Nahlah Ayed

Nahlah Ayed: . . . it was a difficult concept to grasp for those whose citizenship bestowed few benefits and meant little more than residence, she writes. It was hard for many of them to look past the notion that a foreign passport was anything more than a tool, a buoy that could solve all of lifes problems, especially when they lived in a place with no future. . , according to The Star. But of course a passport is a tool, one of the most powerful that exists in our globalized and unequal world. Since it promises escape and opportunities for those stuck in dire situations, those with resources will acquire them to better their life chances. Hence, as Ayed witnessed, many made use of this device during a particularly grim period of civil conflict in Lebanon: In A Thousand Farewells , her memoir of covering civil unrest and war in the Middle East, Canadian reporter Nahlah Ayed writes about the striking reception her citizenship received in that region. The Winnipeg-born daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Ayed found it difficult to convince Arabs she met that being Canadian was a deeply substantive identity, not just a lucky technicality: Resisting such a cavalier attitude to citizenship among would-be Canadians has been one of the signature efforts of the Harper government under ministers Jason Kenney and now Chris Alexander. Measures to strengthen the value of Canadian citizenship by setting more stringent conditions to deter its use as a tool for ulterior purposes are expected to be prominent among reforms promised in 2014. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.