Nationality and Citizenship: Looking for a Community Beyond the Nation State

On my way into politics I’ve been pondering on citizenship in the 21st century as never before. When you are not a party member and don’t belong to any constituency as in the case of globalized nomads like me, the only chance to enter politics is through building a new constituency. I mean giving voice to a new constituency.

What does this new constituency look like and who are the citizens who make it and want a different political order?

Two points recently enriched my reflection. It started last weekend with an invitation to a conference on ICT and sustainability targeting Italians who made a successful career abroad. The Italian Ministry of the Environment will open it.

I understand the value in reconnecting successful Italians from across the world. They can give back to their home country with some innovation and perhaps capital. It would be a simple way to be good citizens.

What I don’t understand is the lack of interest in engaging all the foreigners who live in Italy and could contribute as well. Nobody is targeting them because they are not Italian.

Put together the Americans who live in the Chiantishire, Japanese who moved to Rome to learn the history of art and all sorts of economic migrants coming from all other the world. At the actual pace of immigration 10% of the Italian population will be made of non native Italians soon. Isn’t this the largest reserve of diversity and potential innovation in the country to be engaged as citizens?

You might accuse me of being harsh with Italy as usual but something similar happened on Monday at the launch of ACEVO report on youth unemployment. David Miliband, the former Foreign Minister, led the show.

Despite his international credentials Milliband dismissed my question on how government could help young people to take opportunities working abroad where the economy thrives (in contrast to their home country). The British politician forgot that the UK has been a country with a global vocation for centuries, a hub of both emigration and immigration. Helping young people finding a job abroad means educating them to be global citizens instead of trapping them  in the village where they were born and which doesn’t have any future to offer.

Miliband is not an exception but a reflection of shortsighted “nation-stateism”. As Will Hutton wrote in the Guardian, British young people have the worst rate of learning foreign languages in Europe and are the least number enrolling in exchange programmes such as the Erasmus (invented by a Brit). This inhibits business and costs an estimate of £17bn to the economy, Roland Rudd claims.

These are just two stories of the culture that has collapsed citizenship in nationality and dominates society. However, this is not my world as I have been a nomad for far too long.

I don’t feel particularly Italian, or particularly British either. This is not a new thought. I guess it happens to everybody who, like me, has lived in many countries. You ask yourself whom you belong to, where you want to live, age and die.

Perhaps it’s not true. This is a sentiment unique to my generation, the first one of the network society. I’m an immigrant but I don’t have any specific nostalgia for my home country. I was born in Bologna and chose to live in London. This is my answer when I’m asked where I come from.

I’m not indifferent to Italy but the country is too small and there are many other exciting places in the world where I want to live. I couldn’t confine my horizon within such limited borders.

When I must decide to which community I belong my answer is Europe, but not all of it. Just the generation who looks at national borders as historical inheritance, cultural diversity but is pretty confident in a shared future despite the destiny of the €.

I belong to the Erasmus generation, the already millions who left their home country at university and didn’t go back.

The post national community, however, doesn’t have a political voice but is confined within the boundaries of national politics. It’s not a constituency yet.

I decided to move into politics because I’m fed up trying to fit into other communities that don’t share my values and don’t prioritise my needs. I wonder if I am the only one… perhaps you might like my Prezi presentation on Democracy in Europe.