Saturday 28 December 2013

You will set the world on fire

Somewhere in Shoreditch, 26.05.2013 





Midnight in the Village
Seeger lights the candles
From Bitter End to Gaslight
Baez leaves the stage
Ochs takes notes
When the black girl and guitar
Burn together hot in rage
You’ve got what it takes 

You say too much
You will set the world babe
You will set the world on fire
I can work the scene babe
I can see the magazines
l can hear the nation
I can hear the nation cry
You will set the world babe
You will set the world on fire
You will set it on fire 

Kennedy would kill
For the lines that you’ve written
Van Ronk says to Bobby
She’s the next real thing
Crouched in the half light
Screaming like a banshee
You’re in the boat, babe
We’re in the water
You say too much 

You will set the world babe
You will set the world on fire
I can work the scene babe
I can see the magazines
l can hear the nation
I can hear the nation cry
You will set the world babe
You will set the world on fire
You will set it on fire



Posted by aris.cs at 16:27 2 comments
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Sunday 22 December 2013

Democracy and the eurozone crisis: quotes #17


"Many governments in Europe imposing austerity measures have forgotten about their human rights obligations, especially the social and economic rights of the most vulnerable, the need to ensure access to justice, and the right to equal treatment. Regrettably, international lenders have also neglected to incorporate human rights considerations into many of their assistance programmes," said today Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, while releasing a research paper about the impact of the economic crisis on the protection of human rights.
The Commissioner points out that austerity measures have undermined human rights in several ways: "National decisions on austerity measures and international rescue packages have lacked transparency, public participation and democratic accountability. In some cases, onerous conditionalities have prevented governments from investing in essential social protection, health and education programmes. When the EU as a central actor in the crisis makes decisions about economic governance in member states and when the Troika sets conditions for rescue packages and loan agreements, the impact on human rights should be better taken into account."

"The economic crisis has had dire consequences on vulnerable groups, in particular on children and young persons. Youth unemployment in Europe has reached record levels, with millions of young people unemployed with scarred futures. Cuts in child and family benefits, health care and education have also added a strain on millions of families. An increasing number of children are dropping out of school to find employment and support their families, risking life-long setbacks in educational achievement, and providing the conditions for job insecurity coupled with the re-emergence of child labour and exploitation."

The Commissioner stresses the urgent need to reinvigorate the European social model based on the foundations of human dignity, intergenerational solidarity and access to justice for all. "Governments should focus on reducing youth and long-term unemployment as a priority and on upholding social protection floors for basic income and health care during the crisis. Effective access to justice for all must be guaranteed during economic downturns by maintaining the judiciary and the legal aid system." Furthermore, governments should carry out systematic human rights and equality impact assessments of social and economic policies and budgets, especially as regards vulnerable groups of people. "Positive measures in favour of disadvantaged groups, including people with disabilities, Roma and women, are needed to address disproportionate and compound effects of the crisis and austerity measures."

Finally, the Commissioner highlights the essential role ombudsmen, human rights institutions and equality bodies play in identifying human rights compliant responses to the crisis and protecting people in need. Demand for services of these national human rights structures has increased, while many institutions have simultaneously experienced budget and staff cuts, the closure of regional offices or mergers into less focused structures. "Governments should strengthen the effectiveness of these structures to handle complaints about social and economic rights while seeking their independent advice in decision making about austerity measures and budgets to better gauge their impact on human rights and equality."

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Wednesday 18 December 2013

Laura Gilpin: open horizons

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Saturday 14 December 2013

Fortress Europe: the precarious lives of refugees


European leaders should hang their heads in shame over the pitifully low numbers of refugees from Syria they are prepared to resettle, said Amnesty International.

In a briefing published today, An international failure: The Syrian refugee crisis, the organization details how European Union (EU) member states have only offered to open their doors to around 12,000 of the most vulnerable refugees from Syria: just 0.5 per cent of the 2.3 million people who have fled the country.

“The EU has miserably failed to play its part in providing a safe haven to the refugees who have lost all but their lives. The number of those it’s prepared to resettle is truly pitiful. Across the board European leaders should hang their heads in shame,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

[...] 
  • Only 10 EU member states offered resettlement or humanitarian admission places to refugees from Syria.
  • Germany is by far the most generous – pledging to take 10,000 refugees or 80 per cent of total EU pledges.
  • Excluding Germany, the remaining 27 EU member states have offered to take a mere 2,340 refugees from Syria.
  • France offered just 500 places or 0.02 per cent of the total number of people who have fled Syria.
  • Spain agreed to take just 30 or 0.001 per cent of refugees from Syria.
  • Eighteen EU member states – including the UK and Italy – offered no places at all. 

    [...]

The journey to Italy by sea
 
Hundreds of people die attempting to cross the Mediterranean every year. In October it is estimated that as many as 650 refugees and migrants died when three boats sank attempting to reach Europe from North Africa.

More than 10,000 refugees from Syria are reported to have arrived along Italy’s coast in the first 10 months of this year.

Amnesty International’s briefing gives first-hand accounts of those who have attempted to reach Europe by sea.

Awad, a 17-year-old boy from Damascus, described how he managed to escape through a window of a sinking boat and swim to the surface. There were reportedly 400 people on board. He saw people clinging to dead bodies and boat wreckage to stay afloat, while others fought over life jackets. Awad lost his mother as well as other family members.
 
“I have no idea where my family are… I used to have ambition but now I have lost my mother, I don't want anything, I just want stability, everything else is second to that.”

Another boy from Syria lost both his father and nine-year-old brother in the accident.

“My experience didn’t just destroy my dreams; it destroyed my family’s dreams. I am destroyed completely.”

Fortress Europe
 
In two of the main gateways to the EU, Bulgaria and Greece, refugees from Syria are met with deplorable treatment, including life threatening push-back operations along the Greek coast, and detention for weeks in poor conditions in Bulgaria.

Greece: pushed back into the sea
 
Refugees have told Amnesty International how Greek police or coastguards, wielding guns and wearing full face hoods, ill-treat them, strip them of their belongings and eventually push them back to Turkey.

A 32-year-old man from Syria described how he and his mother were confronted by the Greek coastguard near the island of Samos in October. They were part of a group of 35 people including women and young children pushed back to Turkey.

“They put all the men lying on the boat; they stepped on us and hit us with their weapons for three hours. Then at around 10 in the morning, after removing the motor, they put us back to our plastic boat and drove us back to the Turkish waters and left us in the middle of the sea.’’

The number of unlawful push-back operations from Greece is not known; however, Amnesty International believes hundreds have been affected.

In the last two years the European Commission has provided €228 million to bolster border controls.

In comparison, for the same time period, just €12 million was allocated to Greece under the European Refugee Fund, which supports efforts in receiving refugees.

Bulgaria: detained and contained
 
In Bulgaria, an estimated 5,000 refugees from Syria arrived between January and November 2013. The majority are housed in emergency centres, the largest of which is in the town of Harmanli. It is effectively a closed detention centre.

Amnesty International found refugees living in squalid conditions in containers, a dilapidated building and in tents. There was a lack of adequate sanitary facilities with limited access to food, bedding or medicine.

A large number of people were in need of medical care, including some injured in conflict, individuals suffering chronic diseases and those with mental health problems.

Some of the refugees in Harmanli told Amnesty International that they had been detained for over a month.

“Tens of thousands are risking perilous journeys by boat or land to try and reach Europe. We have seen hundreds lose their lives in the Mediterranean. It is deplorable that many of those that who have risked life and limb to get here, are either forced back or detained in truly squalid conditions with insufficient food, water or medical care,” said Salil Shetty.

[...]

Amnesty International is calling on European member states to:
  • Significantly increase the number of resettlement and humanitarian admission places for refugees from Syria;
  • Strengthen search and rescue capacity in the Mediterranean to identify boats in distress and assist those on board;
  • Ensure that those rescued are treated with dignity and have access to asylum procedures;
  • Ensure that unlawful push-back operations are ended;
  • Provide legal safe passage for Syrian asylum seekers wishing to travel to European member states.
  • The EU, its member states, and the international community should continue to provide support to countries hosting the largest numbers of refugees, particularly Jordan and Lebanon.
Posted by aris.cs at 14:44 0 comments
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Tuesday 10 December 2013

A day in the life: Franz Marc, #1

Posted by aris.cs at 17:36 4 comments
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Thursday 5 December 2013

Intellectual proletarians, by Emma Goldman

The proletarization of our time reaches far beyond the field of manual labor; indeed, in the larger sense all those who work for their living, whether with hand or brain, all those who must sell their skill, knowledge, experience and ability, are proletarians. From this point of view, our entire system, excepting a very limited class, has been proletarianized. 

Our whole social fabric is maintained by the efforts of mental and physical labor. In return for that, the intellectual proletarians, even as the workers in shop and mine, eke out an insecure and pitiful existence, and are more dependent upon the masters than those who work with their hands. 

[...]

Success achieved by the most contemptible means cannot but destroy the soul. Yet that is the goal of our day. It helps to cover up the inner corruption and gradually dulls one's scruples, so that those who begin with some high ambition cannot, even if they would, create anything out of themselves. 

In other words, those who are placed in positions which demand the surrender of personality, which insist on strict conformity to definite political policies and opinions, must deteriorate, must become mechanical, must lose all capacity to give anything really vital. The world is full of such unfortunate cripples. Their dream is to "arrive," no matter at what cost. If only we would stop to consider what it means to "arrive," we would pity the unfortunate victim. Instead of that, we look to the artist, the poet, the writer, the dramatist and thinker who have "arrived," as the final authority on all matters, whereas in reality their "arrival" is synonymous with mediocrity, with the denial and betrayal of what might in the beginning have meant something real and ideal. The "arrived" artists are dead souls upon the intellectual horizon. The uncompromising and daring spirits never "arrive." Their life represents an endless battle with the stupidity and the dullness of their time. They must remain what Nietzsche calls "untimely," because everything that strives for new form, new expression or new values, is always doomed to be untimely. 

The real pioneers in ideas, in art and in literature have remained aliens to their time, misunderstood and repudiated. And if, as in the case of Zola, Ibsen and Tolstoy, they compelled their time to accept them, it was due to their extraordinary genius and even more so to the awakening and seeking of a small minority for new truths, to whom these men were the inspiration and intellectual support. Yet even to this day Ibsen is unpopular, while Poe, Whitman and Strindberg have never "arrived." 

The logical conclusion is this: those who will not worship at the shrine of money, need not hope for recognition. On the other hand, they will also not have to think other people's thoughts or wear other people's political clothes. They will not have to proclaim as true that which is false, nor praise that as humanitarian which is brutal. I realize that those who have the courage to defy the economic and social whip are among the few, and we have to deal with the many. 

Posted by aris.cs at 12:27 2 comments
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Sunday 1 December 2013

Ruins: chronicle of an HIV witch-hunt




I chose to chronicle this case because I believe it encompasses everything that is wrong with our country [Greece] in this time of deep crisis: our growing collective panic, the ineptitude of our institutions, the servility of our mass media to the presumed sanctity of authority, the self-righteousness of our politicians and our emerging police state.
 
More importantly, I believe that it reflects a fundamental deficit of empathy for those among us who have been hardest hit by austerity, the people roaming silently among the ruins of our society.




See also:



Amnesty International: forced HIV testing and harassment of transgender women in Greece
Cultural Synergy, 08.08.2013

Posted by aris.cs at 22:36 2 comments
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