Discussion of All Things Political

TEL AVIV, Sept 1, 2011 (IPS/Al Jazeera) - Speaking to the U.S. congress in May, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu boasted that his country is a beacon of freedom in the Middle East and North Africa, that it is the only place where Arabs "enjoy real democratic rights".

It's true that Palestinian citizens of Israel have some democratic rights, like the vote. But, as Netanyahu told congress: the "path of liberty is not paved by elections alone." And the summer months have seen an acceleration of worrisome anti-democratic trends.

First, the Knesset passed the anti-boycott law, a move that was widely condemned as a strike against free speech and democracy. Even some of Israel’s staunchest supporters expressed concern.

Now lawmakers have introduced a bill that proposes to change the definition of Israel as "Jewish and democratic" to "the national home of the Jewish people".

If passed, the legislation would become part of Israel's Basic Laws, which are used as a working constitution.

Whenever a conflict between democracy and Jewish values arises, the new definition of Israel would allow courts and legislators to favour the latter. According to Haaretz, the proposed bill will also make halacha, Jewish religious law, "a source of inspiration to the legislature and the courts". And, in the spirit of favouring the Jewish character of the state over a state for all its citizens, the legislation would also downgrade Arabic from an official language to one with "special status".

Arabic is the mother tongue of 20 per cent of Israel's citizens. It has been an official language of the land since 1924, when the British mandate set three: English, Hebrew, and Arabic.

Linguistic marginalisation

When the state of Israel was established in 1948, English was struck from the books. While Arabic remained an official language, it has always gotten second class treatment- as have the citizens who speak it.

Many government forms - including those for Social Security and National Insurance - come in Hebrew only. Arabic-speakers are under-represented in the public sector. So if a Palestinian citizen has weak Hebrew, he or she may be deprived of services or benefits they are legally entitled to and desperately need.

The results are sometimes devastating. MORE

EAST JERUSALEM, Jul 12, 2011 (IPS) - Widespread strikes across Palestinian civil society could be in store for East Jerusalem at the start of the next school year, as the municipality moves ahead with its current plan to implement an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools.

"I expect that the beginning of the new school year will not be a normal one. There will be lots of problems. There will be lots of demands, strikes," Samir Jibril, director of the East Jerusalem Education Bureau told IPS. "All (the Palestinian) institutions are going to stand hand-in-hand against this implementation. Even civil society is demanding to stop this plan by the Israelis."

In March of this year, the Jerusalem municipality sent a letter to private schools in East Jerusalem that receive allocations from the Israeli authorities. The letter stated that at the start of the 2011-2012 academic year, the schools would be obliged to purchase and only use textbooks prepared by the Jerusalem Education Administration (JEA), a joint body of the municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education.

These textbooks are already in use in East Jerusalem schools managed by the JEA. According to Jibril, however, Palestinians in East Jerusalem have at all levels rejected the plan to use them in private schools, since it is viewed as being politically motivated. MORE

GAZA CITY, Oct 31, 2010 (IPS) - The focus on people's movements in Palestine continues to gain momentum with growing non-violent demonstrations in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, and with a Palestine-wide call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

Years of the non-violent demonstrations throughout the occupied West Bank against Israel's separation wall have finally generated some media interest in the issue of the wall and annexation of Palestinian land. Yet the behind-the- scenes work of Palestinian unions, Palestinian and international BDS groups, video conferences bridging Palestine to the outside world, and the struggle of Palestinian students to access an education continues largely unnoticed by the cameras.

In July, 2010, the United Nations IRIN news reported that roughly 39,000 Palestinian children from Gaza would not have schools to attend, following the destruction or severe damage of some 280 schools and kindergartens during the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza, and the continued inability to repair or rebuild due to the severe Israeli-led siege on Gaza and lack of construction materials.

The UN also reports that 88 percent of UNRWA schools and 82 percent of government schools operate on a shift system as a result, still resulting in serious overcrowding. MORE

Due to the endemic poverty in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Palestinian children are forced on to the streets by parents who are living below the poverty level in a desperate bid to eke out a few extra dollars to help their families survive.

These children should be in school securing a better future for themselves but Israel's discriminatory education policies between Jewish West Jerusalem and Palestinian East Jerusalem is driving these youngsters out of school – if they are lucky enough to be enrolled in the first place.

Knesset (Israeli parliament) member Jamal Zahalka claimed earlier in the year that "educational provision for Palestinian children in East Jerusalem is worse than anywhere in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including Gaza, or in refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria."

More than 5,000 Palestinian children in East Jerusalem do not attend school at all. The dropout rate for Palestinian school students in East Jerusalem is 50 percent, compared with about 12 percent for Jewish students.

"The rate of school dropouts, and the level of poverty amongst Palestinians in East Jerusalem, is frightening," Orly Noy from the Israeli rights group Ir Amim told IPS.

"The severe neglect of the education system in East Jerusalem is brewing a catastrophe," adds Tali Nir, a lawyer with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI).

The two Israeli human rights organisations accused the Israeli authorities of deliberate discrimination in a report titled 'Failed Grade – The State of the Education System in East Jerusalem'. MORE

A chronic shortage of school supplies, and severely overcrowded classrooms are crippling Gaza's educational system as tens of thousands of children begin a new school year.

Israel's hermetic sealing of the strip, as part of its blockade against Hamas, has prevented most supplies of paper, textbooks, notebooks, ink cartridges, stationery, school uniforms, school bags, and computers and their spare parts.

"Through our education system the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is spreading the message of universal respect for human rights, peaceful coexistence and tolerance in an atmosphere that since the blockade has become increasingly desperate and radicalised," says UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.

"The best way for Israel to prevent us spreading that message to the 200,000 Gazan children at our schools is to block us sending in educational supplies," Gunness told IPS.MORE

'Largest gathering in Honduran history' receives deposed leader's return, but where to now for Honduran resistance movement?

Produced by Jesse Freeston.

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While “Europe’s slow-motion financial collapse” – as Mother Jones magazine described it in a June 6tharticle – continues to unravel, Spain, like other European states continues to implement anti-social-neo-liberal policies with strong opposition from the citizenry.

It has been one month since the country’s ‘Indignados’ (Indignant Ones) movement claimed nonviolently sixty city-squares in cities across the country, calling for economic democracy, political justice and peace. Since then, much has happened within Spanish borders, and what is happening there is clearly spreading across Europe, where we have already witnessed social movements making similar demands. We have seen the Bastille in Paris, taken nonviolently by French ‘Indignados’ only to be quickly reclaimed by the country’s police force. We have observed the rise of a parallel movement in Portugal where most city squares have also been camped on by ‘Indignados’, and where only hours before the country’s general elections protestors in Lisbon were attacked and beaten by police. We have witnessed how on that same night, in Athens, Greece, 80,000 protestors congregated in the city’s main square in opposition to the country’s ‘austerity measures’, waving banners in solidarity with the ‘Indignados’ of Spain and of other European country’s. MORE

Anyone who was there during the protest would tell you that they didn’t see it coming. As a matter of fact, how can we explain this movement? Perhaps a little context is necessary for us to understand, even though one does not always find clear answers to that.

Context

On September 29th 2010, thousands of people were asked by the main labor unions to join a protest in the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and all the other major cities, in protest for the austerity measures anounced by the Zapatero government. However, this general strike, deemed a failure by many, left most people disenchanted with traditional politics and the general atmosphere was one of frustration, defeat and a growing sense of individualism, palpable in the streets of Madrid, and also a general mistrust, conveyed in public opinion polls regarding banks, social groups and the political class across the spectrum, as well as a pessimistic view of their future.

So, in other words, nothing at the time would make any observer anticipate what was to happen, nor its magnitude. So the question is, what happened in between? What are the main causes that could explain this phenomenon? MORE

The mobilizations that started on May 15 in Spain have gradually evolved into local meetings, gatherings and different kinds of initiatives all over the country. Most activists are not focusing on the camps any more. Campers have decided to leave the Madrid square “Puerta del Sol” on June 12, 2011. It became the physical symbol of the people's unease with their political representatives. Netizens are calling this shift “Sol se mueve” (Sol is moving), and using the tag #solsemueve on Twitter.

This does not mean that the movement has died. Assemblies and reunions co-exist with specific actions, like the marches towards city councils on June 11 to protest against the investiture of politicians charged with corruption. In Madrid, the capital city, a sit-in ended up with police charging against demonstrators, which can be seen on the videos widely shared online, like this one by journalist Juan Luis Sánchez of Periodismo Humano [es]:

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May, the month of “Afro-Venezuelan” culture, ended this year with a new law against racial discrimination and a proposal to create a ministry for African descent. The news shot up largely in the Venezuelan blogosphere, as some shared opinions regarding one of the most complex and confusing aspects of the country: identity.
In the last few years, Hugo Chávez's government and his standard for inclusion has brought back profound discussions regarding equality and social justice. Historically, the process of interracial mixing and immigration has made Venezuelan society look at itself as tolerant and egalitarian before different ethnicities, particularly in comparison to other countries, in which coexistence has resulted in significantly more unstable consequences.

Wikipedia article, “Immigration to Venezuela,” [es] presents an introduction to understand this phenomenon [es]:

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La Inmigración en Venezuela, ha sido constante desde la independencia del país en 1830. Con anterioridad, al inicio de la época colonial la población predominante era de origen indígena, española y africana. Con el tiempo aumentaron los mestizos de las tres razas, los cuales se convirtieron en la población mayoritaria en el siglo XVIII. La población indígena disminuyó en el siglo XVI, el siglo de la conquista por parte de España, no solamente a consecuencia de la propia conquista sino por la introducción de enfermedades.
Venezuela recibió una gran cantidad de inmigrantes entre 1948 y 1961 cuando aún era un país de apenas 5 millones de habitantes por lo tanto el proceso de mestizaje ha sido muy intenso.

Immigration to Venezuela has been constant since the country's independence in 1830. Previously, upon the start of the colonial era, the population predominantly was of indigenous, Spanish and African origins. With time, mestizos of three races emerged, and formed a majority in the population in the 18th century. The indigenous population diminished in the 16th century, the century of Spanish conquest, not only as a result of the conquest but also due to the introduction of diseases.

Venezuela received a large quantity of immigrants between 1948 and 1961 when it was still a country of barely 5 million people and, as such, the process of interracial mixing has been quite intense.
Nevertheless, the social inequalities that separate the different ethnicities have been signaled more diligently in recent years. It remains despite the fact that many think that Venezuelan society does not suffer from these problems, there are discriminatory practices very present in the country's daily life, though they may not necessarily be openly acknowledged.Juandemaro explains it further in his post “A los negros les llegó su día” [es] (The day for blacks has arrived):MORE

Spain | Nobody expects the Spanish revolution
In Spain there's definitely something going on: starting last May 15th thousands have taken to the streets to protest against corruption, unemployment, and the current political system.

People organized themselves in peaceful sit-ins, first in Puerta del Sol in Madrid, then in many other Spanish cities and towns. They spread the word using social networks and they are using mostly Twitter to ask for technical and practical things to help the permanent gatherings.
The most popular hashtags are #acampadasol, #nonosvamos, #spanishrevolution
The Twitter account of Democracia Real Ya has 37.000 followers, more than the combined followers of the accounts of PSOE and PP, the two main Spanish parties.

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We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for those around us.

Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the political, economic, and social outlook which we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.
This situation has become normal, a daily suffering, without hope. But if we join forces, we can change it. It’s time to change things, time to build a better society together. Therefore, we strongly argue that:

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- The priorities of any advanced society must be equality, progress, solidarity, freedom of culture, sustainability and development, welfare and people’s happiness.

- These are inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life.

- The current status of our government and economic system does not take care of these rights, and in many ways is an obstacle to human progress.MORE

(AP) MADRID (AP) — Tens of thousands of people are defying a pre-election ban on demonstrations and protesting unemployment in squares around Spain in defiance of an order to quit at midnight.

The government has avoided saying if it would order police to break up the crowds on Saturday.

People are angry over Spain's high unemployment rate and what they see as the national political parties' ineptitude in dealing with a deep economic crisis. Protesters built a camp in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square Sunday, a week ahead of nationwide elections.

Friday was the last day for candidates to campaign for the election for municipal and regional government positions nationwide. Citing the mandatory end of campaigning, the national election commission banned protests Saturday.

According to the Madrid Election Board there are“no special or serious reasons” [es] for the urgent call for mass demonstrations. These declarations show the gap between the official discourse and citizen demands, and has swelled opposition against the two main political parties. Protests have spread across the country and the Internet, with hundreds of thousands demonstrating in different cities like Málaga, Granada and Tenerife, and users sharing updates and supporting each other through social media, especially Twitter:

#acampadasol Mojándose por la democracia y por unos derechos y unos deberes más justos. Mucho Ánimo desde #acampadasegovia #nonosvamos

#acampadasol Getting wet for democracy and for more equitable rights and duties. Much Encouragement from #acampadasegovia


#nonosvamos Events in solidarity with Spain have also been organized, mainly through Facebook and Twitter, in front of Spanish embassies in different cities like London or Jerusalem.
 
@Anon_Leakspin: At 19:00 a camp at Spanish embassy at London (UK) will start. #spanishrevolution #europeanrevolution #yeswecamp #acampadasol”

Citizens have organized efficiently into legal, communications, cleaning, food, health, and even music committees. There was so much food brought to the camps out that organizers had to look for somewhere to store it. Also, dozens continue to volunteer to translate documents and the committee's decisions into English, French, Arabic and sign language. MORE

Over the past several weeks, the images emerging from the Middle East and North Africa have shocked and awed Western audiences, who had never seen, or bothered to notice, the massive potential of people power to challenge the rule of ossified dictators. But the protest movements across the region have also shed light on less glorious struggles that pervade stratified Arab societies. If the young protesters represent the rise of civil society forces, the imported migrant laborers caught in the crossfire reflect the often-hidden economic and ethnic dimensions to the region's power struggles.MORE

MANAMA, Mar 25, 2011 (IPS) - As protests in Bahrain continue, increasingly migrant workers are being victimised in violent hate crimes. "We expats are victims of hate crimes because we didn’t leave the country or become part of the general strike called by the opposition to keep Bahrain on hold," Nastufi Sharma, and Indian who has been working in Bahrain since 1997, told IPS. "To stop locals from going to work, roads were blocked… we were attacked."

... Eight migrant workers died and approximately 49 sustained various injuries since Mar. 17 when the government with the support of Cooperation Council of the Arab Gulf States (GCC) peninsula shield troops started cracking down on demonstrations blocking roads in Manama - the financial capital of Bahrain. The government has also declared a three-month state of emergency to be enforced by the Bahrain Defence Force. Most expats are not yet considering leaving the country, hoping for the situation to revert to normal. They fear of losing their jobs and not finding new ones back home. MORE

The uprisings sweeping the Arab world have been provoked by long injustice, low income, police brutality, and lack of social security. While the world looks at this, the suffering of up to three million maids across the Arab world remains wrapped in silence. Victims of abuse, confinement and rape, migrant domestic workers are often invisible because they suffer in places that remain hidden to the public eye, mostly private homes. A freelance Indonesian domestic worker in Jordan says, "If you go to the Indonesian embassy in Jordan you will see hundreds of women who ran away from their employer. "I also ran away after mistreatment. I want to go back to Indonesia but the embassy has no money to send us."MORE

“They were beating me so hard I could no longer see, there was so much blood running from my head.” These were the words of Bahraini physician Dr Sadek Al-Ikri to BBC reporters about the security forces’ crackdown on peaceful protesters in Bahrain. But this was not all. Dr Al-Ikri also told the journalists that the men beating him refused to stop even when he told them that he was a doctor and that he spoke Urdu. The role of Pakistani migrant workers in the protests in Bahrain has since been highlighted by other international news outlets too. A report in the Guardian said that Bahrainis resent the fact that many riot police and security forces do not speak Arabic and denounce them as mercenary soldiers with little empathy for the common people. The Canadian press reported that a majority of participants in pro-government demonstrations were Sunni Arabs and Pakistanis who have recently been granted citizenship in Bahrain. In the words of one regime supporter, Abdelrahman Ahmed, a 21-year-old student born in Bahrain of Pakistani parents, “We always support the government and they are always on our side.”MORE

A cable from December 2007 features Gaddafi Development Foundation Executive Director Dr. Yusuf Sawani discussing trans-national terrorism threats and security with US diplomats. The director talks about the fact that a million sub-Saharan African guest workers are resident in Libya and says it should be a “cause of concern.” The workers are a concern because Dr. Sawani believes any of those individuals could possibly commit an act of terrorism. In recent days, many of those guest workers have fled, as Libyans have grown suspicious and attacked a number of black Africans due to reports that Leader Muammar Gaddafi hired “black African mercenaries.”

The latest from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicates 191,000 or more have fled Libya to Egypt, Tunisia and Niger. A previous report estimated around 80,000 Pakistanis, 59,000 Sudanese, 50,000 Bangladeshis, 26,000 Filipinos, 2,000 Nepalese and other African and Asian migrant workers are hosted by the country.

OCHA reports have been tracking the risk of violence migrant workers face.MORE

And a prominent Bedouin smuggler in the Sinai peninsula told TIME that Bedouin are now in control of the two towns closest to the Gaza Strip, and that they planned to press on to attack the Suez Canal if Mubarak does not step down. He also said that police stations in the south Sinai would be attacked if Bedouin prisoners were not released.

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As for Mubarak himself, shouts would go up among the crowds in Tahrir Square every time a rumor rippled through that he had left the country. It is widely believed, however, that the president remains in his vacation home in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheik in the south Sinai — the very spot the Bedouin have their eyes on.

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CAIRO Jan 27 (Reuters) - Security forces shot dead a Bedouin protester in the north of Egypt's Sinai region on Thursday, eyewitnesses and a security source said.

The 22-year-old man, Mohamed Atef, was shot in the head while demonstrating in the town of Sheikh Zoweid, they said. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse dozens of protesters.
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ISMAILIA, Egypt Jan 29 (Reuters) - A group of Bedouin on Saturday attacked state security headquarters in the town of Rafah near Egypt's border with Israel, killing three policemen, witnesses and a security source said.MORE

Homo sapiens is aging fast, and the implications of this may overwhelm all other factors shaping the species over the coming decades - with more wrinklies than pimplies, more walking frames than bike stabilisers, more slippers and pipes than bootees and buggies, and more grey power than student power. The longevity revolution affects every country, every community and almost every household. It promises to restructure the economy, reshape the family, redefine politics and even rearrange the geopolitical order over the coming century.


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Non-celebrities also remain active, assertive and independent as they age. They fill library and seminar halls once crammed with callow youths. They run picket lines - or marathons. Far from being a weight round society's neck, many of them look like a new human resource waiting to be tapped. Millions of the middle-class retired continue working at everything from lucrative consultancies to teaching literacy or finally finishing that PhD. They are often more valuable than the young workers the demographers imagine are supporting them: in fact, the growing number of society's most qualified, most experienced individuals is potentially a huge demographic dividend.

In future, old people will be expected to stay in the formal economy for longer. The idea of a retirement age was invented by Otto von Bismarck in the 1880s, when as chancellor of Germany he needed a starting age for paying war pensions. He chose the age of 65 because that was typically when ex-soldiers died. But today in developed countries, and soon in poorer ones, women can expect nearly 30 years of retirement, and men 20 years.

There is a deal to be done: longer working in return for more, and more powerful, legislation to outlaw the ageism that blights the working lives of many in late middle age. The old will also expect a society that does not marginalise them; they will consider it a right to live in homes, cities and workplaces redesigned to meet their physical requirements.

Some worry that an older workforce will be less innovative and adaptable, but there is evidence that companies with a decent proportion of older workers are more productive than those addicted to youth. This is sometimes called the Horndal effect, after a Swedish steel mill where productivity rose by 15 per cent as the workforce got older. Age brings experience and wisdom. Think what it could mean when the Edisons and Einsteins of the future, the doctors and technicians, the artists and engineers, have 20 or 30 more years to give us.MORE

stoneself

Aboriginal leaders said they were outraged and confused when dozens of body bags were delivered to remote Manitoba reserves after native communities demanded federal resources to fight a second wave of the H1N1 flu outbreak.

Chiefs interpreted the grim shipments as a dire prediction of what Ottawa expects will happen during this flu season to natives, who were hardest hit by swine flu in the spring.

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OTTAWA -- Federal officials spent days debating whether to send hand sanitizers to First Nations communities struggling with swine flu outbreaks because of their alcohol content, a Senate committee heard Tuesday.MORE