National Citizen
As part of our welcoming into this world, we are granted citizenship to the country in which we are born into. It’s kind of boring that we didn’t get to choose, right? However, as we grow up, our worldview is broadened and our relationships with others are deepen. Depending on how profoundly we feel connected to others, either far or near, we can now choose the answer to this question — do we identify ourselves as global or local citizens. Although feeling connected to people worldwide increases our empathy for one another, I believe it is important to identify as a local citizen because it leads us to feel a stronger sense of belonging which may result in a stronger sense of responsibility.
In fact, I experienced that myself. The majority of people I follow on social media are Hispanic. In consequence to that, I come across several posts of people bringing attention to family members who have been deported by ICE officers. I usually take time to say some prayers and maybe repost to raise awareness. However, when the same thing happened to a girl’s father I knew from school, I not only did those things, but I included resources so that other people knew what actions to take to help AND I donated to the family to help pay their bills as well. I hardly knew the girl so why did I do this for her and not others?
It was because we share a sense of belonging. We share a community together. I’m not too sure about the psychology behind it, but I felt a sense of responsibility to help my fellow community member. When people feel connected, whether it be through blood, shared experiences, or so on, they are more prone to respond to a cry for help. It is a bit harder to do that with someone who is across the world than with someone who is right in your backyard. This is the sense of belonging that develops more strongly when people identify as a local citizen.
Admittedly, this may cause people to question the extent to which people can have empathy towards the people they can’t relate to. Therefore, some may ask if lack of compassion is the aftermath of identifying locally. Although I can see how that argument may arise, I see the situation in a different light. Affiliating with a certain community does encourage you to feel a certain responsibility to help that community but it does not necessarily discourage someone from helping others. Local citizenship gives you motivation, not a cap on compassion.
That being said, the actions you perform at a local level can also be impactful on a global scale. For example, to combat climate change many people look at what they can do within their own communities to help resolve this issue. You can pick up trash there, you can vote for certain policies there, but you need to understand that it all starts THERE, in your local community. Identifying as a local citizen can also create a more effective attitude towards tackling the issue. By taking this global issue of climate change and bringing it down to the community level, people are more likely to respond to the call to action since they feel a sense of responsibility to their community. It also reduces the sense of hopelessness because the issue and the steps to resolve it don’t feel so daunting.
It’s reasonable to worry that this may cause some communities to better themselves, even at the expense of the others. Afterall, this has happened before. This could come in the form of burning down forests in an attempt to switch plastic products to biodegradable bamboo, such as straws and toothbrushes. Despite this being an unfortunate possibility, that is where local responsibility comes into play again. Voting to pass policies that won’t allow that to happen is one way of taking local action to have a grander impact. It is important for us to identify as local citizens but have a global perspective in mind.
All in all, identifying as a local citizen is important to promoting a sense of responsibility and increasing people’s response to action. In reality, people feel a closer connection to those who they can share things with or can relate to. Identifying with them as a local citizen only solidifies that unity. The benefits of thinking this way largely outweigh the negatives and can be seen at both a communal and global scale.
