A world citizen is a person who places global citizenship above any nationalistic or local identities and relationships.
World or Cosmopolitan citizens are not born, they are created as a result of globalisation. The Rise in popularity of investor citizenship programs further created a new class of world citizens most of them living in diaspora. The whole idea behind world citizen is to promote peace, freedom, progress, equality, mobility prosperity and love of humanity as a whole.
Early references to becoming a ‘World citizen’ can be found in Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C), a Cynic philosopher in Ancient Greece, asked where he came from, he answered: ‘I am a citizen of the world’. This was a ground breaking concept because the broadest basis of social identity in Greece at that time was either the individual city-state or the Greeks (Hellenes) as a group.
World citizens are one big group of cosmopolitan society who work together to make the world a better place.
Many famous people consider themselves world citizens.
I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world
– Socrates (469-399 BC)
Albert einstein described himself as a world citizen and supported the idea throughout his life. amously saying
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”
– ALBERT EINSTEIN
“We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.”
– Woodrow Wilson
“I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.”
– Eugene V. Debs
“The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”
– Thomas Paine
“The World citizen is a small leaf on the giant tree of life. They do not see a difference between the branch they were born on and the remaining branches on the tree, because they understand well that we are are all connected to the same roots. The world citizen sees each section of the world as part of their arm, leg, eyes, and heart. They do not class, contain or separate themselves or their identity by ethnicity or religion — because they see their existence as a small part of a greater whole. When asked about their religion, the world citizen simply replies: ‘My heart.”
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