Thank you. Many more sound points.
I used to subscribe to the
New Internationalist. I still have a few old copies around. That's a cool article. I wonder if Aisha is related to Fiona, both Dodwells.
The Irish Refugee Council has just issued
a report about how homelessness is affecting refugees, and page 14 says this:
“While we acknowledge the pressure on homeless services in Ireland, where homeless figures are at a record high, the decision to respond to two groups of people, that are both experiencing homelessness, with different policies on the grounds of their different status and/or nationality, risks being discriminatory and is not tenable.”
There are really three groups affected, but the usual Irish group of people experiencing homelessness are left out - which says something in itself. They're comparing the treatment of asylum seekers, usually non-white, fleeing oppression and conflict, more and more of whom are ending up sleeping on the streets, and white European-sanctioned refugees, currently mainly Ukrainian, who are prioritised for accommodation, receive bigger allowances, and enjoy many more freedoms.
In fact, when taking up her post of President of the EC in 2019, Ursula Van der Leyen announced she would create a Vice-President position charged with protecting the European way of life. I don't think the job description was passed, but there was no question she would lose her position, despite voicing what sounds suspiciously like far-right rhetoric.
According to the late David Graeber, and David Wengrow, co-authors of
The Dawn of Everything, for “the vast majority of human social experience”, people enjoyed “three primordial freedoms”: “the freedom to move, the freedom to disobey and the freedom to create or transform social relationships”. Peaceful anarchy was the modus operandi. While inequalities in early human societies were not unknown, the structures of domination common to hierarchical government were absent.
Then exploration and colonisation happened over centuries, with their genocides, ethnic cleansing, capture of labour, accumulation of capital and resources. The spoils are still not going to those who earn them, although the Global South are copping on that they've got bad deals and a stream of lies for too long. It's easy and doesn't sound initially unreasonable for some to say that migrants should stay at home and fix their own countries, until it's understood how broken those countries are, and who broke them. And I suppose the kind of people who can do all that to other countries might do it to their own if they run out of options, and can get away with it.
Thank God for ordinary people's goodwill though. “In the hot and stormy future we have already made inevitable through our past emissions, an unshakeable belief in the equal rights of all people and a capacity for deep compassion will be the only things standing between civilization and barbarism.” - Naomi Klein
www.morrisseycentral.com
vancedavidatw.podbean.com
moment after reading my rather excellent analyses on this thread.
