Aral Balkan
Was away for a week visiting my parents. Don’t get to see them nearly enough, in no small part thanks to our lovely “European Values” meaning they have to jump through more hoops to come visit us in Ireland than they can manage at their age. You see, we don’t really see non-Europeans as human in Europe. They’re something less. A potential threat.
I may have an EU passport and pass for white but I never forget that. In fact, I think about it every time I miss my parents.
Aral Balkan
Even having an EU passport isn’t enough to be considered fully human in the EU.
What about your family? Your parents? We must protect ourselves from them. They could be dangerous. Goodness knows my 79-year-old dad and 77-year-old mom might be potential terrorists. Let’s make sure we make it as hard as possible for them to visit. After all they were born in Brown lands and have funny names. Can’t be too careful.
By the way, did we mention how progressive we are in the EU? Racism, what’s that?
Vanni Di Ponzano 🚴 ❤️ ☕
@aral
So you live in Ireland and you are European. And you are part of the EU.
And your parents live where?
Aral Balkan
If you don’t have provisions for family members of citizens to visit without being subject to bureaucratic hurdles then you have two classes of citizens: ones who you recognise as having families and ones who you don’t.
A father or a mother or a brother or a sister should not need a visa every time they want to visit.
That’s a racist and xenophobic policy.
And if you don’t have to experience that because your family all have the same citizenship, count yourself lucky.
Aral Balkan
@tio And all the work you do for the common good. Of course none of that counts. Because of course.
It bloody sucks. *hug*
Tio
Design by Adrian
@aral My newborn daughter can’t meet her grandparents because the EU has decided that an old couple from the middle east, who’s had multiple visit visas before, suddenly would decide to stay indefinitely.
Diego Beghin
@designbyadrian @aral It's perverse people visiting family are unwelcome because they would have a good reason to stay. Our whole migration/border is incredibly cruel.
Aral Balkan
@designbyadrian I’m so sorry :(
koherecoWatchdog
@aral @tio @aral Is that also in Ireland where they require you to support your g/f? I’m confused because you say she’s your g/f yet you’re married. Was it a non-EU marriage.. is that the issue?
Tio
koherecoWatchdog
@tio @aral @tio Well I’m baffled. An EU marriage w/one person being an EU citizen-- I would have expected that to entitle your wife (by law) to reside with you, and that entitlement to residency should also automatically entitle her to work in Spain as well. I’m surprised Spain has that red tape & that it’s even legal for Spain to do that under EU laws.
Michael
@aral as someone who’s married to an Egyptian I feel your pain!
My sister in law has never been able to get a visa. My mother in law was refused when our first child was born. My father in law is weirdly the only one who’s been able to get a 5 year visa.
It’s so very painful, that we are essentially only able to meet our family when we travel to Egypt…
Yasmina
@aral so true. My mother in law got a visa back in 2010 to visit - no Problem. Last year nothing changed exept she is now widdowed and 89 years old. Visa denied on the grounds that she can "not prove without reasonable doubt that she has strong enought ties in homecountry to return". Ah yes, my MIL the femme fatale, traveling to germany to seduce our famously charmant seniors while all her children exept for one are back home. Makes sense, not.
Aral Balkan
@MrsGalaxy I’m so sorry. Clearly, it would be absolutely devastating for a broke-ass, dilapidated country like Germany if, say, you really did decide to have your mom stay with you… say (goodness forbid) if you needed to look after her, for example. The whole place would crumble.
(I guess Europeans never take care of elderly family members so they have no point of reference to comprehend such a thing from a human perspective. Maybe some day, when they’re more civilized, they’ll understand.)
Martyn
@aral yep, I'm getting to the stage where I have to support my parents, and even when I regain my EU citizenship, even though my parents also used to have it, I cannot have them move to be closer to me, they had that right stolen from them and now are treated the same as any non-european.
337guanacos
@aral I also pass as white, and it took me a while to notice that the attitude change the police has when they notice my non white name didn't happen to the whiter friends around me.
Aral Balkan
@JohnLoader6 Oh, we did.
(We used to live in the UK before they voted the Tories in again.)
But the real problem is the xenophobia and racism itself, of course, and not whether you’re privileged enough to be part of the group perpetuating it instead of the group that’s it victim.
Close Israeli Embassies
@aral should have told the Brits several years ago that voting yourself to be non human is silly.
Aral Balkan
@Pierrette @MrsGalaxy It is not “over the board”; it is specifically designed to be as insulting and offensive as possible to anyone who would be insulted and offended by the criticism and shaming of a xenophobic and racist policy instead of the xenophobic and racist policy itself.
Pierrette
@aral well maybe this is a little over the board but I can understand your anger; we have now fascists all over the place @MrsGalaxy
Aral Balkan
@CiaraNi 💕
Ciara
@aral I am sorry you and your parents are put through this. The amount of energy and thought that officialdom puts into designing rules that create a hostile environment for individuals - if only all that energy and thought instead went into designing radical climate crisis policies that could collectively improve all our lives.
Aral Balkan
@nlovsund Bloody hell, these people.
*hug*
Nathan Lövsund 🐒 🚀
@aral I'm brown. "Random" ID checks by french police started after I turned ~17, soon after my family moved out from the "ghetto" to white suburbia. Best one was when I was with two buddies on the train, in a gradient of white to brown, and I was asked to remove my shoes and restart my phone. Less white only got the shoe check and white just showed his ID. :blobcatchefskiss:
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