Semigration & “Brexit Cities”
Oasis-Cities could facilitate “internal secession”, offering the chance to “semi-grate” within one’s country to a separate internal political jurisdiction.
SEMIGRATION is a popular term in South Africa where it means moving to another (safer) part of the country rather than the difficulty and expense of emigrating to another country.
OAcities will provide a release valve for those who are not too happy about the way things are going in their country but, rather than emigrating, they would prefer to “semi-grate” within in their own country but live under an independent political jurisdiction, free of a centralised “national” govt.
Under the existing system, those unhappy with the ruling party only have the occasional election (every 4 or 5 years) to register a “protest vote”, not that doing so ever seems to make much of a difference. But, in both the UK and the US, elections don’t offer any real choices and are always simply a toss-up between candidates chosen by “big two” parties. Even a middling-sized party, like the Liberals in the UK, have almost no hope. And “fringe” parties have NO CHANCE at all..! But the “big 2” rarely satisfies even their supporters completely as the winning party has to make compromises and concessions and promises in order to win the election.
Semigration into OACities would be a safety-valve for anyone unhappy with central govt policies, and a much easier and less expensive option than overseas emigration. The national government will still receive income from the autonomous entity, perhaps in the form of a poll-tax. It would be a WIN-WIN for everyone as it would give a safety-valve to minority groups and political dissidents.
FINESSING BREXIT..?
The idea also has the potential to solve a divisive issue like Brexit – “divisive” because 48% voted for the UK to remain in the EU and, it is claimed (quite convincingly) that if the vote were held again the remainers (or “re-moaners”) would win by a large margin. Brexit is going ahead regardless, which IMO is unfair considering the importance of the issue and the closeness of the vote. (Similarly, if Scotland were to vote to secede by a wafer-thin majority, would that be fair to Unionists?) In a Brexited UK, remainer groups could establish their own OA-Cities which could then apply to join the EU..! And, across the channel, Frenchies who want to leave the EU could establish their own “Frexit” cities, for example..! It would be interesting – fascinating – to see how both types fare.
This is not as absurd as it might first sound when you consider that a number of small autonomous political entities – Jersey, Guernsey, IOM, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Andorra – are all within the geographical boundaries of the EU but are not members of the EU…!
Oasis-Cities will be like VIRTUAL ISLANDS – with just one easily-monitored and easily-guarded entry port, making it easy to apply import tariffs, pandemic isolation, etc., or to simply keep the riff-raff out..!
Oasis-Cities will be like VIRTUAL ISLANDS – with just one easily-monitored and easily-guarded entry port, making it easy to apply import tariffs, pandemic isolation, etc., or to simply keep the riff-raff out..!
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