“If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what citizenship means,” the British prime minister, Theresa May, declared in October 2016. Not long after, at his first postelection rally, Donald Trump asserted, “There is no global anthem. No global currency. No certificate of global citizenship. We pledge allegiance to one flag and that flag is the American flag.” And in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has increased his national-conservative party’s popularity with statements like “all the terrorists are basically migrants” and “the best migrant is the migrant who does not come.”
Citizenship and its varying legal definition has become one of the key battlegrounds of the 21st century, as nations attempt to stake out their power in a G-Zero, globalized world, one increasingly defined by transnational, borderless trade and liquid, virtual finance. In a climate of pervasive nationalism, jingoism, xenophobia, and ever-building resentment toward those who move, it’s tempting to think that doing so would become more difficult. But alongside the rise of populist, identitarian movements across the globe, identity itself is being virtualized, too. It no longer needs to be tied to place or nation to function in the global marketplace.
Hannah Arendt called citizenship “the right to have rights.” Like any other right, it can be bestowed and withheld by those in power, but in its newer forms it can also be bought, traded, and rewritten. Virtual citizenship is a commodity that can be acquired through the purchase of real estate or financial investments, subscribed to via an online service, or assembled by peer-to-peer digital networks. And as these options become available, they’re also used, like so many technologies, to exclude those who don’t fit in.
In a world that increasingly operates online, geography and physical infrastructure still remain crucial to control and management. Undersea fiber-optic cables trace the legacy of imperial trading routes. Google and Facebook erect data centers in Scandinavia and the Pacific Northwest, close to cheap hydroelectric power and natural cooling. The trade in citizenship itself often manifests locally as architecture. From luxury apartments in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean to data centers in Europe and refugee settlements in the Middle East, a scattered geography of buildings brings a different reality into focus: one in which political decisions and national laws transform physical space into virtual territory.
The sparkling seafront of Limassol, the second-largest city in Cyprus, stretches for several miles along the southwestern coast of the island. In recent years it has become particularly popular among Russian tourists and emigrants, who have settled in the area. Almost 20 percent of the population is now Russian-speaking. Along 28 October Avenue, which borders the seafront, new towers have sprung up, as well as a marina and housing complex, filled with international coffee and restaurant chains. The 19-floor Olympic Residence towers are the tallest residential buildings on the island, along with the Oval building, a 16-floor structure shaped like its name. Soon a crop of new skyscrapers will join them, including three 37- to 39-story towers called Trilogy and the 170-meter Onebuilding. Each building’s website features text in English, Russian, and in several cases, Chinese. China’s Juwai property portal lists other, cheaper options, from hillside holiday apartments to sprawling villas. Many are illustrated with computer renderings—they haven’t actually been built yet.
The appeal of Limassol isn’t limited to its excellent climate and proximity to the ocean. The real attraction, as many of the advertisements make clear, is citizenship. The properties are proxies for a far more valuable prize: a golden visa.
Visas are nothing new; they allow foreigners to travel and work within a host nation’s borders for varying lengths of time. But the golden visa is a relatively recent innovation. Pioneered in the Caribbean, golden visas trade citizenship for cash by setting a price on passports. If foreign nationals invest in property above a certain price threshold, they can buy their way into a country—and beyond, once they hold a citizenship and passport.
A luxury holiday home on Saint Kitts and Nevis or Grenada in the West Indies might be useful for those looking to take advantage of those islands’ liberal tax regimes. But a passport acquired through Cyprus’s golden-visa scheme makes the bearer a citizen of the European Union, with all the benefits that accrue therewith. Moreover, there’s no requirement to reside in or even to visit Cyprus. The whole business, including acquisition of suitably priced real estate, can be carried out without ever setting foot on the island. The real estate doesn’t even have to exist yet—it can be completely virtual, just a computer rendering on a website. All for just 2 million euros, the minimum spend for the citizenship by investment.
As a result, Cypriot real-estate websites are filled with investment guides and details on how to apply for a new passport. This is the new era of virtual citizenship, where your papers and your identity—and all the rights that flow from them—owe more to legal frameworks and investment vehicles than any particular patch of ground where you might live. (...)
Juwai, the Chinese portal, casts a wider eye than just Cyprus. Its website hosts a side-by-side comparison of various golden-visa schemes, laying out the costs and benefits of each, from the price of the investment to how long buyers must wait for a new passport to come through. Not all the schemes are created equally. Cyprus’s neighbor Greece has one of the cheapest schemes going, with residency available for just 250,000 euros. But that’s only residency—the right to stay in the country—not local, let alone EU, citizenship, which can take years to obtain and might never be granted. Sometimes the schemes have gone awry, too. Some 400,000 foreign investors in Portugal’s 500,000-euro golden-visa scheme have been left in limbo by bureaucratic collapse, waiting years for a passport which was promised within months. Chinese homeowners have been forced to fly in and out of the country every couple of months in order to maintain short-term visas, despite having paid thousands for property. (...)
The world is in the midst of the greatest movement of people since the end of the World War II, and the combination of increasing global inequality and climate change will only increase its pace. Two hundred million people are on the move now, and as many as a billion might become migratory by 2050. Citizenship, the only tool we have for guaranteeing rights and responsibilities in a world of nation-states, is subject to increasing pressure to adapt. Today’s virtual citizenship caters mostly to the wealthy, or the poor. Could tomorrow provide new opportunities for everyone? And if possible, will the results look more like what’s been done for the global elite or for the most disadvantaged?
by James Bridle, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Sean Gallup / Getty
Citizenship and its varying legal definition has become one of the key battlegrounds of the 21st century, as nations attempt to stake out their power in a G-Zero, globalized world, one increasingly defined by transnational, borderless trade and liquid, virtual finance. In a climate of pervasive nationalism, jingoism, xenophobia, and ever-building resentment toward those who move, it’s tempting to think that doing so would become more difficult. But alongside the rise of populist, identitarian movements across the globe, identity itself is being virtualized, too. It no longer needs to be tied to place or nation to function in the global marketplace.Hannah Arendt called citizenship “the right to have rights.” Like any other right, it can be bestowed and withheld by those in power, but in its newer forms it can also be bought, traded, and rewritten. Virtual citizenship is a commodity that can be acquired through the purchase of real estate or financial investments, subscribed to via an online service, or assembled by peer-to-peer digital networks. And as these options become available, they’re also used, like so many technologies, to exclude those who don’t fit in.
In a world that increasingly operates online, geography and physical infrastructure still remain crucial to control and management. Undersea fiber-optic cables trace the legacy of imperial trading routes. Google and Facebook erect data centers in Scandinavia and the Pacific Northwest, close to cheap hydroelectric power and natural cooling. The trade in citizenship itself often manifests locally as architecture. From luxury apartments in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean to data centers in Europe and refugee settlements in the Middle East, a scattered geography of buildings brings a different reality into focus: one in which political decisions and national laws transform physical space into virtual territory.
The sparkling seafront of Limassol, the second-largest city in Cyprus, stretches for several miles along the southwestern coast of the island. In recent years it has become particularly popular among Russian tourists and emigrants, who have settled in the area. Almost 20 percent of the population is now Russian-speaking. Along 28 October Avenue, which borders the seafront, new towers have sprung up, as well as a marina and housing complex, filled with international coffee and restaurant chains. The 19-floor Olympic Residence towers are the tallest residential buildings on the island, along with the Oval building, a 16-floor structure shaped like its name. Soon a crop of new skyscrapers will join them, including three 37- to 39-story towers called Trilogy and the 170-meter Onebuilding. Each building’s website features text in English, Russian, and in several cases, Chinese. China’s Juwai property portal lists other, cheaper options, from hillside holiday apartments to sprawling villas. Many are illustrated with computer renderings—they haven’t actually been built yet.
The appeal of Limassol isn’t limited to its excellent climate and proximity to the ocean. The real attraction, as many of the advertisements make clear, is citizenship. The properties are proxies for a far more valuable prize: a golden visa.
Visas are nothing new; they allow foreigners to travel and work within a host nation’s borders for varying lengths of time. But the golden visa is a relatively recent innovation. Pioneered in the Caribbean, golden visas trade citizenship for cash by setting a price on passports. If foreign nationals invest in property above a certain price threshold, they can buy their way into a country—and beyond, once they hold a citizenship and passport.
A luxury holiday home on Saint Kitts and Nevis or Grenada in the West Indies might be useful for those looking to take advantage of those islands’ liberal tax regimes. But a passport acquired through Cyprus’s golden-visa scheme makes the bearer a citizen of the European Union, with all the benefits that accrue therewith. Moreover, there’s no requirement to reside in or even to visit Cyprus. The whole business, including acquisition of suitably priced real estate, can be carried out without ever setting foot on the island. The real estate doesn’t even have to exist yet—it can be completely virtual, just a computer rendering on a website. All for just 2 million euros, the minimum spend for the citizenship by investment.
As a result, Cypriot real-estate websites are filled with investment guides and details on how to apply for a new passport. This is the new era of virtual citizenship, where your papers and your identity—and all the rights that flow from them—owe more to legal frameworks and investment vehicles than any particular patch of ground where you might live. (...)
Juwai, the Chinese portal, casts a wider eye than just Cyprus. Its website hosts a side-by-side comparison of various golden-visa schemes, laying out the costs and benefits of each, from the price of the investment to how long buyers must wait for a new passport to come through. Not all the schemes are created equally. Cyprus’s neighbor Greece has one of the cheapest schemes going, with residency available for just 250,000 euros. But that’s only residency—the right to stay in the country—not local, let alone EU, citizenship, which can take years to obtain and might never be granted. Sometimes the schemes have gone awry, too. Some 400,000 foreign investors in Portugal’s 500,000-euro golden-visa scheme have been left in limbo by bureaucratic collapse, waiting years for a passport which was promised within months. Chinese homeowners have been forced to fly in and out of the country every couple of months in order to maintain short-term visas, despite having paid thousands for property. (...)
The world is in the midst of the greatest movement of people since the end of the World War II, and the combination of increasing global inequality and climate change will only increase its pace. Two hundred million people are on the move now, and as many as a billion might become migratory by 2050. Citizenship, the only tool we have for guaranteeing rights and responsibilities in a world of nation-states, is subject to increasing pressure to adapt. Today’s virtual citizenship caters mostly to the wealthy, or the poor. Could tomorrow provide new opportunities for everyone? And if possible, will the results look more like what’s been done for the global elite or for the most disadvantaged?
by James Bridle, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Sean Gallup / Getty
