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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   30675 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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Reminds me of the protests in Ireland. I suspect both will fail for a similar reason: street reactions to Twitter videos have clear limits of how far they can change matters. Policy is changed in the halls of power, ultimately.

The Irish government has made some gestures towards taking a tougher approach to asylum seekers, surprisingly.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar recently: "We also need to be firm with people who come to Ireland with a false story or false pretences, we need to be firm with them and say that we are going to make a quick decision on your application and we will return you to your country of origin and people expect that." Currently a final decision on an application for asylum takes years, as people can continually appeal their rejections.

The situation is particularly dire in Ireland at the moment because there is such a shortage of accommodation (for all, not just for refugees) that for a while last month new arrivals were immediately becoming homeless. While the government is happy to dismiss the protesters as far right loons, they're not as eager to be called out on human rights grounds for letting refugees sleep on the street.

Edit: There was some controversy over a recent poll which showed that 56% of Irish people answered Yes to the question 'Has Ireland taken in too many refugees?'. Given the goodwill towards Ukrainian refugees a more specific question on asylum seekers would likely show a much stronger 'Yes'.

Politicians always make gestures towards doing things, but never actually do them.

Yeah nothing much of substance has happened yet besides the shift in tone. The only thing I can think of is that the guarantee of accommodation has been restricted to Ukrainian refugees.

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