There are 193 member states in the United Nations. Nearly all of them are republics of one kind or another. Republic of this. Federal Republic of that. People’s Republic of something else. The modern world is a forest of republics.
Given the prevalence of republics among humans, one suspects that in the animal kingdom wolves and ants must also be running their own republics. The only difference is that, though these brutes carry passports, they do not travel internationally—for when they did, some were eaten and others learned.
A republic, in the modern sense, rests on a constitution. It claims sovereignty. It recognizes citizens. Those citizens carry a passport when they travel from one republic to another. The passport is a curious object. It says: this person belongs. This state stands behind him.
Given that the constitution governs the republic, one might reasonably assume that every citizen, qua citizen, enjoys the same status and dignity. Regardless of race. Regardless of means. Regardless of how long ago his ancestors arrived. A citizen is a citizen.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Take the most republic of all republics — the United States. A nation that prides itself on being a constitutional democracy and a land of immigrants. Its founding document speaks of equal protection under the law. Its ceremonies of naturalization are solemn affairs. Oaths are sworn. Flags are waved. Certificates are issued. A new passport will soon follow.
Now try telling someone whose ancestors came over centuries ago — and who may well have displaced others in the process — that you, newly off the boat, are in every sense as American as he is. Watch the expression. Sometimes it is polite. Sometimes it is puzzled. Occasionally it is generous. But it is never entirely neutral.
And to be fair, reverse the situation. Tell the fourth-generation citizen that ancestry is irrelevant, that rootedness is a fiction, that historical continuity counts for nothing. Watch that expression too.
Legally, citizenship is clear. Socially, it is less so.
But let’s not pick on America. Choose another nation at random. Japan. China. France. Germany. Acquire citizenship there through naturalization. Learn the language impeccably. Memorize the constitution. Pay your taxes. Vote in elections.
You will be a citizen.
Will you be Japanese? Chinese? French? German?
In law, yes.
In sentiment — that is another matter.
Citizenship is constitutional. Belonging is civilizational.
The constitution can declare equality. It cannot manufacture recognition. A passport can certify membership in a state. It cannot certify acceptance into a people.
Beneath the polished language of republics — beneath the oaths and documents and embossed seals — the older rules remain. Tribe. Memory. Name. Face. Accent. History. The slow sediment of centuries.
The republic promises abstraction. Humanity operates on recognition.
This is not a complaint. It may simply be an observation about the limits of political design. Constitutions are modern. Instinct is ancient. The animal kingdom did not disappear when parliaments were formed.
Perhaps citizenship is not an illusion. It is very real in courts, in voting booths, in border crossings. It works. It functions.
But the dream that citizenship erases hierarchy — that it dissolves history, that it equalizes belonging in the deepest sense — may be the pipe dream.
The republic governs the state.
Something older governs the tribe.
And the two coexist, uneasily, in all 193 of them.
Yego’s Chronicles 