What is Understood by the Term Active Citizen?
What makes one belong as a citizen?
To be able to discuss and argument what an active citizen is, we must first understand what the meaning of a citizen is. Citizenship is the status given to a person, recognised under the custom or law of a state and granted specific rights and duties. A citizen makes part of a state. A state is an organised political community under one government; a commonwealth; a nation.
A citizen has at his disposal a great number of rights, some of which include; the right to vote, work and live in the country, the right to return to the country, the right to own property, legal protection against the country’s government and protection through the military or diplomacy. Although a citizen benefits from these rights and more depending on the country inhabited, a citizen may also be required to meet up with a certain set of duties. Some of these duties may include; abiding with the laws of the country, paying taxes, serving in the military (this does not apply to Malta).
These days, boundaries between countries are becoming progressively negligent and in some instances non-existent altogether. Due to this undefined sense of boundaries between countries, citizens are slowly loosing their ties to the country that they are citizens of and may also seize to remain active citizens. Such a negligence of boundaries has been raised by the European Union due to its ideals of erasing boundaries between countries to facilitate trade, political movement and movement from one EU member state to the other. This practise which is being utilised by the EU makes citizens feel like a citizen of the EU rather than a citizen of his respective country which may reflect badly on the country because the citizen will no longer take an active part as a citizen in the duties of the state.
Due to this problem which has been raised around the globe, we must once again start to outline the