Where is Olympic Glory in Betrayal?
Many people have heard of Chris Kaman by now. He is in the news around the world, especially in the USA and Germany. He is an American-born citizen NBA basketball player who couldn’t make the USA Olympic team. So because he supposedly has great-grandparents or a great-grandparent, who emigrated from Germany to America, he applied for and received German citizenship so he could play in the Olympics for the German Olympic team against team USA.
Germany granted him citizenship even though he was neither born in nor had ever lived a day in his life in Germany, does not speak German but has someone down his lineage that was German.
His choice to become a German citizen to play on the German Olympic team has angered many, including his own father.
While I can understand wanting to live in a country where your ancestors once lived to get a feel of what it was like for them to live there, I find it very difficult to understand how, Chris, being born and raised as a citizen of the USA would apply for citizenship to another country and play against his home country!
I am German by ancestry. My great-grandfather was from Germany. We even have a family crest with our name on it. But I am not German. I am American. I was born and raised in America, by Americans. Right now, I live and work in Japan, have emigrated here, yet would never give up my citizenship as an American nor would I apply to become a Japanese citizen and play for Japan, even if I were better than any Japanese players and Japan asked me to play on their team.
Why not? First of all, it’s not because I dislike Japan. Secondly, I doubt Japan would ever ask me to do such a thing because Japanese have a huge sense of pride for their own country and would never ask someone else to do what most Japanese would never do.
As an American living in Japan, I love Japan, the people, my job and where I live. But I am not Japanese. Even though I have lived here for 12 years and speak the language, not fluently - something that may never come about - I am in no way Japanese. I am American! I consider it unpatriotic to fight against my own country or play against anyone else representing the country I was born and raised in and claim citizenship to by birthright.
As a sportsman, I love competition, tremendously! Just ask anyone that knows me. My wife will tell you straight away how competitive I am, but that I would never, even though I love sports as much as I do, never give up my loyalty to my team and especially my country. Yet, what Chris Kaman did, I consider one of the most unpatriotic things a person can do and shows his lack of integrity and loyalty to the United States and his countrymen.
He is a great example of the growing number of naturally born citizens of America whose loyalties lie elsewhere, not with the United States of America, and has sold America for less than 30 pieces of silver because it looks like Germany isn’t going to even get a bronze medal!
