on the world’s number one passport when you come here. What you got to be ashamed of, boy?
Well, I love America. But I don’t like being pushed around and kicked off flights to what, after all, they claim is my home country. Condi, Mr Ambassador, whoever is in charge — I hereby renounce my birthright. Strike me off the list.
Consider me, as you put it, an ‘alien’. Even as I write these words I am conscious of the huge potential benefits my children will now never have. Of course, it is true that it is not all jam, carrying an American passport. You tend to be first overboard when your ship is hijacked by Arabs; but then these days the Brits walk the plank pretty soon, too; and think of the advantages, that priceless sense of civis Americanus sum; that the sanctity of your life is guaranteed by the hyperpower.
Compare America’s tigerish love of her children with the pitiless indifference we show to British passport-holders from Zimbabwe. The Americans would never allow me to be tried by an international court. The Americans would never let me be extradited to face trial in the UK, even if — particularly if — I was involved in IRA atrocities, while we supinely offer up our subjects without demanding any evidence whatsoever.
These blessings must now remain untested by me and my descendants, and I tender my resignation from the United States, with sadness, but in the knowledge that she is probably big enough to rub along without me. Goodbye and God bless, America.
I’ve never seen such a load of gibbering imbecility on an internet forum in all my f&^%ing life. What the hell is wrong with most of the people who have contributed to this thread? The self-same people who would be the ones whining and bitching about foreigners living in their country and refusing to take full citizenship are the ones who are heaping contempt upon a lifelong British citizen and Member of Parliament (and now Mayor of London) for becoming a full citizen of his own country.
I daresay Winston Churchill would have completely renounced his claim on US Citizenship as well if the US State Department made it such an inconveniance to hold a US Passport, because he was like Boris, British first and foremost, but the window-licking hoards on this thread can’t get that through their simple minds obviously...
Get the hell out of MY country, Boris. We need patriots now, not morons and socialists. The more of these ilk that leave this country the better. I'll pitch in for the one-way tickets. Everybody has a right to be a douche bag, just be a douche bag somewhere else, and thank you for playing. I'm sure you enriched so many lives.
Oh, since you embrace socialism and renounce our democratic republic I must give you a "blessing". My your chains rest lightly upon you shoulders. Don't ever darken our door step again.
You should have said you were an illegal alien. they’d have welcomed you with open arms.
I’ve never seen such a load of gibbering imbecility on an internet forum in all my f&^%ing life. What the hell is wrong with most of the people who have contributed to this thread? The self-same people who would be the ones whining and bitching about foreigners living in their country and refusing to take full citizenship are the ones who are heaping contempt upon a lifelong British citizen and Member of Parliament (and now Mayor of London) for becoming a full citizen of his own country.There's a certain amount of secular religion involved. The idea that someone might want to be a citizen of a country other than America and consider that country a better environment for themselves is completely unfathomable. Any attempts to argue this point must be some sort of leftist attack.I daresay Winston Churchill would have completely renounced his claim on US Citizenship as well if the US State Department made it such an inconveniance to hold a US Passport, because he was like Boris, British first and foremost, but the window-licking hoards on this thread can’t get that through their simple minds obviously...
As far as I'm concerned, good for Boris. Now he needs a visa to live in America, but if that floats his boat, good for him.
Who cares about this tool(real Americans dont). Dont go away mad just go away.
If they think that most non-Americans wish that they were Americans, and that we all sit here weeping and gnashing our teeth because we were cursed by god in not being born a citizen of the United States, they are sadly mistaken. Most people are as proud to be citizens of their own countries as Americans are of theirs, and Boris is British, proud to be so, and Britain is his home, and as much as many here profess to not care that he prefers to see Britain as his homeland rather than the US, the petulent and angry tones they have adopted in commenting on his decision would suggest otherwise, and that they are actually extremely offended. If they didn’t care so much, they would shrug their shoulders and not bother commenting on it...
Agree.
What they would have to say if the situation was reversed..
I have a "Born Abroad " certificate from the state department. and as a child I also had a Brazilian passport I haven't been to Brazil since the mid seventies when I was a teen. f for some reason I wanted to go back there and found out I needed to get a Brazilian passport I would be throwing a fit myself and these same posters would be slamming Brazil
.
Only a few countries engender that type of loyalty: Japan, England, Scotland, Ireland, France(?), Germany pre-WWII. The rest have no particular affinity outside of their family/tribe. Everyone else sure as hell wishes they were either born here or emigrated.
Btw, good catch on Boris becoming Mayor of London. I remember reading this original post years ago.
You need to add China, India, Australia, New Zealand and Finland to the list. I know plenty of Thai, Filipino and Vietnamese people who are extremely nationalistic as well. And don’t forget the most nationalistic country in the world AFAIK South Korea.
Dude, I live in SoCal. With the exception of the Aussies, every one of the other nationalities you mention are well represented in growing ethnic enclaves. Chinese & Indians? Please, they can’t wait to get out of their respective hell-holes. They make it here on a H1B and the very last thing they want to do is go home. Drop an anchor, and they get chain migration when the kid turns 18.
Dude, I live in SoCal. With the exception of the Aussies, every one of the other nationalities you mention are well represented in growing ethnic enclaves. Chinese & Indians? Please, they can’t wait to get out of their respective hell-holes. They make it here on a H1B and the very last thing they want to do is go home. Drop an anchor, and they get chain migration when the kid turns 18.Nope. Have you ever actually talked to a Chinese person about China? Or an Indian about India? They're super nationalistic. Many, if not most, don't view living in the states as a change in identity, it's just a way of getting enough money to live well back home.
If you don't believe me, get them started on stuff back home. Tibet for the Chinese or Pakistan for Indians. Then you'll see just how nationalistic they are.
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