In Saqqararnhy Catharine Savage BrosmanrnHe felt the threads of faith unraveling—rnhis mind a wilderness, his bones a bitrnof mineral—and all his body shookrnas if possessed. He took the alphabet,rnundid it, twisted it into a code,rnand wrote in cryptic letters on the stone:rn”Now in the name of God before all things,rnremember mc, the poor and humble man.—rnI, Victor.” Thus he ean’cd—a flake, a chip,rnthe stylus scratching in the darkness. Bellsrntolled ominously in the cloister; prayersrnfell heavy as a judgment, echoingrnbeyond die walls. lie watched. Along tlie dunes,rnenigmas in a windy tongue appearedrnat morning, shifted, changed again by night,rnbic read his doom and left the secret wordsrnas part of tinre, then saw his life run outrnwhere alpha and omega met again —rnbeseeching passers-by to read his namernwhen der’ish winds go whirling in the sk’,rnand pestilential suns redeem die world.rnDICTATIONSrnCitizensrnNow that eihzenship has become an alien concept tornmost Americans, the distinction between citizenrnand non-citizen is being obliterated. Decades ago.rnJustice Thurgood Marshall was already making the case thatrnaliens, even illegal aliens, should —or, rather, cl/c/-enjoyrnvirtually the same rights as citizens, and recently we havernheard the claim (from “consen’atives”) that the last distinctionrnenjoyed by native-born American citizens —nanrely,rnthe capacity to be elected president—should be abandoned.rnThe word “citizen” is derived ultimately from Latin civis,rnwhich signified a member of the Roman commonwealth.rnLike the Greek polites, civis designated two qualities: someonernwho dwelled in an organized commonwealth likernAthens and who enjoyed all the privileges of the commonwealth.rnGitizens served in the army and on juries; thev werernexempt from the kinds of taxes that are levied on subjectrnstates; they were eligible to hold public office and to vote, hirnEngland, “citizen” has been used in both senses.rnEngland was a monarchy in which the key political conceptrnwas not citizenship but subjection to the crown. Becauserndie barons who held estates on both sides of tiie Channelrnoften displayed doubtliil loyalty to the crown, NormanrnEngland developed the concept of fus soli: You were an Englishrnsubject if you were born on English soil. lus soli citizenshiprnmade sense in the context of an island state and an Anglo-rnNorman aristocracy of divided loyalty; in America, it hasrnmade nothing but mischief, since an illegal-alien womanrnmay unilaterally impose her child on the American commonwealth,rnso long as the child is born in the United States.rnWe would have been better off had we adopted the morerncommon notion of ius sanguinis, by which only the childrenrnof citizens (wherever they happen to be born) are citizens.rnAll of that is moot now, of course. Like the Roman emperorsrnwho gradually extended citizenship to virtually ever)-rnfree person within imperial territory’, the American go’ernmentrnhas so liberally minted citizens out of aliens that thernvery concept of citizenship has become foreign (pun intended).rnCitizens are a dangerous bunch. As William JenningsrnBr’an put it, “The humblest citizen in all the land, whenrnclad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all thernhosts of error.” Not anymore. We have been transformed intorndomesticated subjects rather than sturdy citizens, and ourrnprimary relationship to the state is based on obedience, notrnon the exercise of civil privileges. It was all in a good cause,rnof course. “Before man made us citizens,” canted James RussellrnLowell of fiigitive slaves, “Natiire made us men.” And sornall of us —native citizens, naturalized citizens, green-cardrnaliens, “undocumented workers”—have been made in thernimage of natiire, as free as rabbits and rocks.rn—Humpt}’ Diimptyrn12/CHRONICLESrnrnrn