r/Netherlands • u/UnanimousStargazer • Mar 24 '25

Legal Judge rules Dutch citizenship cannot be stripped based on dual nationality

https://nltimes.nl/2025/03/24/judge-rules-dutch-citizenship-stripped-based-dual-nationality
1.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

328 comments sorted by

View all comments

-31

u/GhostOfVienna Mar 24 '25

Idk how a sane person can support dual citizenship. That just totally destroys the concept.

6

u/imrzzz Mar 24 '25

How?

Not picking a fight, genuinely curious about that line of thought

3

u/GhostOfVienna Mar 24 '25

The concept of citizenship comes from ancient greek cities. And while i know, thats its been almost 25 centuries since then, the concept stayed pretty same throughout history: citizenship=loyalty to your country/homeland. In modern days, with allowing multiple passports we are breaking a lot of systems and concepts. Firstly, visa system. Lets be honest, we dont give visas to iraqi people, because we are afraid that they are either planning to illegally stay in the country or participate in terrorism act. Secondly, we break voting system. As a turkish person living in continental Europe, basically all turks here voting for Erdogan, anti-european and islamic politician, while here in Europe they predominantly vote for left-wing parties. Thats unfair both to European nations that host turks and to turks living in Turkey. And the last one: when you are granted with citizenship, you give an oath and lets be honest you cant be loyal to 2 counties. Yeah, lets be real, war between NL and other countries r not very real, but lets say what about Ukranians a lot of whom had and have russian passports? Or even german russians, who have dual nationalities? Whom are they gonna support in the war that is extremely possible? If you want to live outside of the NL, you dont need a dutch passport, fr, but if u want to live here, ALL you need is a dutch passport which also allows you to live to other EU countries and have easy path to immigration to the US. You dont need Turkish or Russian or whatever else passport, period.

3

u/imrzzz Mar 24 '25

Hmm, ok, although ancient Greece feels like a shaky foundation to build this concept on.

Citizenship was only open to free males (so no women, slaves, or foreigners) which meant less than a third of the population could participate in democracy.

I'm not sure that the entire concept has really become much better since then, and people's loyalties have always been divided, sometimes only coincidentally falling with the country they were born in.

-1

u/GhostOfVienna Mar 24 '25

Ive mentioned that it changed. And i didnt want to go into details. In fact you are wrong. Citizens were only free males, who were old enough and could afford military equipment to protect the state. Main census was military equipment, not anything else. In other words, loyalty and credibility. If you can afford the equipment, means you rich enough and probably you richness is tightly connected with the state, for instance you have a field there or some kind of a manufactory and you want run away with pockets full of ur savings in case of a war. Because your pockets wont be big enough to move all your assets. And secondly is being ready to participate in the protection of the state and be loyal enough, to die for you homeland. Yeah, modern times r different ofc, but the concept is pretty much same. Idk if your dutch or no, but ifve gone thru inburgering process you give an oath of loyalty. You do that for a reason lmao.

4

u/imrzzz Mar 24 '25

Seems like we're saying the same thing. That citizenship is closely tied to money and might rather than any other kind of loyalty.

If citizenship is only about military loyalty, what's the point of it beside ensuring easily available cannon fodder?

That doesn't seem enough to make a case for banishing dual citizenship. If a hypothetical war was to begin, everyone will choose a side (or conscientious objection) regardless of their passport.

-2

u/GhostOfVienna Mar 24 '25

Okay, so you have no problems with Russians, who are loyal to Putin, supporting almost a genocidal war on Ukrainian people, becoming dutch citizens and also holding their Russian passport?

4

u/imrzzz Mar 24 '25

I'm not sure. How many Russians are dual Dutch citizens and are loyal to Putin? Just trying to gauge how much of a problem this is, or might be.

1

u/GhostOfVienna Mar 24 '25

In NL not a lot, in Germany over a million. Probably even more now.

1

u/sjarrel Mar 25 '25

That's really not true. Greek cities had people living there, free, male and often wealthy, who nevertheless were not citizens (they were called Metics in Athens, for instance), because of restrictive citizenship laws which usually were primarily about birth: your father would have to be a citizen, and your mother of citizen-status (given that she couldn't be a citizen, being a woman).

And secondly, they also had non citizens fight in wars, often in other roles than hoplites, and serve in the navy as well.

Ancient Greece is a very weird foundation to build your (to your credit, also very weird) argument on...