Citizenship carries a seductive promise. Once the passport arrives, the outsider has crossed the line. The law no longer distinguishes between the old citizen and the new one. Both vote. Both possess the same legal standing. Both are told, in the language of democracy, that they now belong equally. Yet anyone who has spent enough … Continue reading Citizenship Is Not Equality
Author: Gurtej Singh
Identity Without Destiny
A brown migrant can live in Aotearoa New Zealand for ten years and still find themselves puzzled by two very simple questions. What exactly is ethnic, and what exactly is multiculturalism? They may have filled in enough government forms by then to know which box they are expected to tick. They may have attended Diwali … Continue reading Identity Without Destiny
Another Bridge, or Another Century?
For years, Auckland’s City Rail Link was treated as a kind of civic extravagance, a tunnel-shaped affront to fiscal sobriety. Every revision of its budget invited the same small chorus of disbelief. At about $5.5 billion, the CRL became evidence, for some, that public transport had grown too ambitious for its own good. Then came … Continue reading Another Bridge, or Another Century?