The Tribune

THOSE who have never been tangled up in issues over citizenship may not immediately grasp the scale of the impact of yesterday’s Privy Council ruling.

There are people who have time and again found themselves rejected by the country they want to call home.

Take a moment to read the stories of those affected by the ruling. Look at the story of April Finlayson, a Harvard-educated neuroscientist who found herself unwanted by The Bahamas.

She is the daughter of a Bahamian man and an American woman, and talked yesterday of how the ruling left her feeling bittersweet.

She said that she “just gave up on the thought of ever being Bahamian” and decided on a future somewhere else, after her fifth application failed. Our nation’s loss. America’s gain.

Elsewhere, Junisha Jean Pierre, a mother of four children, was overjoyed that her children won’t have to go through what she did.

She talked of the opportunities this would offer – the chance for scholarships for her children, and the fact they would not be charged double to attend the University of The Bahamas because they were not recognised as Bahamian.

Over the years, The Tribune has heard many stories of people who applied for citizenship when they reached 18 years of age, only to face long waits before a decision, if it ever came at all.

Some gave up on waiting and decided they would go to a nation that would accept them instead of the country they grew up in and called home.

One of those is Domonica Thompson, who got citizenship ten years after making her application. She talked of how the ruling would “alleviate a lot of stress on foreigners whose kids are born here living in limbo”.

She added: “I think that it’s going to make it easier for a lot of parents who have children that were born in The Bahamas to now be able to claim what is rightfully theirs.”

This ruling erases one inequality, but others remain. Now there must be a push for Bahamian women to get the same rights as their male counterparts in all instances.

Why we have chosen for so long to allow people born here who have Bahamian ancestry to be rejected, treated as somehow being lesser, and delayed their simple request for their birthright to be recognised is baffling. We diminish our compatriots, and drive them away from our nation. We have too long told people in such situations that they are not welcome – perhaps not in words, but in actions.

No matter what the legal ruling, there has never been any excuse for keeping people waiting so long – a problem under both FNM and PLP administrations. People’s lives, people’s very identities have been treated as of no urgency.

We hope that this will be the catalyst for the government to erase all such inequalities over citizenship – but we note with concern the talk of the need for establishing paternity. We must not impose a new inequality in place of an old one – and if questions of paternity have to be raised, that should apply to all and not selectively based on parentage.

A right is a right, and it must not now be watered down.

But for now, listen to the voices of those affected by this ruling. Listen to the frustration of years of rejection and worry. Listen to the joy for what it means for the next generation.

Listen – and ask what comes next.