I
asked the vice-consul to sign a short note saying that I had taken
issue with the details on my new passport, as I believed there to be an
error. I thought an abnormal mistake had been made on my new passport.
I
put my request to the vice-consul because she assured me that there was
no error made on my passport after she checked it. It took quite some
arguing to have the vice-consul specifically state or agree the issue I
had about the Nationality declaration, she repeating for a while at
first simply that there was no error in my passport.
The
vice-consul who issued my passport to me told me that I was the first
person to her knowledge to complain about the blaring issue I describe
here. I asked if she meant in respect of passports issued at the
Embassy where she worked, which I imagine would be a relatively small
number, or generally, including at the passport issuing offices in the
United Kingdom. She replied that she meant anywhere. I imagine though
there are many complaints made to passport issuing bodies of the U.K. I
am guessing fully but it seems to me it must be so.
After
some time the vice-consul did agree to sign a short note for me which I
wished to produce to the passport authority when back in the U.K. which
would prove that I had complained to a passport issuing department of
the Government about the Nationality section of my passport and had
been informed that there was no error.
On
first receiving my new passport, I envisaged myself being stuck at a
border control at the edge of a country in far Eastern Europe, or in
Iraq. Or The Azores, or Eire, it doesn't matter but in that some
countries would have many less British visitors. and, there, inexperienced
border control officers may believe a passport to be a fake. Or may
disregard anyway a passport which does not state the nationality of the
holder on it. I wonder if these scenarios have happened. I presume,
only guessing fully, that they have, and I naturally add 'of course' to
my simple conjecture. Of course it is extremely likely that my
hypothetical situations have occurred in real life I believe.
Although
I do not hold old passports of mine nor can I remember what was stated
in the Nationality category in my past passports, I found two older
passports of each of my parents, one issued in the 1980s and one issued
in the 1990s. These also have British Citizen declared under the
Nationality category.
I
have, over time, asked to examine the passports of around a hundred
persons, all British nationals, within the last few years. They all
without exception stated that the holder was a British Citizen in the
Nationality category, without giving any individual's nationality on
any passports.
This has to change.
The British Government or others may claim that, in the U.K. a citizen is the same thing as a national.
This is not true elsewhere in the world. We cannot define these terms anew as if the rest of the world did not exist.
If this even is or could be claimed to be true, there still of course is no point in saying that someone's nationality is their citizenship of the same country. But this has been done to very many people.
To say citizenship is the same as nationality is different from saying citizenship is nationality.
Citizenship is not nationality.
There are foreign nationals who aren't British but are British citizens.
Nationality does not mean citizenship.
There is British nationality. Even the passports which we do have have the suggestion of it; just this - as they then tell us something else.
Why include different terms if they are deemed to mean the same thing? Why in doing this call into question very meaning of both and all else that that brings on?
Wikipedia Encyclopedia states that the term "British National" is undefined by statute. Although in this country, this means probably that the Government can't deal with it until it is defined by statue, we shouldn't have to rely on a statute for the proper life of a term in our lives.
Soon, anyway, is the time for definition by statute.
I am terribly embarrassed, and exist by hiding my identity in a huge and uncontrollable way when I travel abroad. It hurts my head.
Please say how you feel also, if you like.
Don't let us be the laughing stock of the world in this issue for much longer.
