Enlightenment abt Nationality and Citizenship

All along, I thought that citizenship means "pledging your loyalty" to the country and U become a citizen of the nation. Till my friend showed me the light abt the truly meaning of citizenship.

It happened when my friend mentioned that he came across funny questions on application forms. He asked why there are 2 questions asking for nationality and citizenship. What is the difference between nationality and citizenship liao? Aren't they the same?

His bro butted in and said "Nationality is the place where you are born". My friend replied "How do you explain the place of birth". He joked "U???Place of birth? rubbish bin lah....hahahaha".

I laughed too. But I told him that I think that citizenship and nationality are the same. For e.g if you become Aussie citizen, Wizard of OZ (Australia) will become ur nationality.

He nodded and chipped in his 2 cents worth that "it is the same UNLESS I am a PR. For e.g my nationality is Malaysia but my citizenship is Singapore PR."

Huh, so funny. How can Singapore PR be COUNTED as citizenship? From my then-opinions ( old one), citizenship means holding true-blue identify card. For e.g if you are singaporean, ur ic will be pink. If u are Malaysian but Singapore PR, ur ic will be blue. So u are not Singaporean offically and Singaporea is not ur citizenship.

But no, he explained to me that citizen means the status in place. For e.g if u are from India and come to Singapore to work on employment pass, India is your nationality and Singapore employment pass is ur citizenship.

I will spare u the long-winded and yawny details abt our converstations. But anyway, I am enlightened that there are 2 different kinds of citizenships -

1. one for being a loyal citizen of nation provided that you take the pledge,

2. and the other one is for filling up the citizenship question abt ur status in place if U are not from that place. If u are on WP (work permit), u write WP. If U are on EP (employment pass), U write EP. If u are PR, U write PR.

It is quite eye-opener and enlightening for me. But what abt nationality? They said that nationality is the place where U are born. But I think that it dun make sense. My mom is born in our neighbouring country, Malaysia but she is Singaporean. So what is truly meaning of nationality?

posted by Sleek Black @ 10/08/2005 10:35:00 PM