The Good Citizen

Are you a good American? Perhaps one way of knowing is taking the US Citizenship and Immigration Services' new test for incoming citizens. It's not hard. Everyone here will breeze through it, even the Brits. I expected it to be harder, perhaps nefariously so, but I would note that some concepts have cultural meanings: only in the United States would constitution be seen purely as a printed document, and self-government would be a Pandora's box that Americans would not want to open if foreign definitions were in use.

The last year has been tough on immigrants, legal and otherwise. The US was not the only country to create new tests for immigrants, tests that intend to assess the quality of the potential citizen. The Migration Policy Institute'stop ten migration stories of 2006 shows higher walls being errected around Western nations to people from other parts of the world. The top story, perhaps, says it all:"Good-bye Multiculturalism--Hello Assimilation?":

In 2006, European politicians dealt multiculturalism numerous public blows, which the media was only too happy to cover. Multiculturalism, policymakers essentially said, has failed to adequately integrate immigrants and their descendants.

Since the late 1990s, Europe's emphasis on strict integration policy has increased: learn our language, our history, our culture, and live by our laws and values. The UK, which didn't require a citizenship test until 2005, fully implemented the test this year, and Germany's regional governments introduced tests on top of the 600-hour, federally mandated language courses.

However, the Netherlands has taken the hardest line. As of March 15, prospective immigrants from nearly every country (EU and Western countries excepted) must take and pass a" civic integration exam" at one of the country's 138 embassies before they can be issued a visa.

Included in the exam's optional study packet is a controversial DVD entitled"Coming to the Netherlands." The two-hour video shows prospective immigrants what they can expect, including men who kiss each other and women who go topless at Dutch beaches (an edited version is available in countries where such material is banned). The message: Anyone offended should not come.

Erecting walls around themselves is hardly good neighborliness for incoming immigrants to any country. But the failure of multiculturalism does not always reflect the problems with immigrants: the hesitation of natural citizens has contributed as much to the problem. France's banlieus, sites of so much violence last Fall, put the isolation of North Africans and Muslims on the map, as they are exluded from the city centers by gentrification. Ideally, integration occurs naturally as different groups interact with one another. Suspecting immigrants' purity as citizens works against integration, forcing them to turn more toward their fellows and finding comfort in isolation.

The war on the burqa has become even more problematic. France's prohibition of veils from schools had, at least, some basis in republican law and tradition (no matter how unnecessarily confrontational it was). The campaign in other countries has become melodrama. As Jack Straw said a few months ago,

Communities are bound together partly by informal chance relations between strangers, people being able to acknowledge each other in the street or being able to pass the time of day. That’s made more difficult if people are wearing a veil. That’s just a fact of life.

Wolves in sheeps' clothing! The burqa prevents us from seeing their beady, little eyes! Are other manipulations of appearance equally problematic: sunglasses, makeup, facial hair, plastic surgery?

Straw's right on one thing: meetings in public space help form communities. Individuals are forced to confront one another, their differing ideologies, comportments, aspirations. The notion of the single, shared identity is tested in public interaction. Visual judgements don't bridge the gap between people; only the commitment to interact can do so.