Arab Literary Travels

Definition: Citizen

Alexander Fyfe
Katie Logan
E 324 (Arab Literary Travels)
 
Definition Assignment: Citizen

In my passport, in reassuringly authoritative capital letters, is printed: BRITISH CITIZEN. Whilst this may suggest that the issue of what a citizen “is” can be put to bed – it’s that which is indicated in one’s passport, should one have a passport – this is not the case. It is, in fact, not an easy thing to define a “citizen”, and there are many more senses of the word than my passport would have us believe. It is a word with a stake in many arenas; it is a word of great legal importance just as it is a word of great cultural importance, and its colloquial use may not coincide with its use in the above two contexts at all. Not only this, but it is one of the most concrete and universal descriptors of identity we have in the 21st century, the century of the nation state, and as such is fired with great emotional charge. Citizen is, in short, a word that resists a concise definition.
 
Nonetheless, the Oxford English Dictionary is, perhaps, a fair place to begin. Comprehensive though the OED’s definition is, it is discursive: it lists five definitions, each with its own subsidiary definitions and notes. The most lucid and widely-understood definitions describe a citizen as an “inhabitant of a city or town; esp. one possessing civic rights and privileges”; a “legally recognised subject or national of a state, commonwealth or other polity, either native or naturalized, having certain rights, privileges or duties”; or simply as “an inhabitant, an occupant” (www.oed.com). Usefully, there is great overlap amongst these definitions. In two of the three definitions reference is made to the “rights and privileges” that make a citizen – not only is a citizen a subject/inhabitant of a place, but they are a subject/inhabitant of a place that awards them certain civic rights and privileges. An example of such a right would be the right to vote. Now, to where the OED’s definitions disagree – there is a tension between citizen as a subject, and citizen as an inhabitant. Citizen as a subject makes it an intangible, invisible and mobile quality; I may be in the United States of America, but I am a British citizen, an epithet that does not diminish by time away from Britain nor distance from her shores. Citizen as an inhabitant makes it into a circumstantial quality – I currently live in Austin, I am therefore a citizen of Austin.
 
Examining the etymology of citizen helps shed light on this disagreement. The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology notes that the word appears first in 1300 in Arthour and Merlin, and is used to describe the inhabitant of a city (174). The word’s use to mean a subject of a country occurs first in 1380, when Geoffrey Chaucer was translating the writings of the Roman philosopher and politician Boethius. It is worth noting that in the time of Boethius a pre-condition for receiving the rights and privileges that make a citizen would be the ownership of property. As such property owners would congregate in urban areas, to say a citizen was an inhabitant of a town was largely the same as saying they were the citizen of a country: the country’s citizens lived in towns. In the 21st century, the definition of the word to mean a subject of a country is the most popular.
 
Indeed, this definition is broadly consonant with the legal definition of the term, a fact that further speaks to the word’s current usage. Black’s Law Dictionary defines citizen as

          Someone who, by either birth or naturalization, is a member of a
          political community, owing allegiance to the community and being
          entitled to enjoy all its civil rights and protections; a member of the
          civil state, entitled to all its privileges. (298)

Here, in this more expansive, legal, definition, attention is drawn to how one becomes a citizen; namely, Black’s references citizens by “birth” and citizens by “naturalization”. It is in these processes of attaining the status of “citizen” – and, indeed, in the processes of renouncing that status – where debate over what a citizen is is to be had. In most countries, should a person be born on that country’s territory, that person is eligible to be a citizen of that country – this is to be a citizen by birth. If a person is not born in the country, they can still usually attain citizenship of that country by satisfying certain conditions, such as living there for a prolonged period of time, or passing a citizenship test on the country’s culture – this is to be a citizen by naturalization. The real question is this: to what extent is a citizen by naturalization the same as a citizen by birth?
 
In the United States of America, there is a legal difference between the two. I can become a citizen of the USA by naturalization, but I would still be ineligible to become president of the country – it is a key right enjoyed by citizens by birth alone. This somewhat confounds the Black’s definition of a citizen as someone who enjoys “all” a political society’s rights and privileges. It also invites another question: if there is a legal difference between citizens, might there also be other differences? Certainly – let’s again look at naturalization in the United States. One of the requirements that must be met is knowing the “fundamentals of U.S. history and the form and principles of the U.S. government”; another, that the citizen-to-be learn English (www.uscis.gov). These are important stipulations, as they imply that there must be a degree of cultural assimilation in order to become an American citizen – this is critical. A citizen is not only someone who, through either birth or naturalization, enjoys a society’s rights and privileges, but also someone who is, at the very least, knowledgeable of the culture of that society. The label “citizen” is a cultural designation as well as a legal one, and hence carries a further emotional and personal significance; this complicates the definition of a “citizen” immensely. Remembering this complication, we can define “citizen” thusly:
 
A citizen is                 Or 
 
Works Cited
 
Alexander Patrick Fyfe’s passport
 
Black’s Law Dictionary, ed. by Bryan A. Garner et al, 10th edn (Thomson Reuters: Saint Paul, 2014)
 
Dictionary of Etymology (Chambers: New York, 1988)
 
The Oxford English Dictionary Online <http://0-www.oed.com.catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk> [accessed 10 February 2016]
 
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services <https://www.uscis.gov> [accessed 9 February 2016]

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