Tag Archives: Citizenship Ceremony

Why Adnan and Audrey Can Teach Us about Being a British Citizen

There are so many reasons why people of different nationalities want to live in London – rich culture, literature, and history, delicious foods, romantic locations, liberal traditions, the royalties, uncorrupted democracy, rule of law, free education, and many more. However, it seems that people are starting to lose their interest in living and becoming a part of this highly-looked upon country due to several reasons like the degradation of some British policies for rights and discrimination to immigrants and foreigners who wanted or who have become citizens of Britain.

A British Induction ceremony was recently held in one of the high fashion dome-shaped auditorium in London. This ceremony marks the changing lives of several people by becoming British citizens. The ceremony runs for only less than 10 minutes where applicants swore to an oath while the national anthem plays.

One of them was Adnan Alrashid who came from Kuwait and was very excited that he dropped his certificate. He said that he wanted to live in London since there is a strong sense of rights in there and that everyone can say and do what their hearts tell them to do or say so. Another one is Audrey Houston Thomas from Jakarta whose reason was that there is a lot of opportunity waiting for her in this country. Abdul Hadi, who came from Afghanistan, stated that there is justice in London and that it is safe country.

Numerous people with different nationalities: Romanian, Filipino, Somali, Pakistani, Brazilian, and Australian; were very thrilled and enthusiastic as if they have won the lottery. This may be due to several reasons like the one mentioned above and also to experience something new with their lives or just to escape from a terrible or war-devoured country where they may have come from.

However, according to some studies conducted by the NatCen Social Research, the number of people wanting to become British citizens has decreased for the past decade. Last ten years, up to 43% of these people stated that they were “very proud” of being British citizens. But right now, it is only 35%. Moreover, most of these proud people are the old ones with the middle aged ones at the middle, and the younger ones who stated that they are “not proud” of being a British citizen.

This may leave any British citizens reading this wondering why people are starting to lose their interest in their country. According to NatCen, the primary reason for this may be due to the events that degraded the patriotic fervor there was in Britain. Wars and similar events are one of them. Moreover, discrimination to foreigners who became British citizens is a major reason also. They are treated as if they are burdens to the society and as if they are sucking the life out of Britain.

The aforementioned circumstance really is alarming and unfortunate. But the main solution for this may be to learn from the lessons of the past and not to ponder on past events of the history. It may also be a bog help to treat each other equally like everyone are siblings. According to Sudheer Dara, an immigrant from India seven years ago, he loved London for its diverse culture and numerous new things to try out. This perspective of him is really fascinating and should be preserved.