A very interesting post by a conservative councillor on the unemployment situation in the UK's second city, Birmingham. I talked before about the situation in Sweden here and in Glasgow here. Its like a disease, all over Europe. I do not want to point fingers at various political parties because I think all miss the trick in thinking about how to help people be productive. The crucial aspect is that the balance should be tilted towards personal responsibility and not towards long term dependency, as one see's. Think about it, a ward in the country in which one in five person is unemployed. Every fifth person is unemployed!. Looking at the rate of job openings and the number of open job positions, it is inconceivable that a person can be long term unemployed. We need to provide a safety net, we do not provide a cushioned nest. I as a taxpayer do not like spongers and parasites. Right now, the balance is tilted way over.
Take a look at what USA did, here is a news story. There is much to learn from the USA, both about good things and bad things. So the British politicans have to ask the question, Where is the enterprise? where is the innovation? where is the productivity? And the answer is not for the Government to do MORE, but do LESS and let people stand on their own feet.
There is an old bengali saying, "boshte dile shoote chai", "allow them to sit and they want to sleep". Dependency culture is now deeply engrained and that has to be tackled by letting people walk, if you keep on giving them crutches, then they will never walk. After my accident, the doctors said that I will always be on crutches, but bloody hell, no way, 18 months later, through a hellish journey through pain, physiotherapy and all, I made it. And then I was a lab rat at the doctor's conference along with another lab rat who allowed himself to remain on crutches.
But dont take just my word for it, here's a good review of American Welfare reform in a peer reviewed journal. Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States, Rebecca M. Blank, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 40, No. 4. (Dec., 2002), pp. 1105-1166. The interesting aspect is that so many countries have adopted the american mechanisms but what we missed out in the UK was to put in mandatory time limits. 5 years is a fair limit to getting benefits, that's an idea which nobody in the UK seems to be picking up. I hope somebody does in the next election.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Wednesday, August 29
a child in the mind of a Tiger
A Malaysian 14 year old girl has won a United Nations Letter Writing contest. The contest attracted 3 million submissions from across the world who were asked to put themselves in the mind of a wild animal threatened with destruction of their habitat.
The letter from Sze Ee Lee is brilliant and is worthwhile in quoting in full. The hope, sarcasm, earnestness, passion, determination and humour that shines through is brilliant and I loved it.
Author: Sze Ee LEE Girl Age: 14 Number of Words: 797
Lot 116 Herbal Trees
Tiger Road 1/3,
Raub Rainforest,
Pahang Darul Makmur,
Malaysia,
24th March 2007
Dear People of the World,
Don’t be surprised when you see this letter. Let me introduce myself. My name is Cody, a tiger cub that lives in the rainforest of Malaysia. I may be small but I have seen horrific things done to the creatures of the Earth. I couldn’t sleep for days when I heard about what had happen to my cousin Nikki. Luckily, he was rescued from the cooking pot just in time. Kind people have since then taken good care of him. So I have many words to say to the people of this planet.
I want to congratulate you all. Many of you have good education and live in your so-called world of modernization. Does this mean that humans are civilized? Yet, why do humans still need to invade our jungle besides hunting us like in those primitive days. Dear people of the World, don’t burn our homes and occupy the area, our natural habitat. We have no other place to go.
With advanced technology, you can build multi-storey sky scrapers. One day, man may even build an underground city (But please, not under the sea). So why do you still require our land? Please, please leave our habitat alone.
If you want to help us, don’t throw waste products into the river. Oh, dear farmers. Be advised to use organic fertilizers, so that chemical fertilizers which are harmful will not flow into the river. The river is yours and our source of water. Aquatic life like prawn and fish are consumed by you and other animals. Don’t poison ourselves indirectly.
The most important way to help us survive is to protect our habitat. Although wildlife preservation is recommended by the government, people are still not cooperating with the organization to help us. Why is this so? Join some of the conservation organizations like WAF- World Animal Foundation and WWF – World Wildlife Foundation, and you will realise our plight – acid rain that destroying the forest and wildlife, illegal logging and hunters hunting for our skins or ugh ! – meat for exotic dishes. Please protect our habitat.
Reserve parts of the great big jungles of the World for national parks and nature reserves so that we won.t be extinct from this world . just as we animals of the World would not want you humans to become extinct, too.
Children by nature love animals. Expose and educate the young generation to continue to love and protect wildlife. It is also not too late to create awareness and educate the present generation. As long as Man is willing to open his heart and seriously look into conservation of nature and wildlife, there is hope for us.
My friend, the crocodiles shed tears when they heard about the demise of the great Steve Irwin a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter. Mind you, it is not the idiomatic .crocodile tears.. Here was a truly great man who reached out to the people with the message .These creatures are beautiful, fascinating, wonderful.. He handled them with a great respect, cared for them and most importantly was concerned that they remain in their habitat. We need more people like Steve Irwin. Most realistically, if Man can love and care for the well-being of their pets, with knowledge and information about wildlife, more people of the World would be concerned about our well-being.
Scientists and environmentalists should put their heads together to solve problems like acid rain, global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and also do more research to propagate our species.
Whatever man has destroyed is a thing of the past. Let.s look forward to a bright future. Let the governments of the World work together to enforce laws against poaching, illegal logging and mass destruction of our habitat . directly or indirectly. In view of this, I suggest an Awareness Campaign be carried out via the mass media, over the internet and across nations. It has to be on-going so that information and messages to conserve wildlife get the attention of a wide cross-section of the People of the World . young and old alike.
It is said .The pen is mightier that the sword.. So please publish more books, magazines, pamphlets. I believe many people of the world are still ignorant or lack information about wildlife. There is a Malay saying .Tak kenal maka tak cinta., which means to know you is to love you. So please get as many people to know us and consequently to love us. We are helpless. We depend on you . the People of the World to save us. Many concerned organizations also need your funding. So donate generously for a good cause . Don.t allow us to become extinct.
Thank you.
p/s : This letter carries 1,000 paws prints of concerned tigers.
Yours sincerely,
Cody.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
The letter from Sze Ee Lee is brilliant and is worthwhile in quoting in full. The hope, sarcasm, earnestness, passion, determination and humour that shines through is brilliant and I loved it.
Author: Sze Ee LEE Girl Age: 14 Number of Words: 797
Lot 116 Herbal Trees
Tiger Road 1/3,
Raub Rainforest,
Pahang Darul Makmur,
Malaysia,
24th March 2007
Dear People of the World,
Don’t be surprised when you see this letter. Let me introduce myself. My name is Cody, a tiger cub that lives in the rainforest of Malaysia. I may be small but I have seen horrific things done to the creatures of the Earth. I couldn’t sleep for days when I heard about what had happen to my cousin Nikki. Luckily, he was rescued from the cooking pot just in time. Kind people have since then taken good care of him. So I have many words to say to the people of this planet.
I want to congratulate you all. Many of you have good education and live in your so-called world of modernization. Does this mean that humans are civilized? Yet, why do humans still need to invade our jungle besides hunting us like in those primitive days. Dear people of the World, don’t burn our homes and occupy the area, our natural habitat. We have no other place to go.
With advanced technology, you can build multi-storey sky scrapers. One day, man may even build an underground city (But please, not under the sea). So why do you still require our land? Please, please leave our habitat alone.
If you want to help us, don’t throw waste products into the river. Oh, dear farmers. Be advised to use organic fertilizers, so that chemical fertilizers which are harmful will not flow into the river. The river is yours and our source of water. Aquatic life like prawn and fish are consumed by you and other animals. Don’t poison ourselves indirectly.
The most important way to help us survive is to protect our habitat. Although wildlife preservation is recommended by the government, people are still not cooperating with the organization to help us. Why is this so? Join some of the conservation organizations like WAF- World Animal Foundation and WWF – World Wildlife Foundation, and you will realise our plight – acid rain that destroying the forest and wildlife, illegal logging and hunters hunting for our skins or ugh ! – meat for exotic dishes. Please protect our habitat.
Reserve parts of the great big jungles of the World for national parks and nature reserves so that we won.t be extinct from this world . just as we animals of the World would not want you humans to become extinct, too.
Children by nature love animals. Expose and educate the young generation to continue to love and protect wildlife. It is also not too late to create awareness and educate the present generation. As long as Man is willing to open his heart and seriously look into conservation of nature and wildlife, there is hope for us.
My friend, the crocodiles shed tears when they heard about the demise of the great Steve Irwin a.k.a. the Crocodile Hunter. Mind you, it is not the idiomatic .crocodile tears.. Here was a truly great man who reached out to the people with the message .These creatures are beautiful, fascinating, wonderful.. He handled them with a great respect, cared for them and most importantly was concerned that they remain in their habitat. We need more people like Steve Irwin. Most realistically, if Man can love and care for the well-being of their pets, with knowledge and information about wildlife, more people of the World would be concerned about our well-being.
Scientists and environmentalists should put their heads together to solve problems like acid rain, global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer and also do more research to propagate our species.
Whatever man has destroyed is a thing of the past. Let.s look forward to a bright future. Let the governments of the World work together to enforce laws against poaching, illegal logging and mass destruction of our habitat . directly or indirectly. In view of this, I suggest an Awareness Campaign be carried out via the mass media, over the internet and across nations. It has to be on-going so that information and messages to conserve wildlife get the attention of a wide cross-section of the People of the World . young and old alike.
It is said .The pen is mightier that the sword.. So please publish more books, magazines, pamphlets. I believe many people of the world are still ignorant or lack information about wildlife. There is a Malay saying .Tak kenal maka tak cinta., which means to know you is to love you. So please get as many people to know us and consequently to love us. We are helpless. We depend on you . the People of the World to save us. Many concerned organizations also need your funding. So donate generously for a good cause . Don.t allow us to become extinct.
Thank you.
p/s : This letter carries 1,000 paws prints of concerned tigers.
Yours sincerely,
Cody.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
A tale of three farmers
When we talk about farmers in the west, the idea that emerges is of automation, subsidies, factory farming, etc. When we talk about farming in the lesser developed countries, they are at the subsistence level (farming just enough to feed their family). So the economics and public policy orientation for these emerging market farmers is seriously different to the western farmers. After all, if they do not make it work and their farms are flooded out, they get insurance and other assistance. But for farmers in say India, the results are tragic.
Many farmers suffer from overload of debt, fall into the trap of loan sharks and then commit suicide. In just one Indian state, Maharashtra, there have been 500 farmer suicides already according to a recent report. But be very careful when politicians start talking about farmers. I am immediately very suspicious about political help for farmers. Almost always, it is related to the politicians interest, and not to the farmer nor to the country and is almost always economically bad for the farmer, the state, the region and country.
And this is the tale of the second farmer. The BBC reports that Reliance, a conglomerate is closing its stores in another Indian state because of politically motivated violence against its stores. Apparently left wing and other political party supporters have attacked Reliance stores and destroyed property. You might think, yes, sir, makes sense, evil capital sucking the blood out of the farmers and small shopkeepers. But as I mentioned in an email today morning,
And then came this story, that farmers in Uttar Pradesh, another very poor state in India, are demanding that the Reliance stores be re-opened. It is worthwhile quoting the entire section from the third set of farmers.
So for political reasons, these political parties are willing to knock the poor farmers and the urban poor. Their investment in corrupt practises, their sheer economic illiteracy, their desire to keep people poor and kill themselves is criminal. Did you notice another word there? transparency? That's what scares these political parties, because transparency exposes these cockroaches and maggots feeding on the body of the state.
Long way to go yet, but as I said in my email, you cannot stop progress and you cannot keep on violating the laws of economics! :)
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Many farmers suffer from overload of debt, fall into the trap of loan sharks and then commit suicide. In just one Indian state, Maharashtra, there have been 500 farmer suicides already according to a recent report. But be very careful when politicians start talking about farmers. I am immediately very suspicious about political help for farmers. Almost always, it is related to the politicians interest, and not to the farmer nor to the country and is almost always economically bad for the farmer, the state, the region and country.
And this is the tale of the second farmer. The BBC reports that Reliance, a conglomerate is closing its stores in another Indian state because of politically motivated violence against its stores. Apparently left wing and other political party supporters have attacked Reliance stores and destroyed property. You might think, yes, sir, makes sense, evil capital sucking the blood out of the farmers and small shopkeepers. But as I mentioned in an email today morning,
How amusing! :), the delicious irony when politics, love of power and ideology go bang against each other.
guess who loses? the poor themselves who have to pay for the inefficiencies of the farmer, infrastructure, skewed policies, corruption and various other grand standing stupid economically illiterate ideas that have kept our people poor. But the genie is out of the jhola, and if even one other state goes ahead with these new stores, the fraud comitted on the poor will be exposed! :)
And then came this story, that farmers in Uttar Pradesh, another very poor state in India, are demanding that the Reliance stores be re-opened. It is worthwhile quoting the entire section from the third set of farmers.
Gosainganj farmers also joined the protests on Monday. They said the Reliance stores had greatly benefited farmers. Farmer from Gosaiganj Dev Narayan said, “The government has done a great injustice to farmers. We got better facilities at Reliance. We were finally free from the nexus of middlemen at mandis. The government’s decision has pushed back investment in the state.”
Usually, when a farmer takes his produce to the mandis, he has to pay a 2.5 per cent mandi tax, besides bearing cost for loading, unloading and weighing. Farmers said they lost around 20 to 30 per cent of their produce in this process.
The Reliance collection centres had negated the role of middlemen as farmers could directly sell their produce here. This also meant keeping at bay the numerous other hands that were thrust forward to squeeze money from them.
Farmer Shiv Kumar said: “We got the best prices without much haggling. The method of weighing was electronic and, so, more transparent. We got immediate cash payment and were exposed to new technology. The consumer too could take their pick of products at good prices. We request the government to open the Reliance stores to afford farmers a better future.”
So for political reasons, these political parties are willing to knock the poor farmers and the urban poor. Their investment in corrupt practises, their sheer economic illiteracy, their desire to keep people poor and kill themselves is criminal. Did you notice another word there? transparency? That's what scares these political parties, because transparency exposes these cockroaches and maggots feeding on the body of the state.
Long way to go yet, but as I said in my email, you cannot stop progress and you cannot keep on violating the laws of economics! :)
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Tuesday, August 28
Incapacity benefit claimants very high in Glasgow, UK
I talked earlier today about how the ratio of workers to dependents in Sweden is a gobsmacking 1:1, and now comes another report about the shocking number of incapacity benefit recipients in Scotland's main city, Glasgow.
I quote
The research, commissioned by GCPH and carried out by a team from the University of Glasgow and Glasgow City Council, also reveals however that Glasgow has a particular problem in terms of the absolute size of its Incapacity Benefit (IB) population (61,850 in 2005) and the fact that this population represents about one in six of the working age population (16.4% in 2005).
Dr Ewan Macdonald, Head of the Healthy Working Lives Research Group, explained: "Glasgow has far too many people on IB, with up to 35% of men over 55 years apparently too ill to work. Of all IB, 50% is due to mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression.
When you are faced with such high levels of dependency, it is time to look at why this is indeed so. I am a firm believer in man being a member of the homoeconomics species, and economics driving human behaviour. Perhaps somebody might want to do a global comparative study on incapacity benefits and actual physical/mental health levels. After having worked in many other countries, I suspect that this is economic behaviour rather than the Glasgow air being actually sicker than the world.
And dont point to weather, deprivation or unemployment, under-development or other non-subsidy issues as factors behind this, each of those factors exist in many other cities without such high dependency levels. Perhaps the declaration of independence for Scotland needs to review this. Currently, the financial situation is that the high levels of subsidy and welfare is based upon the English paying for it, once they go independent, they will have to tax more and pony up more to support this.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
I quote
The research, commissioned by GCPH and carried out by a team from the University of Glasgow and Glasgow City Council, also reveals however that Glasgow has a particular problem in terms of the absolute size of its Incapacity Benefit (IB) population (61,850 in 2005) and the fact that this population represents about one in six of the working age population (16.4% in 2005).
Dr Ewan Macdonald, Head of the Healthy Working Lives Research Group, explained: "Glasgow has far too many people on IB, with up to 35% of men over 55 years apparently too ill to work. Of all IB, 50% is due to mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression.
When you are faced with such high levels of dependency, it is time to look at why this is indeed so. I am a firm believer in man being a member of the homoeconomics species, and economics driving human behaviour. Perhaps somebody might want to do a global comparative study on incapacity benefits and actual physical/mental health levels. After having worked in many other countries, I suspect that this is economic behaviour rather than the Glasgow air being actually sicker than the world.
And dont point to weather, deprivation or unemployment, under-development or other non-subsidy issues as factors behind this, each of those factors exist in many other cities without such high dependency levels. Perhaps the declaration of independence for Scotland needs to review this. Currently, the financial situation is that the high levels of subsidy and welfare is based upon the English paying for it, once they go independent, they will have to tax more and pony up more to support this.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Happy Raksha Bandhan to all my sisters
I was looking around for a suitable poem or quote to send to my great loving cacophonix tribe of sisters on this special day, I found this poem (for mothers but found it applicable for sisters as well)
Here's a happy Raksha Bandhan to all my sisters. Thank you for all you have done to and for me!
========
Affirmation
Here's a happy Raksha Bandhan to all my sisters. Thank you for all you have done to and for me!
========
Affirmation
(for my mother)
Before the sun splashed orange
against an obsidian sky creating purple,
Before the moon and stars were placed
upon the night to give it beauty
You loved me.
The oceans had not yet begun their watery chorus
The earth was barren and without purpose
when you first cared for me.
Before god was born
Before he sent his people northward
to build great pyramids and temples,
You were my god and my temple.
You were my savior before horus or jesus,
Before moses led his people to the promised land,
You were the land that gave to me the promise of life.
Before men made flags and assembled armies to defend their empires,
my empire was you, my anthem was:
my mother's womb, i am of thee
sweet place of security, of thee i sing.
Before words like life, beauty, and love had meaning,
you gave them to me, like gifts from a queen.
Before i knew what love was, i gave it to you in return.
Before time carved mountains out of the pit of the earth and turned glaciers
into seas and seas into deserts, You shared with me a timeless, infinite love.
Long after the sun is a burnt out symbol of a past life and the oceans are a
sip of water in the universe, i will still love you.
Warm yourself my mother, with these thoughts
when it gets too cold outside.
© Kenneth Carroll 1985
Is Anti-Semitism in Europe on the Rise? You need to ask?
I am afraid I have to admit that in my opinion, anti-semitism is definitely on the rise. And besides the already present far right anti-semitism, we have the European muslim anti-semitism and now the institutionalised anti-semitism. Yes, I know what I am talking about and I have spoken about this before. Look at the various professional bodies boycott initiatives in the UK, the fact that it comes from institutionalised professional bodies means that this anti-semitism is ingrained.
Disgusting!
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Is Anti-Semitism in Europe on the Rise?
By Michael Scott Moore in Berlin
A sober show in Berlin offers an introductory treatment -- if not a thorough examination -- of rising anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East since September 11. Visitors move past recent photos of vandalized Jewish cemeteries at the new exhibition in Berlin. When an exhibition on contemporary anti-Semitism opened this month at the Foreign Office in Berlin, Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said it was "appropriate" that the topic wasn't squirreled away in a historical museum but on display in the bright atrium of a German ministry.
"Anti-Semitism has sadly not been left where it belongs, in the poison cabinet reserved for the pathogens of hard-to-cure diseases of the past," he said. "Unfortunately it is a phenomenon of today's Europe which our foreign policy has to confront as well." The exhibit, called "Anti-Semitism? Anti-Zionism? Criticism of Israel?" is a series of anti-Jewish posters and cartoons from Europe and the Middle East. It covers manifestations of anti-Semitism in the era of September 11, the second intifada, and the Iraq war -- from left-wing groups in Europe calling for boycotts of Israel to white supremacist bands and soccer hooligans behaving badly on the distant right.
"We have to uncover the roots of anti-Semitism," said Wolfgang Benz, director of Berlin's Center for Anti-Semitism Research, in an interview with the German daily Die Welt. (The Center organized the exhibition along with Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial.) "Above all we have to show that behind all forms of Jew-hatred there's some sort of instrumentalization: Jews are made responsible for grievances which they had nothing to do with." The exhibition shows ugly examples of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that surfaced after the September 11 assaults in America and the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. (Jews were blamed for both.)
Other parts show recent photos of virulent far-right graffiti and broken headstones in Jewish cemeteries in Germany. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 2005 speech called "A World Without Israel" receives a wall panel's worth of commentary, and so do protests against "Zionism" by Palestinians in Europe who carry signs comparing Ariel Sharon to Hitler. "The Islamic world," said Benz, "takes its recipes from the poisonous kitchen of 19th-century European nationalism. Racism originally was quite foreign to Islam, in contrast with European cultures."
One striking panel shows the lurid covers of various editions of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The book, which purports to describe a Jewish world conspiracy, was a hoax invented by an anti-Semitic Russian journalist in the late 1890s and propagated in Europe by the Nazis. Covers from Europe in the 1930s show grinning Jews squeezing blood from the globe; a cover from an Arabic edition shows Jews slicing open a bearded man's throat. But the Jewish "plot" outlined in the text still has currency in the Muslim world: The exhibit shows a cover from one edition that was on sale, illegally, in the Iranian pavilion at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair.
The Difference Between Criticism and Anti-Semitism
The show also takes on the controversial subject of how to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from political debate masquerading as anti-Semitism. It devotes a wall panel to a cartoon by Dave Brown, published in Britain's Independent newspaper in 2003, which shows Ariel Sharon stalking a battlefield with a headless child in his mouth, half-naked, posed like the Roman god Saturn in Francesco de Goya's famous painting, "Saturn Devouring One of His Sons." "What's wrong?" says Sharon in the cartoon. "Have you never seen a politician kissing a baby?"
The cartoon received sharp criticism from the Israeli government but went on to win first prize from the British Political Cartoon Society in 2003. The award, back then, led to fierce debate on blogs and in the letters columns of British newspapers. But the exhibition in Berlin restricts itself to noting that Brown's image reminded many Jews of the blood libel, the ancient anti-Semitic horror tale that Jews use children's blood in religious rituals. It doesn't examine whether Brown meant to be anti-Semitic. "My cartoon was intended as a caricature of a specific person, Sharon," he said at the time, "in the guise of a figure from classical myth who, I hoped, couldn't be farther from any Jewish stereotype."
That's certainly arguable, but the exhibition would need a bigger venue -- maybe even a museum -- to handle such questions in detail. Juliane Wetzel, a spokeswoman at the Center for Anti-Semitism Research, agreed that the topic was huge. "We just wanted to show current trends in anti-Semitism, and show what was lying behind them," she told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And we didn't want to restrict our treatment of anti-Semitism to the far right, because this comes up again and again in Germany -- that anti-Semitism only exists on the radical right. Which isn't true."
Disgusting!
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Is Anti-Semitism in Europe on the Rise?
By Michael Scott Moore in Berlin
A sober show in Berlin offers an introductory treatment -- if not a thorough examination -- of rising anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East since September 11. Visitors move past recent photos of vandalized Jewish cemeteries at the new exhibition in Berlin. When an exhibition on contemporary anti-Semitism opened this month at the Foreign Office in Berlin, Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler said it was "appropriate" that the topic wasn't squirreled away in a historical museum but on display in the bright atrium of a German ministry.
"Anti-Semitism has sadly not been left where it belongs, in the poison cabinet reserved for the pathogens of hard-to-cure diseases of the past," he said. "Unfortunately it is a phenomenon of today's Europe which our foreign policy has to confront as well." The exhibit, called "Anti-Semitism? Anti-Zionism? Criticism of Israel?" is a series of anti-Jewish posters and cartoons from Europe and the Middle East. It covers manifestations of anti-Semitism in the era of September 11, the second intifada, and the Iraq war -- from left-wing groups in Europe calling for boycotts of Israel to white supremacist bands and soccer hooligans behaving badly on the distant right.
"We have to uncover the roots of anti-Semitism," said Wolfgang Benz, director of Berlin's Center for Anti-Semitism Research, in an interview with the German daily Die Welt. (The Center organized the exhibition along with Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial.) "Above all we have to show that behind all forms of Jew-hatred there's some sort of instrumentalization: Jews are made responsible for grievances which they had nothing to do with." The exhibition shows ugly examples of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that surfaced after the September 11 assaults in America and the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia. (Jews were blamed for both.)
Other parts show recent photos of virulent far-right graffiti and broken headstones in Jewish cemeteries in Germany. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 2005 speech called "A World Without Israel" receives a wall panel's worth of commentary, and so do protests against "Zionism" by Palestinians in Europe who carry signs comparing Ariel Sharon to Hitler. "The Islamic world," said Benz, "takes its recipes from the poisonous kitchen of 19th-century European nationalism. Racism originally was quite foreign to Islam, in contrast with European cultures."
One striking panel shows the lurid covers of various editions of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." The book, which purports to describe a Jewish world conspiracy, was a hoax invented by an anti-Semitic Russian journalist in the late 1890s and propagated in Europe by the Nazis. Covers from Europe in the 1930s show grinning Jews squeezing blood from the globe; a cover from an Arabic edition shows Jews slicing open a bearded man's throat. But the Jewish "plot" outlined in the text still has currency in the Muslim world: The exhibit shows a cover from one edition that was on sale, illegally, in the Iranian pavilion at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair.
The Difference Between Criticism and Anti-Semitism
The show also takes on the controversial subject of how to distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from political debate masquerading as anti-Semitism. It devotes a wall panel to a cartoon by Dave Brown, published in Britain's Independent newspaper in 2003, which shows Ariel Sharon stalking a battlefield with a headless child in his mouth, half-naked, posed like the Roman god Saturn in Francesco de Goya's famous painting, "Saturn Devouring One of His Sons." "What's wrong?" says Sharon in the cartoon. "Have you never seen a politician kissing a baby?"
The cartoon received sharp criticism from the Israeli government but went on to win first prize from the British Political Cartoon Society in 2003. The award, back then, led to fierce debate on blogs and in the letters columns of British newspapers. But the exhibition in Berlin restricts itself to noting that Brown's image reminded many Jews of the blood libel, the ancient anti-Semitic horror tale that Jews use children's blood in religious rituals. It doesn't examine whether Brown meant to be anti-Semitic. "My cartoon was intended as a caricature of a specific person, Sharon," he said at the time, "in the guise of a figure from classical myth who, I hoped, couldn't be farther from any Jewish stereotype."
That's certainly arguable, but the exhibition would need a bigger venue -- maybe even a museum -- to handle such questions in detail. Juliane Wetzel, a spokeswoman at the Center for Anti-Semitism Research, agreed that the topic was huge. "We just wanted to show current trends in anti-Semitism, and show what was lying behind them," she told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And we didn't want to restrict our treatment of anti-Semitism to the far right, because this comes up again and again in Germany -- that anti-Semitism only exists on the radical right. Which isn't true."
Racism On the Rise in Germany
Just a day after I had moaned about how Germany is showing signs of zenophobia, here comes a report from the EU which says that racism is as big a problem in Germany as that of zenophobia!. As for the initiatives, I am afraid I am not holding out much hope for this.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Racism has become a front-page issue in Germany in recent days after an apparently xenophobic attack on eight Indians in the eastern German town of Mügeln. Now a new European Union report on racism reveals the full extent of the problem -- and shows that everyday racism in the general population is just as much an issue as right-wing extremism.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
SPIEGEL ONLINE - August 28, 2007, 03:00 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,502471,00.html
EU XENOPHOBIA REPORT
Racism On the Rise in Germany
The European Union has published a new report on racism in Europe. Germany comes in for criticism on several fronts, including violent crimes and discrimination against foreigners in the job and housing markets.
DDP
Gurminder Singh was one of the victims of the recent attack in Mügeln. Just how big a problem is racism in Germany?
The "Report on Racism and Xenophobia in the Member States of the EU" was published Tuesday by the Vienna-based European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) -- an agency which was created on Mar. 1, 2007 to replace the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.
The report shows that violent racism appears to be on the increase in Germany, with reported incidents of racist violence and crime increasing by 14 percent between 2005 and 2006, going up from 15,914 incidents in 2005 to 18,142 in 2006. However the report did say that the figures for reported crimes "should be interpreted with caution," as an apparent increase can reflect better data collection as well as real increases.
Crime with an extremist right-wing motive also showed an increase, going up from 15,361 incidents in 2005 to 17,597 incidents in 2006, a 14.6 percent increase. "The observation of this apparent upward trend in extremist activity in Germany is supported by reports of increased right-wing attacks noted by victim support organizations in eastern parts of the country," the report's authors write.
However the incidence of anti-Semitic crime in Germany remained fairly constant, with 1,662 incidents in 2006 compared to 1,682 in 2005.
The report also criticized several EU members including Germany for "lagging behind" in the implementation of the EU's Racial Equality Directive. The directive was introduced in 2000 and is the main EU legislation in the area of combating racism and xenophobia. Germany only implemented the legisation in 2006 and the bodies set up to combat discrimination were not fully operational by the end of 2006. Germany also failed to apply "a single sanction" or award compensation in cases of racial discrimination, "even though laws and procedures were in place."
One of the areas where discrimination can be seen is laws regarding the wearing of religious symbols. The report gives the example of the decision by a court in Bavaria to upheld a ban on female teachers wearing Islamic headscarves in schools while allowing nuns to wear habits.
Discrimination in Jobs, Education and Housing
Discrimination is also seen in the job market. The report quotes research on second-generation Turkish-Germans carried out in 2006, which showed that "gatekeepers" such as personnel managers are "not only guided by relevant factors like education, qualification and work experience, but also by certain cultural stereotypes and prejudices towards Turkish migrants."
The report also said that significant discrimination in the housing market had been found in studies in Cologne, Hanover, Munich and Berlin.
Germany was also one of the countries singled out as having an educational system "that lead to a high concentration of disadvantaged and/or discriminated pupils in the lowest educational tracks." One reason for discrimination in education, the report says, is resistance to educating immigrant children in their native language. The report gives the example of the city of Dietzenbach in the state of Hesse which decreed German to be the single language in the 12 city nursery schools.
However the report did also single out a number of initiatives which were promising. A campaign in Berlin was introduced to encourage young migrants to apply for vocational training in the administration, police and fire services, while the state government in North Rhine-Westphalia has introduced an action plan to encourage young people with an immigration background to become teachers.Large companies were also leading the fight against discrimination. In December 2006 the companies Deutsche Bank, DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche BP and Deutsche Telekom jointly signed a "diversity charter," where they commit themselves to promoting diversity in their companies.
As part of efforts to promote diversity, the German bank Commerzbank has set up a "silence room" in Frankfurt which can be used as a place of prayer for Muslim employees, while Deutsche Bank is establishing private worship and meditation rooms for employees of all religious beliefs.
dgs
Every Swede supports another Swede
When I read the press release from Statistics Central of Sweden, i was gobsmacked. Effectively speaking, it says that 1 in 10 Swedes are supported by the state. Now remember that this state supported person is aged between 20-64 years of age. ok? The total population of Sweden is about 9 million.
So given that the life expectancy in Sweden is way over 64 years, you also have a huge lump of people who are either retired or are children, both of which are currently being suported by about 73% of the population in this age between 20-64 years of age.
In other words, about 4.2 million are in work. About 2 million are below 20 years of age and about 1.5 million over 64 years of age. Assume that only 50% of these retirees are state supported.
so you have less than 50% of the population in employment, who are supporting 2 million kids, 0.75 million retirees and 1.1 million on benefits.
Roughly 1 person is supported by 1 person. Do you want me to talk about how productive that society is? :)
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
So given that the life expectancy in Sweden is way over 64 years, you also have a huge lump of people who are either retired or are children, both of which are currently being suported by about 73% of the population in this age between 20-64 years of age.
In other words, about 4.2 million are in work. About 2 million are below 20 years of age and about 1.5 million over 64 years of age. Assume that only 50% of these retirees are state supported.
so you have less than 50% of the population in employment, who are supporting 2 million kids, 0.75 million retirees and 1.1 million on benefits.
Roughly 1 person is supported by 1 person. Do you want me to talk about how productive that society is? :)
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Monday, August 27
Stubble trouble - trouble on the philtum
I agree with this commentator, mustaches are now unfortunately on the way out but for those who are my facebook friends, will see my luxuriant philtum foliage. And damned if I shave my pride and joy out. Even if that means that so many girls mistake me for being gay!. I do get compliments and for those benighted people who do not like mustaches, the Lord will forgive them for they know not what it is!
So there!
So there!
Indians attacked by Neo-Nazi thugs in Germany - the news dies off
We again hear about neo nazi thugs going on a rampage in Germany. This is now sadly familiar and in the home of fascism and nazism, I am personally not surprised at all. Do you remember a book called as Hitler's Willing Executioners? It came across as a shock to the field of holocaust studies. The prevailing idea before this idea was that the holocaust was caused by the National Socialist party, Hitler's strange ideas and the various militaristic units such as the Waffen SS, etc. The mass of common germans, by and large, did not do anything and were innocent. Goldhagen's thesis was that this is not the case, but that this was generically based across the population and the ordinary citizens were quite well and capable of committing genocide as well as that of some ideologically committed party members or military people. There is a pretty good debate over it, but you can see the essence from the comments page on the amazon site.
Going back to Germany, we hear about neo-nazi attacks very frequently, primarily in the eastern part. Out will trot the usual excuses, unemployment, no development, no gainful work, etc. etc. But the core aspect of racism and discrimination will hit the airwaves for some time and then disappear as this story talks about. I am not happy and I am certainly not hopeful that this phenomena will disappear. Whether this be targeting the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Jews, the Muslims, this feeling is going to intensify slowly but surely going forward. The Indians got hit just because they were dark skinned. The Jews for anti-semitism, while the Muslims are getting hit because of Islam and the terrorism aspect.
At end of the day, whatever you might want to think about whether or not the society itself is at fault, the fact remains that anti-semitic and racist attacks are increasing in Europe. And the governments are dithering on what to do. I deliberately posted this news story a week late as I wanted to find out what's the long term solution, but the basic root cause has been forgotten now as usual. Welcome to the second holocaust.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Going back to Germany, we hear about neo-nazi attacks very frequently, primarily in the eastern part. Out will trot the usual excuses, unemployment, no development, no gainful work, etc. etc. But the core aspect of racism and discrimination will hit the airwaves for some time and then disappear as this story talks about. I am not happy and I am certainly not hopeful that this phenomena will disappear. Whether this be targeting the Indians, the Pakistanis, the Jews, the Muslims, this feeling is going to intensify slowly but surely going forward. The Indians got hit just because they were dark skinned. The Jews for anti-semitism, while the Muslims are getting hit because of Islam and the terrorism aspect.
At end of the day, whatever you might want to think about whether or not the society itself is at fault, the fact remains that anti-semitic and racist attacks are increasing in Europe. And the governments are dithering on what to do. I deliberately posted this news story a week late as I wanted to find out what's the long term solution, but the basic root cause has been forgotten now as usual. Welcome to the second holocaust.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)