Let's have a debate about immigration (1 Viewer)

[Squiggle]

would you? :heart:

i'd be shite enough i'd say, despite my passion for dance

Yeah, of course. We need six more victims - eh, I mean dancers - though.

Ah, one of the joys of Irish Dancing is it's not too complicated. You need to be fit, but the steps themselves are mostly simple, well, unless you're into treble dancing... that's harder.

I miss it so much actually. Does anyone know of anywhere in Dublin that does adult classes?

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

the lower deck used to do it i think. i started a thread on it a year or two ago. apparently its all ould lads trying to score with young wans

 

[pete]

anyone ever do any door dancing?

Sligo Live Festival has everything from a six day filled event featuring such international artists as cuban legends The Buena Vista Social Club, Alabama 3, Duke Special, Dervish, Jon Kenny and many more.

Sligo Live Festival has a spectacular Programme of Events over the six days. What's unique about this festival is that it is Ireland's first volunteer festival on a large scale. As well as Street Performances there will be Laughter Yoga, All Ireland Air Fiddle Competition (the trad version of air guitar), Door Dancing , an exquisiteFrench Market and much more.

The Festival will be running Workshops and Masterclasses in Sligo Style Music, Sligo style ornamentation and an introduction to Sligo style fiddle

my emphasis. i'm fascinated.

 

[Scientician 0.8]

I met an Australian d00d one time when I was out on the lock and I was talking about the idea that Ireland doesn't really have any national identity and he said something that stuck with me "Every Irish person I've ever met was obsessed with being Irish." I know this isn't true of everyone but lots of people go on about it (including myself), even just in terms of "jaysus isn't it terrible we've no culture of our own" ad nauseum. I have a much bigger "fear" if that's the right word of being at the bottom of the pile in the English speaking world, culturally speaking than of any fordeigners and/or their cultures. I fucking hate (for example) that Irish radio doesn't really play Irish music, even though the idea of a mandatory "just because it's irish play it, even if it's shit" policy would ruin things. I hate (as another example) that you'll hear a plethora of tongues on any bus in Dublin with the usual exception of the Irish language. I hate that I feel embarrassed when tryna speak Irish as do many people even those with a level of fluency above and beyond my own. I wish there were more Irish films that I could recommend to people. But the reasons these things happen are because of changes that took place generations before I was born and the 1990s/2000s immigration boom.

Oh yeah,, eh Brits Out!

 

[Mitchum]

"Every Irish person I've ever met was obsessed with being Irish."

I've always thought that was generally true of ex-pats & second+ generation Oirish. And idiots.

 

[pete]

I just gave out to the (black) bus driver for stopping at every stop when its meant to be an "express" service and now I feel bad. There'd be no guilt if he was a honky.

 

[jane]

Yeah, of course. We need six more victims - eh, I mean dancers - though.

Ah, one of the joys of Irish Dancing is it's not too complicated. You need to be fit, but the steps themselves are mostly simple, well, unless you're into treble dancing... that's harder.

I miss it so much actually. Does anyone know of anywhere in Dublin that does adult classes?

I will volunteer myself! I'd LOVE to learn to dance. Any kind of dance.

As for the culture thing, once the 'national culture' things (dancing, folktales, etc) become less a feature of people's daily lives, they become sort of artefacts. Doesn't make them 'fake' or anything, just means that they are not things people do automatically anymore, and so if they are to be preserved in any form, there needs to be a conscious effort to do so. The dangerous part is when people start hanging the meaning of life off of these things. They're nice, and they can underpin parts of the definition of national identity,and they can bring people together on the occasions when they are hauled out for show, but it doesn't mean they're 'dead' in the sense that no one cares about them anymore. we don't want our world to be monocultural, it's nice that there are facets of Ireland that are distinctly Irish, and they'll always be there as long as people make the effort to keep them. And now there will be lots of new ones.

I'd love to learn to speak Irish and learn Irish dancing, not because of any great romantic love of Irishness, but because I love learning new stuff and, I dunno, I think it's kinda nifty. It says something about Ireland, but it isn't definitive at all. For the same reason I like American folk music -- it says something about Americana, it just doesn't say everything.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

anyone ever do any door dancing?

my emphasis. i'm fascinated.

im not sure that this is appropriate for the christmas party though. ah fuck it, sure who cares!

I will volunteer myself! I'd LOVE to learn to dance. Any kind of dance.

when egg_ logs in he will be heartened to see that our culture remains vibrant and that johnny foreigner is well into it.

 

[therealjohnny]

This little ditty has been going around and around in my head

"I'm not a chicken fucker

I'm a chicken fuckers son

and I'm only fucking chickens

'til the chicken fucker comes"

 

[egg_]

In fairness you don't need immigrants for that to happen, remember Northern rock last week? Can we blame that on the immigrants?

Twas Northern Rock put it in my head. Not trying to blame anything on anyone, just trying to think up an example of how the arrival of people from societies different to ours might affect us in less than positive ways

 

[egg_]

I didn't say 'open door policy', I said immigration exists is all, and it's quite meaningless to debate whether it's good or bad because it is just a fact of modern life

Ok
But surely it's not meaningless to try and figure out how it might affect us, and make sure and manage it so that it affects us in positive rather than negative ways. No?

A liberal policy of immigration will catch no more 'delinquents' than a draconian one.

I don't think "liberal" and "draconian" are the only options, are they?

 

[jane]

Ok
But surely it's not meaningless to try and figure out how it might affect us, and make sure and manage it so that it affects us in positive rather than negative ways. No?

Would you sit at the table with your family and debate with your partner the positives and negatives of ever having had Egg_jr, and wonder -- in front of her -- whether it was a wise decision? There's no real way for people to integrate until these debates about whether it's 'good' or 'bad' for Irishness are recognised as the pointless cultural navel-gazing that they are. Because we're here now. And while everyone's sitting aroudn hemming and hawing about what this will do to the pattern day down at the local holy well, thousands of people are stuck in a legal limbo, unable to make any choices or decisions for themselves, and being denied any self-determination and -- in many cases -- being forced to fork out a lot of money for the 'privilege'.

If you want to blame someone, blame the government, don't blame those of us who were asked to come here, paid DOUBLE and, in my case, got nothing but grief, threats and bullying, plus a massive pile of debt. I paid extra and got nothing because, while there could have been policies developed to protect those of us who pay for your education system, people were too busy wondering whether we should have been invited here at all and asking us when we're going to fuck off back where we belong. Never mind about the nice work, friends, etc I have, the way I feel about my experience with the various institutions I've had to deal with is that it would have been much better and much less painful if IReland had just kicked me in the neck and stolen my wallet. And then expected me to be grateful for the opportunity to be robbed by such a great nation.

I don't think "liberal" and "draconian" are the only options, are they?

That's what I'm saying. The policies now are draconian. Or at least, those policies that don't totally contradict each other are draconian. There is almost no way to immigrate legally to Ireland. There is almost no way for someone who has been here working, if they have lost their right ot have the job they once had, to change their status to take another job.

For example, a foreigner is required to carry a 'this is not an ID' card. You can be stopped and searched any time for this. If you are a failed asylum seeker awaiting an appeal decision, your 'this is not an ID' card is revoked. So one law requires you to do something that another law prevents you from actually being able to do. That's fucked up.

There's no point in debating whether or not immigration is 'good' because what is that going to result in, those of us who have built lives here getting our walking papers? Is that what you want? Immigration so long as you can pull the plug on the immigrants when you feel like they're getting too big for their britches? Immigration so long as you can maintain control over what immigrants are allowed to do?

Also, the point is, the policies keep changing every few months and people who were told they could come and make their lives here are now being told to fuck off because they no longer meet a labour market needs test. It's one thing to make someone redundant from a job, but to make them redundant from their own lives is unbelievably stressful. you can't have real integration when there are thousands of people wondering when the laws that today allow them to stay, might turn against them. You can't really get comfortable when you're wondering when it's gonna be your turn to be chucked out on your ear.

If people want an immigration debate, that's great, but the only debate that's really worth having is one which includes immigrants, and which is focused on creating fair and transparent policies that are clear, accessible, and do not completely fall apart in practice. Which almost all of them do.

 

[egg_]

If people want an immigration debate, that's great, but the only debate that's really worth having is one which includes immigrants, and which is focused on creating fair and transparent policies that are clear, accessible, and do not completely fall apart in practice.

I thought that's the kind of debate we were trying to have here

... except for I think we're still one step away from being able to formulate fair and transparent policies, because we don't really know what we want those policies to achieve.

 

[MDR]

Inconsistent? Au contraire, dude - if you think, as many do, that the free movement of capital might make you richer, and the free movement of labour might make you poorer, then it's anything but inconsistent to accept the former and reject the latter. The fact that they both start with "the free movement of" isn't all that important, don't you think?


Hmmph

My point is that economic forces - labour or capital - follow economic opportunities. It's unrealistic to accept foreign investment with a view to creating national wealth while at the same expecting that the labour market will not try to follow that investment. I agree that people will welcome investment from abroad but will also try to protect it from being shared with immigrants, but if people think that will stop labour following the investment they will be disappointed.

 

[jane]

I thought that's the kind of debate we were trying to have here

... except for I think we're still one step away from being able to formulate fair and transparent policies, because we don't really know what we want those policies to achieve.

But who is 'we'? Are immigrants who are already here part of the 'we'? Or is it justified to shunt around and chuck out the immigrants who are already here because people want to bring in a new policy?

And actually, most people are two or three steps away from creating a fair policy because instead of doing a bit of research to find out what the existing policies actually are, many people choose to focus on whether foreigners are 'good' or 'bad' for Ireland. Making a list and weighing up the pros and cons of the existence of the person standing in front of you (and I mean the impersonal 'you', not you in particular) is something that really isn't going to help.

There's a real focus on what Irish people can get out of immigrants, and there's no parallel discussion of what's best for the people who have come here from elsewhere, given that anyone who is willing to live within the rules of a given society is contributing to it in some way. Those needs have been defined by the government, and not by communities. The reality is, do communities care what happens to their foreign-born neighbours? If not, then it's up to the government to take care of it, and they're not. So we're sitting here like lame ducks, waiting for someone to care about something other than how much money they can get from us before they ship us out.

Have you seen the draft bill of the new immigration policy, or at least documents relating to it? Because what I'm trying to say is that while IRish people can sit around debating from a detached perspective rather than understanding and debating the contents of particular policies and bills, people's human rights are being and will continue to be undermined.

 

[Franco]

anyone ever do any door dancing?

my emphasis. i'm fascinated.

Kevin Burke and Manus McGuire are two well regarded exponents of Sligo fiddle music.

Dunno about their door dancing skillzz.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

i think i have a couple of kevin burke lps, i could bring them to the party/ceili

 

[São Paulo Punk]

Are you taking the piss out of me?

Here's an example I thought of on the way home. Take an imaginary country, say Lilliput, where they don't have a well-developed banking system. Loads of Lilliputians come to Ireland and put their money in Irish banks, but they don't really trust the bank, and when there's rumours of trouble in the bank's finances they all withdraw their money at once, and the bank goes bang and everyone loses.

That's kinda what I'm getting at. I'm not saying Lilliputians are going to steal your money, but society depends on lots of behavioural conventions that are more than just people being nice to each other. The banking system, paying taxes, calling the cops instead of taking the law into your own hands, shit like that

I suspect I'm being too abstract with all this. I'm just trying to point out that a completely open-door policy might not be a good idea, but it seems no-one on here is arguing for a completely open-door policy anyway

Jesus. A few weeks ago I saw literally hundreds of people forming a queue that stretched from The Bleeding Horse to Harcourt street, just opposite Crawdaddy, leading into the offices of the Northern Rock bank which had just been in the news the day before seeking a bail out from the Bank of England after going bust.

Do you think they were all foreigners? Somehow that doesn't seem possible. Are trying to infer that immigrants, in general, come from uncivilised states and are therefore uncivilised themselves, and that through some contagion effect Ireland will become less civilised.

In any case, there is no open-door policy. It's not all that easy to get a work visa here. Applications for asylum are extremely difficult to make. As soon as the jobs go, people will eventually stop coming.

 

[São Paulo Punk]

My point is that economic forces - labour or capital - follow economic opportunities. It's unrealistic to accept foreign investment with a view to creating national wealth while at the same expecting that the labour market will not try to follow that investment. I agree that people will welcome investment from abroad but will also try to protect it from being shared with immigrants, but if people think that will stop labour following the investment they will be disappointed.

Yes. And lets not forget the fact that Ireland's economic development has been heavily dependent on immigration in order to have the required numbers in the workforce to see through that development.

 

[São Paulo Punk]

Aye get domhnach dubh to play and beal bocht too. They're both deadly although not sure if they're exactly ceili bands.

We've got a foreigner in the band though, and the father of a half foreign/half Irish child. It's a fucking disgrace!