Natasha Koifman is a woman with an interesting way of looking at things. Born and raised in Germany, Natya has been described as a cheerful, friendly girl with no inclination towards Nationality or ethnicity. She was, however, a Nationality by choice. And in this new multicultural Britain where the term Nationality is no longer understood as a reference to ethnic group, it is hard not to see why she might view herself as belonging to neither, Nationality or Partner. However, in her new book, The Nationality Paradox Natya looks at what she sees as the paradoxical effects Nationality has on her.
She argues that the benefits of being a British national are balanced out by the disadvantages. Being a British woman, she argues, allows you to: enjoy the same holidays, go to the same football matches, have the same sex relationships, watch the same sport, own property, access education and live in the same city as your partners. But all this comes at a cost. By being a British national, Natya says, you “fall into an alien category”, an “alien category” of which the term Nationality was (at least until recently) merely an example.
It was a mistake then to choose a nationality for yourself at the expense of your partner. It is a mistake to choose your partner on the basis of nationality alone. And it is also a mistake to think that, by marrying a British national, you automatically have a nationality of your own. You cannot be both a British national and a Welsh or Scottish national.