Identity 2: There’s no place like home

by Colin Rae

In part 1, I looked at some of the questions surrounding nationality, language and identity that have come up over my almost 15 years in Germany. Part 2 looks at how this has recently taken on a new dimension.

 

Brexit, Scotrance and Einbürgerung

It’s June 2016. I’ve now been living in Germany for over 13 years, I’m married and my wife and I have had our first son. All is well – but then the unthinkable happens: the UK votes to leave the EU. Once most of the anger and incredulity had subsided (which took some time, especially considering that the top search on Google UK the next day was “what is the EU?” – signalling that an absurd number of people hadn’t grasped what they were voting on), my attention turned to what this was going to mean for me. Having been resident in Germany for so long and given that I was married and had a job, it didn’t seem likely that I would be deported. But not having needed a residency permit since 2004, I wasn’t keen to go back to having to justify my being here to the authorities. It seemed that the best way to safeguard my EU rights was to apply for German citizenship.

I find it interesting that, although I consider myself settled here and have no plans to move back to the UK, the notion of “becoming German” still gave me pause for thought. The decision certainly became easier once I found out that I won’t have to renounce my British citizenship, provided I get the whole thing wrapped up before Brexit takes effect at the end of March 2019. Still, I can’t yet fully comprehend what it will feel like to tick a different box on official forms, or present my newly minted Ausweis (German identity card) when boarding a flight.

Mother tongues and father’s headache

Language of course continues to be a major facet of my integration experience. We had a heated discussion with my in-laws recently over dinner regarding our language in the home. My wife and I chose to speak our respective native languages with our children: she speaks to them in German, I speak to them in English. My elder son Julius has just turned three, and is making a massive leap in terms of linguistic development. Because he spends so much time with his mother and her parents, his German is naturally stronger than his English, but recently his English has been going a mile a minute. However, prior to this spurt, I had been getting just a little worried. What if English would only ever be a second language for him and not an equal first along with German? When I voiced this concern over dinner, my in-laws tried to reassure me: “Oh don’t worry; of course he’ll learn English.”

But when I really started to think about it, I realised that we were coming at this from different perspectives. Naturally my in-laws see the virtue of being able to speak English, but they understandably regard it as a foreign language. I don’t see it that way, and had just assumed that my bilingual boys would think of themselves as having two first languages. I was genuinely surprised that there could be two possibilities: my children considering themselves native German speakers with an excellent knowledge of English, or being truly bilingual. This debate made me see that I clearly harbour the desire for my boys to identify themselves with the English language – not as a handy tool, but as an intrinsic part of who they are. In turn, my in-laws realised that because they’re so used to my German “persona”, they forget that is only part of who I am.

Testing Times

It’s now late 2017 and I’ve just received confirmation that I’ve passed the “Einbürgerungstest” or German citizenship test: 33 multiple choice questions on everything from flag colours to how the parliamentary system works. While studying up for it, I had a great deal of fun getting German friends and family to take the online practice tests and seeing how well – or in some cases badly – they did. To be fair, I’m sure if I had to take the British test I wouldn’t know all the answers!

I can now file my paperwork and really set the wheels in motion to becoming a German citizen. After all my thinking about identity, it’s odd that this decision is born out of practical necessity: I don’t want to lose my EU rights, and having the “conventional” form of ID for Germany will make life that little bit easier. Still, I haven’t entirely given up on “Scotrance” – a scenario in which Scotland secedes from the UK and enters Europe. Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, if this were to happen, and (even more unlikely) if Scotland were to reinstate its own monarchy, the heir-apparent to the throne would be Franz, Duke of Bavaria !