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Putting Citizenship to the Test
By Edward Rothstein
Where does Father Christmas come from? How old do you have to be to buy a lottery ticket? If your adult son declares he's a homosexual, what do you do? If a film or a book insults your religious feelings, what is your reaction? Why are aboriginal peoples seeking self-government? Who has the power to declare war?
Answering such questions appropriately may not define you as a citizen of the world, but it would help get you citizenship in Britain (the first two questions), Germany (the second two), Canada (the next) or the United States (the last).
In the United States, discussions about creating a new citizenship test have been going on for a decade. About $3.5 million has been spent since 2001, when the Immigration and Naturalization Service promised a redesign. The planned date for a new test, 2006, has been abandoned; Alfonso Aguilar, the chief of the Office of Citizenship, suggests that a more realistic goal would be 2007 or 2008.
Britain, meanwhile, introduced a new citizenship test in November and has begun formal induction ceremonies like those in America. In January, the Baden-Württemberg region of Germany instituted questions to be asked only of Muslims from particular countries - questions dealing with women's rights, religious freedom and domestic life.
One reason for the flurry of activity has been just what the German questions so bluntly address, and one of the causes of the riots in response to the publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad: the phenomenon of Muslim immigrants and citizens in Europe who not only are segregated from a nation's culture but also hostile to it. In 2004, for example, a poll found that 21 percent of Muslims in Germany believed that the Koran and the German Constitution were incompatible.
Hence these attempts to establish a shared identity based on particular beliefs and facts. But which ones? Even where the notion of identity would seem to be fairly secure, notions of citizenship can be slight.
In Britain, the Home Office minister in charge said the new procedures were meant to "help new citizens to gain a greater appreciation of the civic and political dimensions of British citizenship." But while the 45-minute test includes questions about the structure of the British government and emphasizes Britain's religious identity ("What is the Church of England and who is its head?"), the main emphasis is on the test's title: "Life in the U.K."
By comparison, the U.S. test seems fairly robust. It covers a fair amount of trivia: the name of the Pilgrims' trans- Atlantic ship, for example. But there are also questions about government structure ("Why are there 100 senators in the Senate?") and ideas ("What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence?"). "We see the test as an instrument to promote civic learning and patriotism," Aguilar said in an interview by telephone. The purpose, he said, is not to limit immigration but to create a system in which the process of naturalization works. (Reprinted from the International Herald Tribune.
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