Citizenship and Rainbows End

Does citizenship alone make a group of people really belong to a country or society? What needs to happen to achieve a true sense of belonging? Write your response to these questions, with reference to the play "Rainbow’s End" and what you know of the 1967 Referendum
The definition of citizenship is the state of being an inhabitant of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Although citizenship defines what country you legally belong too it doesn’t necessarily mean that you belong to that country. There are two types of citizenship; ‘right of blood’ and ‘right of soil’. ‘Right of blood’ means that policy grants citizenship based on ancestry or ethnicity. ‘Right of soil’ means that policy grants citizenship to anyone born on the territory of the state. A person’s ancestry may be from India but they may have been born in Australia. This person may feel torn between which country they feel like they ‘belong’ too as they were born in Australia and by birthright and where they live, are characterized as an Australian citizenship but are also characterized by their skin and ethnicity as Indian. The 1967 referendum allowed Aboriginal people to be included in the national census, which meant they would have the same citizen rights as other Australians. Even though all the non-indigenous/’white’ people that lived in Australia were from other countries they were still classified as Australian citizens while the Aborigines who were the ‘true Australians’ were not. Up until 1967 the Aboriginals were classified under the Flora and Fauna act which meant that they were not classified as people or citizens of Australia. In rainbows end Gladys complains that “ We’re second class citizens in our own country. No not even citizens”. The Aboriginals were not classified as citizens, yet they still belonged to Australia. A citizenship means that a person legally belongs to a country but does not necessarily mean that a person ‘truly’ feels like they belong...