As news of the attacks spread, dozens of my Syrian friends, most of whom I have met while they are living as refugees in Lebanon, were changing their profile pictures to the French flag, expressing genuine sympathy—and solidarity—with the people of Paris.One friend, a former tour guide in Palmyra—the oasis of ancient ruins in the Syrian desert that was a UNESCO world heritage site and popular tourist destination before it was recently plundered by the Islamic State—changed his profile picture to an image of the French tricolor superimposed over the ancient city that he once called home.“We had to flee ISIS in Tadmur,” he says, using the Arabic name for Palmyra. “Now France has a taste of how we felt.”Just the day before, I had been having coffee near the memorial at Republique with Bashar, a Syrian refugee who sought asylum in Paris around a year and a half ago. We were talking about whether or not the recent attacks would affect refugee policy in Paris when suddenly, a panicked crowd started running for the café, toppling tables and frantically diving down the stairwell, startled by what turned out to be fireworks, set off at the wrong time.“I felt so bad for the people of Paris,” said Bashar, as we waited inside of the restaurant’s basement kitchen to find out what was going on, and whether or not the coast was clear.“I know how it feels because we had to face so much of this in Syria.”
Category Archives: human rights
The Un-American Politics of Rejecting Refugees | GOOD
This obstructionism is pointless. The refugees are coming to America—as they should. Seven states to date (Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington) have vowed to cooperate with resettlement plans. And once those refugees are in the United States, they have the ability to freely travel within the nation and to relocate wherever they may so choose. That means that these bans, even if they were legal, would do nothing whatsoever to stop potentially bad-actor refugees (who, given our vetting procedures, are unlikely to get into the nation in the first place).These refugee bans make no sense. They fail to recognize how dissimilar the U.S. situation is from Europe’s ordeal. They fail to recognize American legal realities. But more than any of that, as numerous politicians have pointed out, they betray fundamental American values of inclusivity and refuge. They shirk our moral responsibility to aid those displaced by a conflict that has killed 250,000, destroyed a nation, and for which we are at least partially responsible by merit of our chronically misguided and shortsighted Middle Eastern politics. (Americans often balk at that notion, but the sooner we own our culpability, the better it will be for us and for the world, now and in the view of history.) And, coming as they do alongside calls for tighter monitoring of Islamic communities in the States and implicit calls for religious or ethnic tests on migrants, they reek of a deep Islamophobia. Given that the vast majority of the Paris attackers were Europeans, and given the acknowledged presence of a massive homegrown terrorist front in Europe (consisting of white radicals and Muslim extremists), it’s bizarre that we’ve chosen to restrict entrance to Syrian refugees and not to Belgian or French citizens.
Source: The Un-American Politics of Rejecting Refugees | GOOD
www.german-foreign-policy.com German media pushing WWIII
The current front of Germany’s major national media, orchestrating domestic public opinion and publicistically habituating the population to a “World War” has been broken by a renowned business magazine. Gabor Steingart, Chief Editor of the German Handelsblatt warns, “the West shares the blame for the hostile climate between the cultures.” “Of the 1.3 million lives that the wars from Afghanistan to Syria have cost, the crusade against Iraq, waged under false pretenses – and therefore in violation of international law – alone, accounts so far for 800,000 dead,” explains Steingart. “The majority of these victims were peaceful Muslims – not terrorists.” “The automatism of severity and mercilessness, the premeditated incomprehension of one’s counterpart, the fiery speeches for the respective populations at home, the rapid take-off of bomber squadrons” have “brought us to where we are today.” “This is not how you stop terrorism; this is how you fan its flames. This is not how you obtain peace; this is how you spawn suicide bombers.” In the future, rather than banking on “combat or capitulation,” we should promote “order, respect, and moderation.” “There are alternatives to military escalation.”[13] Among the leading personalities of the German mainstream media, Steingart stands alone with his warning.
Source: www.german-foreign-policy.com
Larissa Pham: The Architecture of Racism at Yale University – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics
This tension is not new. It is a product of the systemic racism built into the institution, as ubiquitous as the architecture that characterizes the place in our shared consciousness. “Everyone who enters Yale is reminded that they’re in an environment that is a product of centuries of classism and racism,” Cynthia Hua, who graduated earlier this year, told me. “You can see it in the buildings. They’re symbols of the way society has been stratified—it’s even in their names.” (One of Yale’s residential colleges is named for the nineteenth-century politician John C. Calhoun, who advocated secession and spoke of slavery as a force for good.) And the problem goes beyond architecture—architecture just happens to be its most potent symbol.This breed of racism isn’t showy or overtly violent, which makes it hard to define, like a kind of low-grade radiation that kills slowly. It’s being the only woman of color in a seminar room, or feeling physically unsafe on campus, or having to endure stereotypical assumptions about one’s race in even the most innocuous of situations. Zack Graham, a black student who graduated in 2013, gave me this anecdote: “I showed up for office hours and the TA asked which sport I played—as though the notion that I was a regular student accepted through regular channels was an impossibility.”
Islamic State posts audio message in Bengali – The Hindu
The Islamic State’s tape of nashid (chants) in Bengali was posted on the terror outfit’s media platform Al Hayat Media Centre on October 27.“A few Bangladeshi men of foreign origin have joined the IS ranks and are said to be in Syria and Iraq. This message was most probably uploaded by them to connect to the Bangladesh audience. We don’t think it can have any impact in India. But we are still keeping a watch,” said a senior Home Ministry official.Bangladesh has denied the presence of IS on its soil, though the group itself has claimed responsibility for the recent killings of an Italian and a Japanese national in that country.The official asserted again on Tuesday that the government had not so far come across any information that would suggest the IS was planning an attack on India. However, the Home Ministry has issued an advisory to all the States which stated that the IS intended to “expand the arc of high profile terror actions beyond the core area of Syria and Iraq.” This advisory comes in the wake of the Paris attacks engineered by the outfit which killed 129 people.“Though the IS has not been able to establish any significant presence in India, its success in radicalising some youth, attracting certain sections of the local population or the Indian diaspora to physically participate in its activities, or the possibility of piggy-backing on terrorist groups operating in India, have opened up the possibility of IS-sponsored terrorist action on Indian territory,” said the advisory dated November 16. “In this regard, the security arrangements for the diplomatic interests of France, U.S., U.K., Germany, Russia, Australia, Turkey and Israel may be particularly reviewed and strengthened.”
Source: Islamic State posts audio message in Bengali – The Hindu
Mass Surveillance Isn’t the Answer to Fighting Terrorism – The New York Times
It’s a wretched yet predictable ritual after each new terrorist attack: Certain politicians and government officials waste no time exploiting the tragedy for their own ends. The remarks on Monday by John Brennan, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, took that to a new and disgraceful low.From Our AdvertisersSpeaking less than three days after coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris killed 129 and injured hundreds more, Mr. Brennan complained about “a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists.”What he calls “hand-wringing” was the sustained national outrage following the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, that the agency was using provisions of the Patriot Act to secretly collect information on millions of Americans’ phone records. In June, President Obama signed the USA Freedom Act, which ends bulk collection of domestic phone data by the government (but not the collection of other data, like emails and the content of Americans’ international phone calls) and requires the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to make its most significant rulings available to the public.
Source: Mass Surveillance Isn’t the Answer to Fighting Terrorism – The New York Times
Northern Ireland government salvaged by deal | News | DW.COM | 17.11.2015
A deal has been reached to ensure the territory’s power-sharing government can continue after a months-long stand off. Ministers have published a 67-page document to tackle rows over security, the economy and welfare.
Source: Northern Ireland government salvaged by deal | News | DW.COM | 17.11.2015
G.O.P. Governors Vow to Close Doors to Syrian Refugees – The New York Times {25 Governors announce they are actively anti-American, bigoted, and cowards!}
Twenty-five Republican governors vowed to block the entry of Syrian refugees into their states, arguing that the safety of Americans was at stake after the Paris attacks by terrorists including a man who entered Europe with a Syrian passport and posed as a migrant. Among the governors were those from Illinois, Massachusetts, Texas and other states that have already resettled relatively large numbers of refugees from among the 1,900 Syrians accepted by the United States in the last four years.
Source: G.O.P. Governors Vow to Close Doors to Syrian Refugees – The New York Times
1993 Independent Article About Osama Bin Laden – Business Insider
“I am a construction engineer and an agriculturalist. If I had training camps here in Sudan, I couldn’t possibly do this job.”
Source: 1993 Independent Article About Osama Bin Laden – Business Insider
The Mothers of Mexico’s Disappeared Organize in the Face of State Violence
It’s been a year since the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students—now the most emblematic and publicized case of disappearances in the history of the country. When speaking of the anniversary, Nava expresses herself with the resolve and frustration characteristic of many other mothers, many of whom have searched for their children for much longer.“Many are saying that one year is a long time. But for us, no time has passed at all. We are still living on the night of the 26th. For us time is at a standstill. For us it is the same day when our children were disappeared. In my case, I had to go to the morgue to claim my son’s body. I never thought I would have to go recognize his body. But we’re still here, to ensure that the death of my son and the disappearances of these young men doesn’t stay in impunity.”
Source: The Mothers of Mexico’s Disappeared Organize in the Face of State Violence





You must be logged in to post a comment.