Citizenship is a privilege or a right?
Read each article. What are the main ideas of each article? What do they have in common? Complete this diagram.
| Washington Post – Hellyer | both | The Daily Mail– Morgan |
| Rational; objective | Emotional; critical | |
| Should be responsible to Syria by not let Begum just stay there | ISIS bride does not deserve our sympathy | ISIS brides are dangerous supporters of terrorism |
| Revoking citizenship is a form of racism | The baby is innocent | They should be sent back to their home nations |
| Britain should have detained Begum upon arrival and processed her case to the full extent of the law. | Citizenship can be revoked if the person has dual nationality. | “You made your ISIS husband beds, now you can rot in hell in them.”
Marrying an enemy renounces betrayal. |
| Begum should still have her citizenship because even criminals have their citizenship. | Discuss the issue on whether Shamima Begum should return to British | Didn’t mention the citizenship issue, but it looks like the author agrees to revoke it. No actual solution is given. |
Write a post reflecting on your initial thoughts in response to slide 4 in light of the two articles and the Home Fire extract.
Consider also:
- How does language use vary amongst text types and amongst literary forms?
- How do texts offer insights and challenges?
- How might patterns remain or change within and among texts?
- In what ways can diverse texts share points of similarity?
The character of Karomat Lone argues that citizenship is a privilege, not a right. It can be revoked if the government thinks appropriate. Do you agree with him?
Lone’s belief that citizenship can be revoked if the government chooses to is disagreeable. The government has the responsibility to handle guilty citizens. For those who believe citizenship could be revoked, their belief is that the person chose to betray the state, therefore is no longer belongs to the State. It may sound like an argument, but first of all, join ISIS is not the same as joining an enemy country at war-time. Especially they didn’t actually do harmful things. Secondly, in a more Chinese or collectivist view, if a person betrayed an organization that he or she belongs to, that organization is responsible to punish that person, even to kill that person. Can never just say “we are not related anymore”. So that’s what I believe is right. But I do understand that the western governments don’t have that many responsibilities to their citizens. It’s sometimes a protect too but not in this case. Especially young people are vulnerable to the manipulation of terrorist groups such as ISIS. If the government failed at protecting it’s children from those dangers, how can it just left the consequences all to the victim? It’s such a shame for that government.