NationStates

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:29 pm**

Guess who's back, back again...
The new populist government of a small nameless country on your borders has begun to stringently go through the records of their @@DENONYMADJECTIVE@@ immigrants and deport any they can find an excuse to throw out. The problem is that several thousand @@DENONYMPLURAL@@ call the place home, and are far from enthusiastic about being deported.

validity: all

[option] "I've lost it all!" laments @@RANDOMNAME@@, an extremely stereotypical-looking @@DENONYM@@ who emigrated decades ago, as @@HE@@ crosses the border to @@NAME@@ at gunpoint. "I left @@NAME@@ looking for opportunity and had to build myself up from nothing. For 50 years I worked in their economy, paid my taxes there and even had a family. Only now these bigots have expelled me just because I'm different from them. Could you help us please? I'll work, no problem, I just need some temporary housing and assistance before I can get back onto my own two feet again."
[effect] the nation's newest immigrants remember @@CAPITAL@@ as it was 40 years ago

[option- has no emigration] "Oh great, I'm gonna have to live with a bunch of traitors and fakes," groans ultra-nativist @@RANDOMNAME@@ while picking @@HIS@@ teeth. "If it were up to me, I'd just send these so-called citizens right back and tell that foreign country to keep them. They broke the law leaving this great place anyway."
[effect] transit international zones have homegrown communities

[option- has emigration] "Oh great, I'm gonna have to live with a bunch of traitors and fakes," groans ultra-nativist @@RANDOMNAME@@ while picking @@HIS@@ teeth. "If it were up to me, I'd just send these so-called citizens right back and tell that foreign country to keep them. We don't need to have our people leave just to come back destitute and should stop this from ever happening again- by banning desertion of this nation."
[effect] transit international zones have homegrown communities
policy- introduces the ban on emigration

[option] "It's an outrage what's going on in that country," explains @@RANDOMNAME@@, a Skadilundian diplomat after pulling you aside from an international summit. "Their horrific treatment of immigrants must be condemned and countered. They think they can mistreat your emigrants just because they are poorer than, say, ours? Here, I've drafted a statement for you to express your shock at their regime, complete with sanctions and a threat of invasion if they don't cease.... what? Brute force is the only thing these kinds of racist populists understand."
[effect] the nation's citizens are treated like royalty abroad

[option] The country's president calls you to make their case. "It might look crude, but all I'm doing is fixing decades of lax immigration enforcement by my predecessors. If you don't want a horde of your people to be streaming back home, then make sure to tell them to comply with my country's immigration laws and there will be no problem. My government's even put all the requirements on our website, simple enough even for a @@DENONYM@@ to see it. Just have all papers in order, no criminal record or speeding ticket, an original birth certificate, 90% or higher score on the IQ test, 33 character references, 2 recent medical reports, a 10 year's wages good faith deposit, a written promise signed in triplicate to supply first born to the military, a 10% or higher score on our special @@DENONYM@@-friendly literacy test,......."
[effect] boat tickets to foreign shores have health warnings

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 5:32 pm**

You might be onto something with this draft, but right now I am having a little confusion because I can think of a couple different RL parallels -- and the ethical implications of this issue are very different depending which RL parallel I relate it to.

RL parallel #1: A distant relative on my dad's side of the family owned a plantation in Kenya. When Kenya became independent, he was told that he could no longer just sit on his ass while the local black people worked his land and took care of him. He also was not able to get all his money out of the country. He went home to England where he lived on the dole or mooched off his English relatives, but when they got bored of helping him, they sent him to America so my grandparents could look after him for a while. According to my dad, this relative was friendly enough, but completely useless. I never met the guy myself. Anyway, the Kenyans put in a new government and it disrupted this guy's life, but it's not their fault that he had no skills other than being English.

Your first option reminds me of this story, or recent controversies about white farmers in other African countries. It definitely gives me the feeling that the @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ were privileged expats in a poorer country.

RL parallel #2: Latin American immigrants in the US. There's been a growing anti-immigrant backlash on the right, especially among the Trumpist flavor of right-wingers. But these immigrants are often being exploited rather than exploiting others. They came from poorer nations to a richer one in search of a better life, and some of these people end up busting their ass at farms or meat-packing plants just trying to stay in the country so their children can grow up here and become Americans.

The 3rd and 4th options sound more like this type of scenario, in which @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ have tried emigrating to a wealthy nation where they are marginalized.

I think this draft would be stronger if you went in one direction or the other instead of having it ambiguous. For example, if you want to go with marginalized immigrants in a wealthy nation, the first speaker could tone down the snobbery and talk about how he built a business up from nothing. If you want to go with my lazy uncle losing his Kenyan plantation, you could give option 3 some more jingoistic/racist/colonialist undertones and a social justice slant in option 4.

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 11:28 pm**

Are they @@DENONYM@@ or are they foreigners? Also, option 1, how is the government going to give people joba?

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 11:57 pm**

Australian rePublic wrote:Are they @@DENONYM@@ or are they foreigners?

The problem is that several thousand @@DENONYMPLURAL@@ call the place home, and are far from enthusiastic about being deported from said homes.

Posted: **Tue Mar 02, 2021 4:51 pm**

I really like what you've got so far. There are, however, a couple of things I think you should play up if you're taking the 'Windrush Scandal' approach. At the moment it's sort of wishy-washy on why the emigrants were expelled and why your nation and the emigrants are justified in their anger. I think you need to stress that the emigrants who are being expelled have been living in the foreign nation for basically all their lives, meaning (as USS Monitor suggests) they have built a life for themselves and their families in the foreign country and they have been contributing to the foreign nation (e.g. paying taxes, filling gaps in the job market). I think it would also be worthwhile to stress that the foreign nation is at fault here because of poor record keeping and irrational demands for documentation from emigrants which gives both your nation and the emigrant population some ammunition (this is why the dilemma makes it to Leader). And, in the same vein as USS Monitor mentioned, I think you'd be well served in bringing in the element of (NationStates) race - the idea that emigrants from other countries (Brancaland or Albion or what have you) were categorically not treated in the way that your nation's emigrants were (your nation's emigrants were singled out).

So I think option 1 could do with more emphasis on "I built my life there, I paid all my taxes, I worked as a nurse in the health service" or whatever. Option 3 doesn't need colonial overtones because in this case it's your emigrant population (and by extension, your nation) that's being discriminated against by the foreign nation. I'd definitely play up the racism aspect here because this speaker is outraged at the behaviour of the foreign nation and in a 'Windrush' situation the racist treatment of your emigrant population would be a talking point. And again to contradict USS Monitor I wouldn't put a social justice message in with option 4 but would instead show that the incompetence of the foreign nation is responsible for this scandal (the idea of the over-stringent documentation complements this well). It'd also be a good idea, if you do take this route, to incorporate some of this (the incompetence/poor record keeping thing) into the introduction to explain that your emigrants do belong in their home country and have not just been expelled because they weren't properly documented etc.

I think I always end big posts with the caveat that I type as I think and that I hope you can extract something of worth from this meretricious mess.

Posted: **Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:40 pm**

USS Monitor wrote:
Australian rePublic wrote:Are they @@DENONYM@@ or are they foreigners?

The problem is that several thousand @@DENONYMPLURAL@@ call the place home, and are far from enthusiastic about being deported from said homes.

Yea, I read that but I'm confused. Expats or diaspora?

Posted: **Wed Mar 03, 2021 4:05 pm**

I like the idea here... this is a very loaded topic, and as such, definitely makes fertile ground for an issue. I have three primary points of feedback on this draft:

1) There is some overlap with #226 "Expats Plea For Help In War-Torn Country" when it comes to the options so far presented here, so I think it would be advantageous to make it extremely clear that the people in question aren't ex-patriots just looking for a bail-out, but rather people who are being ethnically or racially persecuted and thrown out, potentially even after having given up your citizenship. That will make both the anger of Option 1, and the interventionism of Option 3, far more understandable than the present version, where the relationship between your country and the affected individuals feels very nebulous.

2) There are also a couple validities to consider flagging:

No Emigration as a policy would would give a lot more strength to Option 2. Even if the people left before that policy, the speaker would have solid ground to say "this is why we prohibited people leaving, screw those disloyal traitors!" I would write a separate option text for nations without that policy, since claiming it's probably illegal to leave makes no sense without it. Definitely could be an opportunity to add such a policy though!

World Assembly Membership is definitely required for Option 3. The WA specifically doesn't get involved in the affairs of non-members.

No Immigration would have some interesting play as well. Nothing specifically needs it here, but it's interesting to consider what the position would look like for a nation that prohibits immigration to be demanding another nation allow it.

3) For the final option, those requirements aren't actually that outlandish. Basically those are the requirements to move to Canada from the US, other than the IQ test (Canada requires different tests instead). Immigration frequently *does* require no criminal record (including very minor things), full biometrics, birth certificate, references, test results, medical suitability, etc. Some truly outlandish, unreasonable, offensive, or downright impossible things should be on this list if we really want to cast this nation as the bad guy. DNA tests proving descent from current citizens of their nation, for example. Five year's expenses as a "good faith deposit" with the government. A contract of indenture for their unborn children to serve the state. Things that are absolutely untenable, and very importantly, could not in good faith be provided even by a person who was trying to do everything right.

Posted: **Fri Mar 05, 2021 5:21 pm**

I agree with the general consensus here to split up scenarios, and so have gone for a more Windrush/Latin Americans in the USA type situation.

Option 1 has been revamped.

The foreign country's racism has been ratcheted up.

A second option 2 for nations with legal emigration put in place so that it can be specifically legalised.

Option 3's speaker is no longer with the World Assembly. Also have an added line to put the focus more on the poverty angle.

Option 4's requirements have been made more absurd, and the racism of this speaker against the player's countrymen has been hinted at (I reckon a president speaking to another president wouldn't outright *say* they are bigoted, but, well, it's kind of obvious now).

---------------------------

Thoughts?

Posted: **Fri Mar 05, 2021 7:07 pm**

Chan Island wrote:Option 4 [...] the racism of this speaker against the player's countrymen has been hinted at.

I think the "simple enough even for your kind to see it" is too on the nose given that as you say the foreign president is speaking to Leader. I'd go with "simple enough for even a @@DEMONYM@@ to understand" which suggests a more unconscious racism on the part of the speaker and while no less insulting to Leader it doesn't sound like the speaker is deliberately trying to make Leader punch them.

I'm also not sure about the "I'm a stupid @@DEMONYM@@ form" part - it's funny but I think something more subtle could be used instead. A literacy test designed to be @@DEMONYM@@-friendly? That's quite patronising, and speaks volumes of the prejudice your emigrant population faces over there.

Oh, and I think your first @@DEMONYM@@ should be @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ - i.e. they should be "Terrabodian immigrants" and not "Terrabod immigrants". And this may be my misunderstanding, but shouldn't they be emigrants? I guess they're immigrants in the foreign country... but they're emigrants from your nation...

Posted: **Sat Mar 06, 2021 5:13 am**

Some tidying up for you:

Chan Island wrote:stringently go through the records of @@DENONYM@@ immigrants

@@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@

Chan Island wrote:call the place home, and are far from enthusiastic about being deported from said homes.

... deported from there.

Chan Island wrote:For 50 years I worked in their economy, payed my taxes

Paid.

Chan Island wrote:Only for now these bigots have expelled me just because I'm different from them.

Delete "for".

Chan Island wrote:before I can get back onto my own 2 feet again."

Two, not 2.

Chan Island wrote:[option- has emigration] ""Oh great,

Double speech marks here.

Chan Island wrote:The country's president calls you to make their case."It might look

A space after the full stop.

Chan Island wrote:Here, I've drafted a statement for your to express your shock

First "your" change to "you".

Chan Island wrote:[effect] the nation's newest immigrants remember @@CAPITAL@@ as it was 40 years ago

As some areas of nations get taken over by an immigrant population, sometimes they change the place, example: building a mosque where no mosque ever existed before. So this effect line could go in the opposite way: emmigrants who returned home want to change the place back to how they remember it, example: tearing down a mega-mall and replacing it with the stinky market that was there when they were kids.

Chan Island wrote:effect] transit international zones have homegrown communities

What's a transit international zone?

Posted: **Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:27 pm**

So I somehow forgot about this issue. Um... well, let's get it submission ready and go!

Terrabod wrote:
Chan Island wrote:Option 4 [...] the racism of this speaker against the player's countrymen has been hinted at.

I think the "simple enough even for your kind to see it" is too on the nose given that as you say the foreign president is speaking to Leader. I'd go with "simple enough for even a @@DEMONYM@@ to understand" which suggests a more unconscious racism on the part of the speaker and while no less insulting to Leader it doesn't sound like the speaker is deliberately trying to make Leader punch them.

I'm also not sure about the "I'm a stupid @@DEMONYM@@ form" part - it's funny but I think something more subtle could be used instead. A literacy test designed to be @@DEMONYM@@-friendly? That's quite patronising, and speaks volumes of the prejudice your emigrant population faces over there.

Oh, and I think your first @@DEMONYM@@ should be @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ - i.e. they should be "Terrabodian immigrants" and not "Terrabod immigrants". And this may be my misunderstanding, but shouldn't they be emigrants? I guess they're immigrants in the foreign country... but they're emigrants from your nation...

All around good suggestions, and they make an awful lot of sense. I love the idea of the "kid friendly" literacy test, that they have such utterly low expectations of the player nation's people that you couldn't help but be offended.

Baggieland wrote:Some tidying up for you:

Chan Island wrote:stringently go through the records of @@DENONYM@@ immigrants

@@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@

Chan Island wrote:call the place home, and are far from enthusiastic about being deported from said homes.

... deported from there.

Chan Island wrote:For 50 years I worked in their economy, payed my taxes

Paid.

Chan Island wrote:Only for now these bigots have expelled me just because I'm different from them.

Delete "for".

Chan Island wrote:before I can get back onto my own 2 feet again."

Two, not 2.

Chan Island wrote:[option- has emigration] ""Oh great,

Double speech marks here.

Chan Island wrote:The country's president calls you to make their case."It might look

A space after the full stop.

Chan Island wrote:Here, I've drafted a statement for your to express your shock

First "your" change to "you".

Chan Island wrote:[effect] the nation's newest immigrants remember @@CAPITAL@@ as it was 40 years ago

As some areas of nations get taken over by an immigrant population, sometimes they change the place, example: building a mosque where no mosque ever existed before. So this effect line could go in the opposite way: emmigrants who returned home want to change the place back to how they remember it, example: tearing down a mega-mall and replacing it with the stinky market that was there when they were kids.

Chan Island wrote:effect] transit international zones have homegrown communities

What's a transit international zone?

Most of those little bits of mess tidied up.

I like your thinking about the former expats wanting to rebuild the capital as it used to be, but not sure about any particularly amusing or clear effect lines for that one.

By transit international zones I meant the international zones in airports, the Eurostar, the no-man's land between border checkpoints and so on. Basically the bits between where you have presented your passport, thus 'leaving' or 'entering' the country in a legal sense.

NationStates

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