#apply for british citizenship

[scribeanand]

Citizenship application process in the UK

[ayjsolicitors2]

To apply for british citizenship as an adult, you must complete an AN form.It is important that you fill out the AN form correctly and submit all required documentation. Get more details about British citizenship on A Y & J Solicitors.

[metamatar]

Employers desire foreign workers who are accustomed to the hazardous work sites of industrial construction; in particular, they specifically solicit migrants who do not have a history of labor organizing within SWANA. In response, labor brokerage firms brand themselves as offering migrant workers who are deferential. Often, labor brokers conflate the category of South Asian with docility; [...] as inherently passive, disciplined, and, most important, unfettered by volatile working conditions. "We say quality, they [U.S. employers] say seasoned. We both know what it means. Workers who are not going to quit, not going to run away in the foreign country and do as they are told.” [...]

For migrants, the U.S. oil industry presents a rare chance to apply their existing skill set in a country with options for permanent residency and sponsorship of family members. Migrants wish to find an end to their tem­porary worker status; they imagine the United States as a liberal economy in which labor standards are enforced and there are opportunities for citizenship and building a life for their family. [...] What brokers fail to explain is that South Asian migrants are being recruited as guest workers. Migrants will not have access to U.S. citizenship or visas for family members; in fact, their employment status will be quite similar to their SWANA migration.

While nations such as the Philippines have both state-mandated and independent migrant rights agencies, the Indian government has minimal avenues for worker protection. These are limited to hotlines for reporting abusive foreign employers and Indian consulates located in a few select countries of the SWANA region. [... Brokers] emphasize the docility of Indian migrants in comparison to the disruptive tendencies of other Asian migrant workers. [...] “Some of these Filipino men you see make a lot of trouble in the Arab countries. Even their women, who work as maids and such, lash out. The employer says one wrong thing and the workers get the whole country [the Philippines] on the street. [...] But you don’t see our people creating a tamasha [spectacle] overseas.” [...] Just as Filipinx migrants are racialized to be undisciplined labor, Indian brokers construct divisions within the South Asian workforce to promote the primacy of their own firms. In particular, Pakistani workers are racialized as an abrasive population.

[...] While the public image of the South Asian American community remains as model minorities, presumed to be primarily upwardly mobile professionals, the global reality of the population is quite to the contrary. [...] From the historic colonial routes initiated by British occupation of South Asia to the emergence of energy markets within the countries of SWANA, migrants have been recruited to build industries by contributing their labor to construction projects. Within the last decade, these South Asian migrants, with experience in the SWANA oil industry, have been actively solicited as guest workers into the energy sector of the United States. The growth of hydraulic fracturing has opened new territory for oil extraction; capitalizing on the potential market are numerous stakeholders who have invested in industrial construction projects across the southwestern United States. The solicitation of South Asian construction workers is not coincidental. [...] Kartik, a globally competitive firm’s broker, explains the connection of Indian labor to practices of the past. “You know we come from a long history of working in foreign lands. Even the British used to send us to Africa and the Arab regions to work in the mines and oil fields. It’s part of our history.”

Seasoning Labor: Contemporary South Asian Migrations and the Racialization of Immigrant Workers, Saunjuhi Verma in the Journal of Asian American Studies

[jewish-sideblog]

Btw I think there’s a difference between an ethnostate and an ethnic group gaining self-determination. But I also think most people don’t know the difference. Like. Ireland is 76% ethnically Irish, gives preferential citizenship and immigration status to people of Irish ethnic descent, and has a very bloody and violent recent history of trying to keep non-Irish people from continuing to live in Ireland. And right now there’s an international border separating the “True Irish” from the Ulster, British Irish, largely on the basis of ethnicity, ancestry and religion. Most people consider the multiple wars that Ireland fought to be in the name of self-determination, not in the name of establishing an ethnostate.

Israel is less ethnically Jewish than Ireland is ethnically Irish. Contrary to popular belief, non-Jews living inside Israel have just as much of a citizenship as non-Irish people living in Ireland. They can vote and hold office and move freely and worship whomever they please. It’s just that those rights aren’t extended across the international border to Palestine… just like Ireland’s legal rights don’t extend into Northern Ireland.

I’m not trying to say that Ireland is definitely an ethnostate, and I’m not trying to say that Israel definitely isn’t. I’m saying that you should be consistent in your determination of what counts. If you apply different rules to the Jewish country specifically, and you levy accusations against a Jewish government that you would never levy at a Western government… then you may be antisemitic.

[sarah-ankh]

Having a great night! I'm just drunk enough and it's just late enough that we're having deep conversations like the old days. Real life changing shit. I've missed it.

Edit: only just noticed your username, lol.

HAPPY NRW YEARS!!

🎉🎉

@maryland-officially @four-leafed-queer-gal @salad-flavored-adventures @thee-silly-0ne @theetherealraphael

[probablyasocialecologist]

Then comes the problem of ensuring that the settler state and society replacing that of the indigenous Arabs is “Jewish.” Even in the pre-state period when the Yishuv was wrestling with the British authorities over immigration, the Jewish Agency and other Zionist institutions vetted the immigrants by their Jewishness. With the establishment of Israel, the Law of Return applied solely to Jews. Now Israel had another problem: How to present itself as a liberal European democracy while preventing the return to their homes of 720,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Nakba? Population management in the form of technical legalisms provided a solution. The Citizenship Law of 1952 permitted everyone who had Palestinian nationality to return, but with a caveat: they had to have been registered residents of Israel in 1949. With that sleight of legal hand all the refugees were “legally” barred from returning to their homeland. Those that remained – 150,000 out of more than a million – were subject to some 184 laws that limited their civil rights. Some were symbolic, like the Jewish Nationality Law of 2019 that demotes Arabic from an official language to one of “special status.” Others more disenfranchising. Palestinian citizens of Israel, for example, are forbidden to buy, rent, lease or reside on land or buildings on land that are defined as “Jewish” – lands on 94 percent of their own country.

Jeff Halper, Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State

[transit-fag]

What's your 'murica gets its head out of its ass wishlist' for urban planning and other major policy shifts?

Mine is:

Left side driving

Changing to metric already

Universal income, extra for disabled people

Universal healthcare for everyone in any part of the US

Defund the world spanning military, grant statehood or subsidized independence to our colonies. Maybe just like idk patrol our own waters and skies perhaps?

Defund the police, and create community outreach orgs to help all suffering ppl, including jerks who struggle so much they think killing ppl is ever okay.

Establish limits on copyright law being 20 years like patents. (With none of the bullshit loopholes)

Establish that all intellectual property deemed a public good by someone kind is forced into the public domain irrevocably. (Careful I will rant about the patent on heated boxes or life saving meds)

Requiring any company that operates in the US to pay taxes to the US, and hold their executives responsible for damages to anything or one they cause.

Public trains to/from anywhere with more than double digit population. Some other form of public transit that gets its own lane at least for anywhere that is infeasible.

Make safe, secure, private, and well made housing, a right and not a commodity.

Make food a right.

Make clothes a right.

Make good internet a right.

Make electricity a right.

Make privacy a right.

Make education an unlimited right.

All people in the US are eligible for all rights and protections etc. (Citizenship is not a requirement to be treated well)

Ban plastics in anything where natural materials are better.

Subsidize growing actual food people want to eat, not industrial resources.

Ban golf courses anywhere they cannot naturally survive.

Exclude all organizations from exerting powers like the law except for the government.

Anyone making disproportionate use of a public good like water, transportation, etc, gets taxed proportionately. (Semi trucks bad, trains good)

Provide water reclamation resources to areas without renewable clean water, no matter the cost.

Require that people in any position of power be good kind people.

Make rule of law actually mean something, if the law applies to everyone equally than enforce it equally. (Including the government and military)

Make corporations not legally people (they aren't)

No nukes or WMDs

Give NASA 10% the national budget or smth, they deserve it.

Require that companies pay the union dues of their employees.

Encourage unions.

Make the NSA about aquatic biology instead. Say the National Aquatic Association or smth.

No guns in civilization, wilderness or rural only for civilians.

Disband the CIA.

Full audits of the government all the time, no classified or secret bullshit. With great power comes great scrutiny and actual responsibility.

Establish an actual nationwide recycling system to turn trash into compost or useful materials.

Establish restorative justice practices nationwide.

I uh went off a bit sorry, I miss anything?

I agree with most of this except left side driving, that is an evil British scheme.

Also how the fuck do you require people in power to be "good kind people" do you not see how that could be abused, it's completely subjective

[ausetkmt]

Benin grants citizenship to slave descendants as it faces its own role in the trade

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — When Nadege Anelka first came to the West African country of Benin from her home island of Martinique, a French overseas territory in the Caribbean, the 57-year-old travel agent said she had a feeling of deja vu.

Nate Debos, known by his stage name NaTRILL Dizaster, left, who said he would apply for Benin citizenship, poses with Ay.Yon Michaels, right, of the rap duo Ayakashi Krewe inside an old school bus in New Orleans, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Feeling at home in Benin, Anelka decided to settle there last July and open a travel agency. She hopes to become a citizen by taking advantage of a law passed in September that grants citizenship to those who can trace their lineage to the slave trade.

The new law, which was initiated by President Patrice Talon, who has been in office since 2016, is part of a broader effort by Benin to reckon with its own historical role in the slave trade.

The law is open to all over 18 who do not already hold other African citizenship and can provide proof that an ancestor was deported via the slave trade from anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Beninese authorities accept DNA tests, authenticated testimonies and family records.

In this Jan. 29, 2019 file photo, the flags of the nations of Benin and Togo, the west African homes of the survivors of the slave ship Clotilda, remain on display on a monument at what was the Africatown Welcome Center in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Julie Bennett, File)

Benin is not the first country to grant citizenship to descendants of slaves. Earlier this month, Ghana naturalized 524 African Americans after the West African country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, invited them to “come home” in 2019, as part of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in North America in 1619.

But Benin’s citizenship law carries added significance, in part because of the role it played in the slave trade as one of the main points of departure.

European merchants deported an estimated 1.5 million slaves from the Bight of Benin, a territory that includes modern-day Benin and Togo and part of modern-day Nigeria, said Ana Lucia Araujo, a professor of history at Howard University who has spent years researching Benin’s role.

In this Nov. 17, 2011 file photo, a fisherman stands amidst city trash brought in by the tide, as he prepares to launch his fishing boat, in Cotonou, Benin. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)

Benin has struggled to resolve its legacy of complicity. For over 200 years, powerful kings captured and sold slaves to Portuguese, French and British merchants.

The kingdoms still exist today as tribal networks, and so do the groups that were raided. Rumors that President Patrice Talon is a descendant of slave merchants sparked much debate while he was running for office in 2016. Talon has never publicly addressed the rumors.

Benin has openly acknowledged its role in the slave trade, a stance not shared by many other African nations that participated. In the 1990s, Benin hosted an international conference, sponsored by UNESCO, to examine how and where slaves were sold.

And in 1999, President Mathieu Kérékou fell to his knees whiling visiting a church in Baltimore and issued an apology to African Americans for Africa’s involvement in the slave trade.

FILE- A man paddles a canoe near a Voodoo sacred forest in Adjarra, Benin, on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba, File)

Memorial sites are mostly in Ouidah. They include the “Door of No Return,” which marks the point from which many enslaved people were shipped across the Atlantic, as well as the town’s history museum.

At the “Tree of Forgetfulness,” enslaved people were said to be symbolically forced to forget their past lives.

“Memories of the slave trade are present on both sides of the Atlantic, but only one of these sides is well known,” said Sindé Cheketé, the head of Benin’s state-run tourism agency.

Nate Debos, 37, an American musician living in New Orleans, learned about Benin’s citizenship law while visiting for the Porto Novo mask festival. He had never been to West Africa before, but his interest in the Vodun religion led him there.

Debos is the president of an association called New Orleans National Vodou Day. It mirrors Benin’s Vodun Day, a national holiday on Jan. 10 with a festival in Ouidah celebrating Vodun, an official religion in Benin, practiced by at least a million people in the country.

It originated in the kingdom of Dahomey — in the south of present-day Benin — and revolves around the worship of spirits and ancestors through rituals and offerings. Slavery brought Vodun to the Americas and the Caribbean, where it became Vodou, a blend with Catholicism.

“Vodou is one of the chains that connects Africa to the Americas,” said Araujo, the professor. “For enslaved Africans, it was a way of resisting slavery.”

European colonial powers and slave owners sought to suppress African cultural and religious practices. Vodun was preserved through syncretism, as African deities and spirits were merged with or disguised as Catholic saints.

“Our African ancestors were not tribal savages, they had sophisticated cultures with very noble and beautiful spiritual practices,” Debos said.

He now seeks to establish more partnerships with collectives practicing Vodun in Benin, which would require him to stay in the country for longer periods. He will apply for citizenship, but not with an intention to move there permanently.

“At the end of the day, I am an American, even when I am dressed in the wonderful fabrics and suits they have in Benin,” Debos said.

Anelka, the travel agent now living in Benin, said her motivations behind getting Beninese citizenship are mostly symbolic.

“I know I will never be completely Beninese. I will always be considered a foreigner” she said. “But I am doing this for my ancestors. It’s a way to reclaim my heritage, a way of getting reparation.”

[sgiandubh]

Thank you for answering my Qs about citizenship. Very interesting. Multiple passports....easier to travel when your parents travel for a living ;)

Dear Citizenship Anon,

It is very rare for an Anon to come back and thank me, so kudos to you, really, 😘😘😘. I simply examined the matter in theory, as I have no proof of this whatsoever (and how could I, since children's data are protected all over the world, for all the excellent reasons one could think of).

If such a child exists (remember I am answering you seriously, here), they would have to travel with their parents, nannie or other relatives (extra documents, such as a Travel Consent signed by the parents, may be needed in the latter cases), even if in the US and in Ireland all children must have their own travel documents. FYI, in the UK, many children are included on either one or both their parents' passports, but they can also have their own document (to avoid applying for an US visa, if included on a parent's passport, for example) - an US passport comes in handy, here, for obvious reasons.

So not sure if it would be easier: traveling with a child is always a hassle.

I cannot stress enough that my answer to you only covers the situation where the child would have been born in the USA/elsewhere. If born in the UK, they would either have a British passport (father) and an Irish passport (mother), or be included on the father's British passport and have an Irish passport (mother).

[Later edit]: @harriethattie is correct to remind me that if the parents are not married at the time of birth, a child born abroad from a British father and an Irish mother would have to be registered for British citizenship. To the above and conversely, I will add that if born in the UK, the father will pass on his nationality/citizenship, subject to proof of paternity (simple DNA test required, which cannot be mandated, or Court order).

[cassolotl]

UK petition: rejoin the European Union

[ Click here to sign ]

Petition: Apply for the UK to join the European Union as a full member as soon as possible I believe joining the EU would boost the economy, increase global influence, improve collaboration and provide stability & freedom. I believe that Brexit hasn't brought any tangible benefit and there is no future prospect of any, that the UK has changed its mind and that this should be recognised. I think the Single Market would bring inward investment, frictionless trade and economic growth benefiting industry and consumers alike. Full membership could also amplify the UK’s voice on the global stage, allowing it to influence EU policy and regulations, including trade, security and environment. Joining the EU could provide access to science & research projects and give UK citizens the right to live, work & study across member states, enhancing cultural exchange & personal opportunities.

Sign: click here

Graph of signatures: click here

Deadline: 30th April 2025

Who can sign? British citizens living anywhere, and anyone living in the UK regardless of citizenship. [source]

[doomspiral]

are you saying people are racist to Brits and Germans? (I don’t mean this to be accusatory or anything lol pls don’t take it that way! I just don’t understand what that sentence meant n I’ve been staring at it for fifteen min orz)

Ur good, ty for asking rather than living in mystery.

Key word was "white racism" by which i meant white on white racism. Whiteness as a concept is political, not genetic and certainly not set in stone. The Most White you can be according to racist science and the historical record is british and northern germanic/nordic. To classify "white racism" im referring to the way westernmost europe and america have ammended the parameters of whiteness in the past (and present) to exclude people from: ireland, poland, MENA groups (I've heard this term is already outdated im sorry) (SWANA?), jews (arguing for and against, whichever allows for the most antisemitism), germans, italians, and so on. I cannot stress enough this has been used against most groups generally considered to be white and benefit situationally from white priviledge. The racism in question consists of being barred from citizenship, forced from homes, denied work and food, and even lynchings. For fun, it also includes notable caricatures that show up most when trying to describe how ugly stupid or violent each group is.

This exists both on the same axis as colorism while also not, which is why its white-racism, or racism between "white" groups, in the same way black and brown peoplegroups have described colorism and race specific inter-racism (intra?).

Anyway. Yes i meant that, im just off the chain deep into studying fascism and everything that branches around it and led to it (this predates fascism).

[EDIT]

By the way, drawing a caricature of a group of people and then stating its a depiction of whats ugly stupid and violent, is phrenology and also cruel. People look like that for real and it has nothing to do with their character. Bad teeth, aging "poorly", thin hair, deformities, so on and so forth happen across ethnic boundaries, political alignments, people who do charity and people who murder babies/puppies. Drawing someone with any variety of features is not a crime, but doing so while 1) using it to reveal your personal racist preconceptions and 2) mock the very idea of being attracted to "ugly" people in fact veers into the fascist psychological profile.

Theres any number of justifications for doing it. This does not negate what it is. In general, someone who behaves like this means it, and will apply these ideas to morality and violence outside of art, thats why theres so much writing about why its bad.

[scribeanand]

How to become a British citizen

[ayjsolicitors2]

Becoming a Proud British Citizen: Apply for British citizenship

Apply for British citizenship is a process that allows individuals to become legal citizens of the United Kingdom. It involves submitting an application, meeting specific eligibility criteria, and undergoing various assessments. The application typically includes personal details, residence history, and proof of English language proficiency. Once granted citizenship, individuals gain the right to live and work in the UK indefinitely, access healthcare and education, and participate in democratic processes. British citizenship can provide a sense of belonging and open doors to various opportunities in the United Kingdom.

Read more about British citizenship:

What are the Benefits of British Citizenship?

[shakespearenews]

I encountered this tension when myself and my friend and writing partner Philip Arditti were cast in a racially blind production of Henry V at Shakespeare’s Globe. Henry V is perhaps the most straightforward of Shakespeare’s histories – plays that deal with the ups and downs of the British crown. Set during the hundred years war with France, it follows King Henry, a former party boy who writes himself into history on the battlefield at Agincourt and returns home victorious despite his relatively small army. Phil and I, both outsiders to Britishness in different ways, found ourselves on stage every night portraying soldiers fighting for an England we couldn’t define. Was this progress? This question gnawed at us throughout the run, highlighting our broader experiences of living and working in England today. We talked about rehearsal room microaggressions, undergoing the citizenship process, and whether to stick with our native accents or convert to received pronunciation.

The result of these conversations was a history play of our own: English Kings Killing Foreigners. It is a dark comedy about casting controversy and English cultural identity. We hope that, by sharing our experiences, we can contribute to the discourse surrounding Shakespeare and England in a way that takes the focus off the actors on the stage and places it back where it belongs: the wounds that still fester on the battlefield that is Shakespeare.

---

https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/English-Kings

The death of a national sweetheart.  A friendship tested by a bloody act.  An infamous production of Shakespeare's Henry V. 

A tell-all dark comedy that peels back the skin of English cultural identity to reveal the steaming battlefields that lies beneath. Would you die for your country?

From rehearsal room microaggressions, to the battlefields of France, into the bureaucracy of applying for citizenship, Shakespeare's Globe Ensemble veterans Nina Bowers and Philip Arditti explore their histories alongside England's own as unwilling actors in a national story.

[resident-idiot-simp]

Sorry it took so long to respond I was out all day and normally I would be asleep by now but due to a family emergency involving a sibling (they will be fine) I am ✨AWAKE✨. Please forgive the inevitable crimes against grammar I’m about to commit I am severely sleep deprived :D

Okay so the reason wendigos aren’t able to hybridise is because humans turn into them through specific methods ie eating human flesh. they are human turned creatures. Same rules apply for vampires, werewolves, Zombies, Ghosts and any other similar type of monster, they are around but they aren’t hybrids. There are also no Moth Man, Bigfoot or Loch Ness Hybrids.

Magic left the world a LONG time ago and no one (Human) remembers why. This caused a mass extinction event with most creatures that were solely magical being wiped out. The ones that survived either became Cryptids and barely functioned with the scraps of magic left behind or they became mundane…

The reason the fae left in the first place is because a bunch of humans tried to take magic from the Fae and actually succeeded for like five seconds before a bunch of them died from the sheer amount of power. This BIG NO NO altered the nature of magic into something humans could actually use unfortunately it also hurt the Fae badly so they had to poq for a while to recover. They took the magic with them but not before cursing the surviving thieves and their descendants to never be able to experience magic again (this led to some unintended consequences).

The reason there are no Fae hybrids is a little more sinister (angst potential incoming). Every now and then a little bit of magic would leak back into the world and keep things running just enough so that when the Fae returned it wasn’t a complete shit show (just mostly one) and after some initial conflict and a bunch of new border agreements things settled down (British hybrids can pick which royal house they follow (fae or human) whilst still maintaining citizenship (guess which Soap picked lol)) and with magic being reintroduced (in the 1800’s btw) the world slowly started to change. Within a generation hybrids began appearing, within another three Mythics started showing up too. With each successive generation the hybrids got stronger and as the magic around the world continued to grow more and more animals began looking weird. Rabbits with antlers, Giant Sea Snakes and Octopi, Lions with golden coats. But no dragons or phenox or unicorns or purely magical beings appeared instead what they had where hybrids that become a little less human every generation.

TLDR the OG mythical creatures went extinct and magic is trying its best to bring them back the normal hybrids just didn’t have enough juice in them to meet the requirements. Anything that didn’t go (fully) extinct like the Fae or are human turned creature won’t hybridise.

Technically Ghost hybridisation shouldn’t have worked but because he “died” such a specific and traumatising way near a canine mythic who’s magic he absorbed over months the magic got a lil confused (Ghost is the only Black dog hybrid the as the rest are actual dogs and not extinct ( does that mean Ghost is the strongest Black dog? Maybe…(yes it does))).

If you want angst you could say that if a hybrid uses to much of their magic they run the risk of becoming more creature then man. I don’t think they’d loose their intelligence and they’d still be the same “person” but they definitely wouldn’t be human.

Since magic returned vampires can walk in the sun, wendigos became intelligent (took one look at the military and went ✨no✨) werewolves become more aware (lol) and don’t need the moon to shift and Ghosts are still classed as citizens.

Ooh What if magic is radiation from the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs????

You're fine I hope everyone's okay and I'd be a hypocrite because I too do not understand the English language.

Ok that makes sense yeah.

FAE LORE FAE LORE!!! I LOVE IT! I love that the lore and angst of humans trying to take something not made for them is very fitting. There is a ton of potential for angst and I love that Soap is like nahhh fae all the way. (He is correct)

I Love that explanation of mythics It seems very fitting for the universe. The world needs them in some way shape or form so it corrects itself.

Great explanation for Ghost and the fact that singles him out making him the most powerful is perfect. I mean look at that man.

AAAHHHH ANGST!!!! I LOVE THAT! It limits them and makes them of not super op. It also explains how some of the actual mythical creatures can survive in the human world now. (Wendigos my beloved)

OMG DINOSAUR LORE?! YES! (what if kidding kinda If all the dinosaurs didn't die) Hahaha unless

(I answered this on my phone so I couldn't answer each paragraph because it wasn't clear sorry)

[chwiirleader]

A Eulogy to the Métis Nation of Canada

Métis Nation of BC (MNBC) has now formally withdrawn from the Métis Nation of Canada(MNC), following in the footsteps of Manitoba Métis Federation(MMF) and Métis Nation Saskatchewan (MNS). Here is a bit of background on what's going on.

MNC was seen as a dead end after MMF and MMS left. The remainder of MNC stopped being viable because Métis Nation of Alberta/MNA held disproportionate power in over the others. So Métis Nation of British Columbia/MNBC elected to pull out and negotiate directly rather than through an organization they would have minimal power to negotiate in. This is my understanding of the reasoning behind MNBC's departure from MNC.

As part of this divide and conquer strategy, MMF is getting a treaty, which is great, but my concern is that this appears to be being done by closing the door on other settlements citizenship pathways. It is currently challenging to register with MMF if you live outside of Manitoba for example. I’m hearing reports this either has somewhat begun to change (it was impossible previously)  or is headed towards being changed but at present Métis people are told to register with their province/territory of residence which creates a conflict.

Currently I am aware Métis citizens applying from outside of district have faced friction in getting applications submitted as the process doesn’t even have an option for those currently living outside of Manitoba. This certainly creates the impression that you need to live in the homeland in order to be a citizen, which seems like a very flawed approach to a kinship network based citizenship system where many of us live outside of our traditional territories for work, family etc. This feels a bit like an attempt to force us back to reserve.

There are also reports of severe issues of nepotism and lack of democratic process in MMF which has the rest of us concerned about how they will act when they hold more power than the other nations. .

It was believed that bowing out of MMC was the best of two bad choices, though only time will tell if it was the right choice, being independent for the moment leaves us room to join in a new national movement/representation system if such an opportunity arises. In the meantime, MMF being in charge of rights negotiations for all Métis people sounds like a path towards exclusion for a majority of Métis people and less accountability. This has me concerned.

MNBC has also made many mistakes. Probably more than I am aware of. Locally a previous generation of elected officials made some major tensions with the local First Nations by being very disrespectful, a rift that’s been challenging to heal. Métis Nation of Ontario/MNO was a lost cause and has continued down this path of disrespect which I think is the fundamental reason these cracks began to show so blatantly. MNBC and the other Métis Nations have increasingly distanced themselves from MNO mostly due to this and the shared impression that their citizenship requirements are too lax. Our rights cannot come at the expense of the local land holding nations, which is exactly how the federal and provincial governments like to position the debates.

My concern is that this is being used to close the door to those from Métis settlements outside of the red river valley. My family has both in our past with family from the Red River Valley, Paperchase Reservation and Lac St Anne as well as deeper roots further east in Haudenosaunee and Anashinabeg kinship networks so it’s disturbing to see the other clearly indigenous part of our heritage essentially put out to drift even when it won’t impact my own citizenship significantly.

In general I think settled treaties are being used to close the door on new treaties to try to “wrap up” the reconciliation process from the federal government's viewpoint. This feels like a divide and conquer strategy and disturbs me greatly that so many of us appear to be adding fuel to this fire.

It’s a troubling time to be Métis, I’m very curious to see what developments occur over this next year. This is disappointing in BC for 2SLGBTQQIA+ folx because we just had our bill for representation at the provincial level approved a couple of months ago and now the future of MNBC is uncertain. I’m not sure we will get the same kind of respect and consideration outside of the current framework.

This all being in the backdrop of an anti-incumbent and anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ wave has be extremely concerned for the well-being of my people.

My efforts will continue to be towards building community locally by creating reasons and excuses for us to meet up and hang out as Métis people. At the end of the day, its the community and people that matter and no amount of legislative change will make us stop being proud to be Métis.

Please note that I am speaking as a citizen, not in my capacity as a local chapter’s elected 2S rep. I listened to the debates and gave feedback through our rep (mostly that we needed more time to consult our citizens) but I had no direct vote in this decision.