The Tunisian man beside me carried all of his vital documents in a plastic Marks & Spencer bag, which seemed an apt way to celebrate becoming British. Thirty-five of us became citizens on a bright late-autumn day (you don't say "fall" in England, unless it's followed by "down drunk.") One woman appeared to have bought a particularly festive wig for the occasion, and wore it at a rakish angle.
The nice South African leading our citizenship ceremony warned us, over and over, not to laminate our precious new papers, at one point holding up a sign that read simply, NO. It is a universal impulse among immigrants to cover things in plastic, it seems, furniture and luggage included. Children escape only if they move quickly enough.
We were all in our best clothes, proud and nervous while singing God Save the Queen and pledging allegiance not only to the monarch but all of her heirs and successors. (I admit to crossing my fingers behind my back while reciting "heirs and successors," although I'm pretty sure that won't stand up in court.) We had all passed the Life in the U.K. test, which doesn't test facts that any British person would actually know, like, How much does Wayne Rooney earn per week? How many babies have been switched at birth on EastEnders? Instead it asks head-scratchers like, "What percentage of the population lives in Wales?"
And so, to the sound of Yellow Submarine piped over the PA, we became British. Equally important, we became European. That feels like a leap of faith, let me tell you, at this cataclysmic point in time. It feels like joining a club that everyone has decided is so deeply uncool that they're fleeing in droves.
How worried are Europeans about Europe? To quote the noted British sociologist Nigel Tufnel, I'd say the anxiety goes up to 11. The Financial Times tells me that Barack Obama has "a morbid fear of EU meltdown." He's worried about the currency, but the meltdown of the currency carries grave political consequences for the 27 countries of the EU and the 17 that share the euro.
It's so dire that Germany's greatest philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, is shuffling around from podium to podium arguing that the European project is in danger of foundering. (His new essay-length book is called, in English, On Europe's Constitution.) "For the first time in the history of the EU, we are actually experiencing a dismantling of democracy," he told Der Spiegel. "I didn't think this was possible. We've reached a crossroads."
Most of us were probably in that citizenship ceremony for less lofty reasons than preserving the European project: We'd like to offer our children more opportunities than we had, or we want the shorter queue at Heathrow. But we were, in our small way, giving a vote of support to Europe. It would be churlish not to: Here's a continent that was divided by war over much of the 20th century, half of it in totalitarian shadow until two decades ago, and yet – against all odds – it managed to knit itself together peacefully in a practical union. Make all the jokes you'd like about Brussels technocrats and their obsession with the uniformity of bananas and the texture of feta – it's still an amazing accomplishment. Europe is the Terminator of continents, constantly remaking itself just when you think it's a smoking heap of discarded parts. I wouldn't bet against it yet.
I do wonder what my grandparents would make of this decision to swim against the tide of history and rejoin the old world: "Wha' are you, craze?" my grandfather would probably say, and remind me that he'd fled an impoverished and chaotic Italy that was perhaps not so different from the one now. (Becoming a British citizen doesn't mean I'm any less Canadian. I'd only have to choose between the two if I were offered a peerage, and since that's about as likely as Newt Gingrich giving birth to a litter of ferrets on live TV, my Canadian identity is safe.)
I'll admit that I found myself teary-eyed at the citizenship ceremony when the nice South African, tired of lecturing us on the evils of lamination, switched to the responsibilities of civic engagement instead. "Don't be lazy!" he said. "Get involved. Vote! Democracy only works if you take part."
My Tunisian friend picked up his Marks & Spencer bag and told me he was going back to his birthplace for a vacation: "I think," he said sadly, "things are better there than they are here at the moment." He'll come back to his new homeland, though. I'm pretty sure.