Image: Expreso
By: Diana Acosta
In the deafening silence of my attic, I reread Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. Third act, in the first line of the soliloquy arose the question:
To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die: to sleep.
Then a “peeeen” of the cellphone interrupted my peaceful reading. It was a voice message. When listening to it, an interview said: “This gentleman can not be Ecuadorian, he has no right to be Ecuadorian.” I suspect it referrred to Alvaro Noboa.
Then I asked myself: who are entitled to be Ecuadorians? The answer lies in the Constitution: “The Ecuadorian nationality shall be obtained by birth or naturalization and shall not be lost by marriage or dissolution or by acquiring another nationality.”
By birth: those born in this country, those born abroad to Ecuadorian parents; and naturalization, foreign minors adopted by Ecuadorians, those who marry or cohabitate with an Ecuadorian, or those who have rendered relevant services to the country with their talent and individual effort, etc.
Ecuadorian nationality acquired by naturalization is lost by express renunciation and that obtained by being born here is not lost. Only for being a native you hav the rights established in the Constitution and this includes the right to speak and express your thoughts freely and in all its forms and manifestations, without discrimination on ideology, political affiliation, socioeconomic status, or any other reason.
From any point of view it is questionable whether a citizen born in Ecuador has “has the right to be Ecuadorian or not.” The right question is: are you Ecuadorian? And if you are, no one can come with solecism and pretend to remove you the nationality or undermine your rights. “To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
Article taken from Daily Expreso
http://expreso.ec/expreso/plantillas/nota.aspx?idart=8562602&idcat=38475&tipo=2
