What is Foreignness?

Foreignness is believing that human beings are “foreigners” and that “foreigners” are not entitled to the same rights as “us”.

Foreignness is a set of institutions which maintain separate rights and duties for “citizens” and foreigners.

Foreignness is put into effect through values, ideas, laws and practice.

The morality of foreignness is based on regarding people as unequal, so that we have less responsibility for suffering of “foreigners”. We treat foreigners in ways we would not treat fellow citizens. We fail to act for the well-being on foreigners, when we would act immediately if the level of suffering happening around the world was occurring in our country. Human rights of course holds that all human beings are created equal, and that we are all entitled to the same rights. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated that we are entitled to an international and social order in which all the rights of the Declaration can be realised. Most human beings experience a world which is unfair and unequal.

Citizenship isn’t just about legal rights and duties. It’s also about membership in a democratic process so that individuals have a say. Also its about defining who we accept as a member of our community. Saying someone is a foreigner means taking away rights, but it also means denial of an equal voice, and denial of “community”.

In sheer numbers, treating people as foreigners today results in human suffering that exceeds anything seen in human history. During the entire Atlantic slave trade, about 10,000,000 people were transported. This is about the same number of children under 5 that die every year because they are treated as foreigners.