Fear in the eyes

Can you see the eyes of this migrant who is hiding from the police? Under the car? In Mellila, which is an enclave of Spain on the coast of North Africa. These little enclaves are an historical oddity, left over from the days of colonialism and imperialism. 

And now they are the promised land. Land where African refugees flood into, trying to get into Europe. 

But those eyes. Fear. Totally fear filled eyes. 

Birth of a country

Kannu

You missed a great afternoon, when Salil uncle read from his book, the Colonel who would not repent. About the death of Bangabondhu, Mujibur Rahman, the President of Bangladesh, and the history of this great but truly god-forsaken country. He mentioned about this book of photographs, by Kishor Parekh, which I am enclosing. Don’t read it if you have a bit of a sensitive tummy because there are very distressing photographs in here. But it’s not a big book, hardly 40 odd pages, but very powerful photographs, son. Sometimes photographs can be truly heart wrenching. Two of which I have written about before.

1. Bhopal: http://piquancy.blogspot.co.uk/2004/07/for-every-glance-behind-us-we-have-to.html. Here is the photograph in question.

 

2. Vietnam: http://piquancy.blogspot.co.uk/2004/02/chemical-warfare-is-not-all-hot-air-my.html. Here is the photograph

I have mentioned to you about my memories of this refugee issue, son. I was in Calcutta when this happened, hardly 4 years or so old, but I can still remember the cries of “phan de go” “please give me phan” echoing in the nights in the roads of Tollygunj which is a Calcutta neighbourhood…Phan is the water which remains after you decant the rice after cooking. People were so poor that they wanted that rice water. There were 10 million people who got into India in a matter of months, you cannot have an organisation which can handle this load of refugees so they were all in huge trouble despite all the help that the Indian government and civil society gave. Plus the second memory I have is of these refugees fighting over the garbage bins where people had thrown their left over food, fighting with dogs. Truly barbarian situation. Bangladesh is where our ancestors came from, son, so they are our people in a way. You are a Bengali and despite you not knowing Bengali, there are roots here. So you need to know because people who forget their history do not have a future. Remember what I told you about the Russian Georgian Girl? She said that you Indian/English people are lucky, you have a history to remember and be proud of.

So some of the photographs are really wrenching. People do not see this level of destruction, son. Why do you think I hate war? That’s why when people go all gung ho about war, I hate it. Absolutely hate it. Just saw a great cartoon, 2500 people died in 9/11 and 2.5million people died in wars which were launched because of 9/11. See? everybody has a reason to fight and kill, but when will it stop? We thought after the cold war, peace will break out but no, more and more wars have happened, and that’s why we need to stop people from fighting, starting with our own country, United Kingdom. Its stupid, its expensive and it creates havoc far beyond and for much longer than the people who did it will remember.

So read and weep for our compatriots, son. And think about not letting this happen again, as much as possible.

Love

Baba

PS: Here are some of the photographs which were totally brilliant

Resort Of Last Resort

Here's an example of where the bottom feeders live. People who are escaping Islam. Poverty. They are desperate to get away from the bastards who have ruined countries such as Pakistan Afghanistan and Iran. And more will come. The history of Islam tells us that Muslims kill more Muslims than any other religion. And this sad story has a long way to run. Till Muslims manage to box Islam into the civilised box rather than the shape fundamentalists have put it into. 

Ironically you see one of the sets of idiots, Saudis, who are responsible for this desecration of Islam coming to Indonesia to get their rocks off. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The Saudis piss over their co religionists in India Bangladesh Pakistan Indonesia Egypt Lebanon and in return these guys fawn over the Saudis and lick their feet. Only place there where I faced in your face racism. Bah. 

But there you go. It's a sad view of one of the sad spots of the world. As an economist you need to consider why nations hate and love immigration. Freedom of capital is allowed generally but of labour? Nope. Think about why this is so son.

Love

Baba  

Resort Of Last Resort | The Global Mail
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/resort-of-last-resort/585/

Fear, corruption, boredom, smugglers, extortionists, Saudi sex tourists and temporary wives: such is life in the Indonesian resort town that has become limbo for asylum seekers.

Night is enveloping the hills of Cisarua, a resort town high outside Jakarta, and the area’s evening rituals are beginning. Rainwater thunders down from nearby mountaintops along hundreds of canals and rivulets that go whooshing on into the polluted sink that is Indonesia’s capital.

Across the bowl-shaped valley, dozens of mosques begin booming the call to prayer, all merging together into an asynchronous whine. In hillside villas, groups of men from Saudi Arabia — some in traditional white thawb robes, some in baggy track pants – load up on the evening’s stock of alcohol, which is banned in their home country. On motorbikes and in cars, pimps begin ferrying in the men’s other vice — Arabic-speaking Indonesian women.

(See the photos behind the story: Barat Ali Batoor’s series from Cisarua, In Between Persecution And Asylum.)

In other rented houses, hundreds of asylum seekers sit with little to do. Many have become near-nocturnal out of sheer boredom, and are just starting their day. Over the past decade, the town has become the unofficial haven for asylum seekers heading to Australia. For some, it is a brief stopover before they jump on a smuggler’s boat. For others, it is a limbo that can last for years.

Haider — not his real name — is sitting in a living room with half-a-dozen other men who, like him, are Hazaras from the Pakistani city of Quetta. All appear drawn and exhausted. One of the men, Ghulam Reza, sits with his foot extended because of an untreated, bloody gash.

One of the most brutal genocides and nobody guilty

I saw this photograph on a blog which posts old Indian photographs. Ripped my heart out.

This relates the Bangladeshi Genocide carried out by those stalwarts of Islam, the Pakistani Army and their assorted quislings, the Bangladeshi Religious establishment who popped off 3 million people. Well, it doesn't matter, does it? when Muslims kill Muslims? its only when non Muslims kill Muslims do the howling mob come out. And in any case, they were Hindu’s or ex-Hindus or Bangla speaking. Bah. But look at the face, hopeless eyes, tired from walking for miles, a dying child. Nothing to call her own other than a thin bangle, a single tattered piece of cloth, cradling her child, who is most probably cholera inflicted.

I was very young at that time, about 4 years of age, but as I keep on saying, one of my earliest memories are people like this squabbling like feral dogs over food thrown into the garbage bin after the wedding feast. We were in Calcutta at that time. I also remember people like this wandering the streets during the afternoon begging for “maarh”, the rice water which is left after washing rice. Watch and weep. And since 1971, the Pakistani Army has gone on to do better and bigger things. Still doing it.

Relative Priorities

When is a mobile phone more important than food? Or when is having a satellite dish antenna based TV system more important than having a better house? When you are talking about Iraqi Refugees

On the other hand, the World Food Programme has announced that it will let Iraqi refugees in Syria know that food aid is available over sms on mobile phones.

Iraqi refugees in Syria will this week start receive U.N. text messages they can redeem for fresh food in local shops, the World Food Programme said on Tuesday.

The "virtual vouchers" worth $22 per family every two months will supplement traditional aid which rarely includes perishable goods, WFP spokeswoman Emilia Casella said, announcing the pilot project supported by the mobile company MTN.

...

The Syrian pilot will initially reach 1,000 beneficiaries in and around Damascus, and may be extended, the WFP said. Casella described it as a way to help refugees eat a more diversified diet while also supporting local farmers and businesses.

"We are not giving food away, we are actually creating an additional market for local shopkeepers," she said.

Quite an interesting situation, eh? where entertainment and communications are of higher priority than food and shelter. World is definitely changing for the better? (I think)

Afghan Refugees still heading home

It is indeed a good piece of news that Afghan refugees are still heading home. People are very clear, when they see problems, they leave. and sure as heck, they will not head back to Afghanistan if the situation was bad. That said, its about the same that the Pakistani territory is not under control of Pakistan.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Jews in Mecca & Medina?

It didnt take long to get a reaction to the US House Resolution 185 which talked about the Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands. I quote:

It is a “ploy to give Israel a share in every Arab country” and force the Arabs to drop Palestinians’ “right to return” from their negotiations with the Israelis, Sheikh Hilal Mabrouq told the congregation during his sermon at the Najma mosque yesterday.
“It is very clear that the resolution is one step forward to strengthen Israel’s existence in the region,” he said.
“Each Arab country had a Jewish community which lived in peace with the Arabs before the establishment of Israel. I think it is only meant for finding a share for Israel in each Arab country,” he said.

But the best part was this one which I didnt not consider:

“I will not be surprised if the US Congress came up with another resolution tomorrow, claiming the right of the Jews who had left the Arab peninsula after the appearance of Islam to return to both Makkah and Al Madina and establish a Jewish community there,” he said.

Lol, well, me being evil, i can very well think, well, why not? if length of stay and presence on land is indeed the case, right of returns cuts all ways... What will Israel and the assorted Arab League countries do?

US House resolution 185 would declare Jewish, Palestinian 1948 refugees equal

This should set the cat amongst the pigeons. If equality does work, then, curious to see what will happen to the right of return and compensation.... This is a right mess.

 

April 3, 2008, 8:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

It was introduced Tuesday by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Mike Ferguson (R-NJ).

From 1948, 850,000 Jews were attacked, dispossessed and expelled from 10 Arab lands, where some Jewish communities had existed for 2,500 years. The number of Jewish refugees exceeds Arab refugees from Israel by more than 100,000 (United Nations Conciliation Commission, October 23, 1950).

All prior UN resolutions referred only to Arab refugees. The new nonbinding resolution affirms for the first time that the U.S. government must now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally. It further urges that, as a member of the Middle East Quartet, the President and U.S. officials ensure that any reference to Palestinian refugees must henceforth "also include a similarly explicit reference to the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries."

Technorati Tags: Jews,Palestine,Israel,World War II

Meet the families where no one's worked for THREE generations - and they don't care

Even discounting the hyperbole, this kind of story pushes one to question the whole idea of the welfare state. We are now hitting recession in the UK and in rest of the world, job security is low, inflation is getting higher, commitments increasing, and then on top of that, our tax monies is going to go to supporting scroungers like these? And then Bishop Nazir Ali wants us to give MORE? Calling us greedy bankers, eh? I quote:

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, singled out high-earning City traders such as hedge fund managers as the kind of people who must swap their desire to “make a quick buck” for a commitment to “share [their] wealth generously”.

Really? For people like the McFaddens? Are you freaking out of your bloody mind? I am the son of a refugee, he didnt ask for any help, i did not ask for any help, we both supported and are supporting tons of family members and supporting other charities, paying top whack on our taxes and then we get to hear that we aren’t paying enough? Bollocks.

Technorati Tags: Refugees,United Kingdom,Welfare

Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War

While researching my last essay here, I came across this paper. Quite an interesting paper, but I have some issues with it, the 4 categories that she comes up with are too vague. I quote:

• Dispossessive - the class of events, including both in and out-migrations, in which the principal objective is the appropriation of the territory and/or property of another group or groups, and/or the elimination of this group or groups as a threat to the ethno-political or economic dominance of the perpetrators; this includes what is commonly known as ethnic cleansing;
• Exportive - those displacements undertaken either to fortify a domestic political position -by expelling political dissidents and other domestic adversaries - or to discomfit or destabilize foreign government(s);
• Militarized - those displacements conducted, usually during active conflict, to gain military advantage against an adversary - namely, via the disruption or destruction of an opponent's command and control, logistics, or movement capabilities - or to enhance one's own force structure, via the acquisition of additional (sometimes reluctant) manpower and/or resources; and
• Coercive - the class of events in which (real or threatened) outflows are used, as a foreign policy tool, to induce (or prevent) changes in political behavior and/or to extract side-payments from the target(s); coercive use includes the propagandistic use of outflows (which are often generated by others) for their own benefit.

While there were some interesting examples, generally, the taxonomy is too vague and then the number of examples which you can move around is even worse. This inexorably leads to a very small, limited and disappointing set of public policy recommendations and discussion.

TY - JOUR
JO - Civil Wars
PB - Routledge
AU - Greenhill, Kelly M.
TI - Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War
SN - 1369-8249
PY - 2008
VL - 10
IS - 1
SP - 6
EP - 21
UR - http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/13698240701835425

Abstract

In recent years, it has been widely argued that a new and different armament - i.e., the refugee as weapon - has entered the world's arsenals. But just how new and different is this weapon? Can it only be used in wartime? And just how successful has been its exploitation? Using a combination of statistical data and case study analysis, this article tackles these questions and provides a detailed examination of the instrumental manipulation of population movements as political and military weapons of war. In addition to 'mapping the terrain' of the issue by providing a comprehensive typology of the most common means by - and desired ends for - which displaced persons have been used as political and military weapons since the end of the Cold War, the author also provides a portrait of the identities of the kinds of actors most likely to engage in this kind of exploitation. She also proposes an explanation for what motivates them to resort - and apparently increasingly so - to the use of this unconventional policy tool, despite the reputational and potential retributive costs of doing so.

Technorati Tags: Refugees,Emigration,Immigration,Genocide

The Arab obsession with Palestine

Make that all Muslims. It is this incessant whining and hypocritical moaning that just makes me tune off. I am also a refugee's son and know loads of them. If the world operated on whine power, then the Palestinian and Muslim/Arab reaction could power the world for the rest of the Earth's life.
Read this and wonder. I quote:

when fellow Arabs are racist against Palestinians, I don’t see anyone being revolted by it.......

Why didn’t people rally for justice and peace in Darfur when the situation was far worse and many more lives were at stake?
Why didn’t people rally for coexistence with religious minorities, who are often wronged in our societies?
Why didn’t people rally for ethnic minorities and abused foreign workers, who are taken advantage of and enslaved by the millions?
Why aren’t people outspoken about honour crimes in Muslim societies?
Why only Palestine?.....
Please remind me, how many rallies took place in defense of innocent Darfurians? How many newspapers demanded action and justice against honour crimes? How many news networks revealed what the Baha’is are suffering through in many of our countries? How many people cared enough to focus on foreign workers in an attempt to abolish the widespread slavery in the Gulf? How many people in this region cared to network with Afghans who come from a country where many people are without electricity, an education, basic rights, an opportunity to communicate with the world, where the life expectancy is below 40?
How many people stood up and echoed the voices of the voiceless? Must one obsess with Palestine in order to be taken seriously?

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Iraqi Interpreters to be allowed into the UK – Very Good news

Further to my note about the fact that the British Government were refusing to let the Iraqi Interpreters into the country, I am happy to see that the British government has changed its mind and will allow these brave allies into the country. I quote:

Hundreds of interpreters and their families are to be given assistance to leave Iraq, where they live under fear of death squads because they collaborated with British forces. Those wishing to remain in Iraq or relocate to neighbouring countries will be helped to resettle.

We let these foaming morons into the country and let them settle, get indefinite leave to stay and even citizenship. In turn, they are helping our enemies to kill our soldiers and we see them doing this. And we are not able to actually help those who are our friends! Talk about strange behaviour!

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Q: where is Saudi Arabia on the list of countries taking in Iraqi Refugees?

I was looking at the list of countries who have provided refugees status to the Iraqi Refugees. Just a random thought, why are they not heading into Saudi Arabia? Why Syria and Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and other Sunni States? Is it because of the wall? But it is not operational yet! Very curious. Anybody know?

Technorati Tags: Saudi Arabia , Iraq , Syria , Lebanon , Egypt , Refugee

Britain thanked for welcoming 10,000 children refugees with an evocative sculpture

It was indeed a coincidence, I was waiting to meet Andrew in front of the Liverpool Street Station when I spotted a sculpture. Its amazing how you miss these giant signs right in front of your face but my excuse is that I do not use that exit. But the sculpture is amazing. It commemorates the rescue of ten thousand mainly Jewish children from the Nazi's just before the World War II kicked off. See here for more details. Makes one proud to be British, despite my previous post castigating ourselves for not doing much for the Iraqi Interpreters. And then I read about this absolutely foul and disgusting post at the Guardian Comment is Free. See the commentary and read the posts. The chap is an out and out troll. But here are some pictures that I took with my trusty mobile camera! :)


The Plaque reads,

Children of the Kindertransport

In gratitude to the people of Britain for saving the lives of 10,000 unaccompanied mainly Jewish children
who fled from Nazi persecution in 1938 and 1939

"Whosoever rescues a single soul is credited as though they had saved the whole world" Talmud

Dedicated by

Association of Jewish Refugees
Central British Fund for World Jewish Relief
2006

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!


PS: that Talmud quote sounded familiar to me and I went searching for it, and sure as I am a homar, I found the reference: "If anyone slew an innocent person it would be as if he slew the whole mankind and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole mankind" [Al-Qur’an 5:32]

Update: TBS pointed out that I have used a strange translation from this site. And suggested this site for sura 5:32.

Because of this did We ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone slays a human being-unless it be [in punishment] for murder or for spreading corruption on earth-it shall be as though he had slain all mankind; whereas, if anyone saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind. And, indeed, there came unto them Our apostles with all evidence of the truth: yet, behold, notwithstanding all this, many of them go on committing all manner of excesses on earth. - Muhammad Asad

On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our apostles with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land. -Yusuf Ali

For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if be had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers came unto them of old with clear proofs (of Allah's sovereignty) , but afterwards lo! many of them became prodigals in the earth. - M. Picktall

The Aparthied Fence, who is keeping whom out?

Now this irony for you. Walls are funny constructs as I have talked before. The Apartheid era fence which separated South Africa from Zimbabwe is still there. But now it stops Zimbabwean refugees from flooding over the boundary into South Africa. Zimbabwe, under the benign rulership of that mad kleptocratic drooling chap, Robert Mugabe, is rapidly turning the breadbasket of Africa into the dust basket. So there is nothing but to escape for the poor Zimbabweans. Now South Africa's leaders love Mugabe, they wont say boo to him. So obviously, the first irony is that all the poor Zimbabweans are heading right into South Africa, thousands a day. Welcome to South Africa and let old comrades of the revolution dance the hula together while the country slowly grinds to a halt.

But what's this? why is the BBC reporting that South Africa is deporting thousands of these poor Zimbabweans back to that hell hole? Besides being a white racist biased imperialistic disgusting drunk media outlet (or Robert Mugabe's words to that effect) all this news is bad and is a vast imperialist plot to destroy the green heaven of Mugabe. Once the white aparthied regime used to deport the blacks, now its the black regime which is doing the same. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!