just as unjust for the individuals affected, whatever the history
may be. And the denial of citizenship to these groups means that
in practice the issues of land and economic inequality are actually (perhaps even deliberately) made more difficult to resolve.
Not only are the minds of those who should be governing the
country or resolving the conflict distracted from serious attempts
to address the underlying problems, but the validity of the participation of those who must be a part of the solution is denied.
And without their participation, the other problems can only
remain intractable, harming all who live in the state.
Redefining national citizenship
23
Introduction
Different approaches to citizenship are possible, even in countries that are just as multiethnic as Côte d’Ivoire, DRC or Kenya.
Citizenship is a dynamic concept, the notion of ‘who belongs’
surprisingly flexible over time, especially where those in authority
lead the effort to redefine the rules. And those African countries
that have taken an inclusive approach to citizenship, providing
for a wide access to those who are born in their country, have
been among the most peaceful since independence. Tanzania,
one of the few African countries that provides citizenship to
anyone born on its territory, has over the years repeatedly taken
steps to integrate migrant and refugee populations to full citizen
ship rights, and has benefited with social peace. Several of the
francophone countries of the West African Sahel provide nondiscriminatory and generous provisions for citizenship for those
born in the country, even though birth in the country does not
provide citizenship in itself.
A trickle of reforms since the mid-1990s has brought increasing gender equality to citizenship law, even though a majority of
African countries still do not allow women to pass citizenship to
both their husbands and children on an equal basis with men.
The steady changes to the rules on dual citizenship also provide
cause for hope. Increasingly, African countries have relaxed their
prohibitions on dual citizenship to allow their own diasporas now
in Europe or North America to retain their links to the country