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Old 05-30-2005, 05:16 PM   #1
CptSternn
 
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Racism, Bigotry, and Human Rights

I thought a new topic on racism, bigotry, and human rights was in order, as a few people here seem to be quite blind to many aspects of these topics. I will even start, since I am the one starting the topic.

I thought of this today when reading the following article...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Irelandclick.com

Unemployment figures static for last 30 years

* REVEALED Government figures show Catholics still twice as likely to
be on dole

Catholic women are three and a half times more likely to be
unemployed than Protestant women in the North.

We can also reveal, in general, Catholics remain precisely twice as
likely to be on the dole queue as Protestants.

The shocking figures are drawn from official British government
Labour Force Survey statistics which have been obtained by our sister
paper Daily Ireland. The survey was conducted on a quarterly basis
for the 12 months between Winter 03/04 and Autumn 2004.

Margins of sampling error – which are consistently greater for the
Catholic aggregate – mean that the real disparity could be even worse.

For over 30 years the unemployment differential between Catholics and
Protestants has been regarded as a crucial indicator of inequality
across the North.

In April 2003 the British government pledged in the Joint Declaration
with the Irish government to take effective action which would tackle
the unemployment differential "by targeting objective need".

This assurance followed successive fair employment laws introduced in
1976, 1989, 1991 and 1998. Throughout that entire period, the
unemployment differential has remained virtually static, with
Catholics consistently at least twice as likely to be unemployed.

However when the positive political, social and economic developments
of the last decade are taken into account alongside the overall fall
in unemployment, the lack of any significant change in the ratio is
arguably even more serious. The figures demonstrate that, for
Catholic women in particular, the prospects are not improving.

In recent years, British government sponsored researchers have
claimed that social factors other than discrimination are responsible
for the disparity in the unemployment differential.

However, the startling precision with which such inequality has been
maintained remains a source of considerable concern for anti-
discrimination campaigners.

The latest figures come just days after the official 2005 deprivation
statistics for the North were published.

According to the deprivation statistics, the predominantly
nationalist parliamentary constituencies of West Belfast, Foyle and
West Tyrone are among the four areas of the North where the highest
proportion of deprived people live.

Strongly unionist constituencies of North Down, Strangford, Lagan
Valley and South Antrim have the least number of people living in
deprived conditions.

A major conference on equality which is taking place tomorrow in
Belfast will be addressed by one of North America's most powerful
elected politicians, Alan Hevesi.

Mr Hevesi is the financial comptroller for New York state and his
office administers the second largest pension fund in America.

In spite of bitter opposition from the British government, Mr Hevesi
has remained a determined campaigner for fair employment initiatives
in the North, such as the MacBride Principles, throughout his
political career.
At a press conference tomorrow morning, Mr Hevesi is expected to make
a major investment announcement.

Last Friday Daily Ireland revealed that the British government ban
which prevents Irish citizens gaining employment in the North's
senior Civil Service will remain in place for at least another 12
months.

An analysis by the Andersonstown News last year concluded that, based
on recruitment trends over 30 years, the senior Civil Service could
not achieve fair representativeness until at least 2057. At present
just one out of every four senior civil servants is Catholic.

In March, Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern caused considerable
disquiet in Northern nationalist political circles when he alleged in
a newspaper interview that "the type of discrimination that took
place (in the North) in previous decades, all of that has
disappeared."

Journalist:: Jarlath Kearney


--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Now, as I mentioned on many occassions I work for a political party here in Ireland and our whole platform is based on civil rights, equality, and the right to self-govern. For those who have never been to Northern Ireland, you might not know of what we call 'The Troubles'. That refers to the mid sixties to '98 when the GFA (peace accord) was signed.

Worldwide people hear about Catholics vs. prodestants, but thats really not what the major issues are in this conflict, they just happen in many cases to fall along those lines.

So heres some background. 800 years ago the brits invade and took over Ireland. After many hundreds of years of war, they decided to try a new strategy. The brits moved in tonnes of troops and what not to the north of ireland (the closes port to their island) and bring in settlers from poor areas mostly in Scotland. Now, Scotland had be conqouers for an even longer time, and there were many poor families living at the brink of extinction there. The brits capitalised on this by offering free farm land and homes to people who wanted to migrate. Of course they didn't have land to offer, so they came into Ireland, forced farmers off their lands, lands that had been in their families for hundreds of years, and gave it to Scottish settlers. Families who won't moved were executed.

So thats where it all begins. Now generations later you have grand grandsons of the original mainly Scottish settlers who hold lands in Ireland. Also note at this time the displaced peoples tried to battle for their land in court, for many decades. The brits were able to combat this by first denying access to the voting booths unless you were protestant. Later they just outright told who to vote and who to go home. So now we have all the legal system and government packed with brits and people who to save their own, although stolen by their grandfathers, homes are making the laws and enforcing them. Needless to say this didn't sit well.

So we get an insurgency going. After years of half assing it, 1916 the lads get together and start an uprising on Easter Sunday. Only problem is, the guns being shipped from Germany get caught in a british blockade. So of the thousands of original Irish Volunteers, only a few show up (under 100). However, they were determined. These few men took over the local governmetn building in Dublin (the Post Office i.e. GPO). They held it for two days, until the brits sent in a few thousand troops to reclaim it. Note however 45 men held off a few thousand for almost 72 hours. Says something about the men, and also about how hard it is to fight in an urban setting.

Skipping ahead again, 1921 the brits let 26 of the 32 counties go. They let them govern themselves. They only keep the 6 counties where they have close proximity and thousands of troops. They rule this area like a war zone. To this day there is razorwire, watch towers, and tanks throughout the streets in the region.

So, why all the conflict still? Well, the above article is part of it. The wealthy are all descentants of previously wealthy families (there are exceptions like any rule, but for the most part, all businesses and government positions are held by people who consider themselves british and support british rule. These people tend to be prodestant. The majority of the people though, are Catholic, but have little to no policial power and even less resources and things available to them to help them move ahead in society.

The laws are specifically structured to keep things in this balance. Until the 60's, any political party whos campaign was equality and civil rights was deemed a terrorist organisation and not allowed to participate in the system. That changed in the late 60's early 70's. Why? The IRA led a bold campaign on the brits forcing them to allow the Nationalist parties into the political system. And now we have Sinn Fein (it mean Ourselves, Alone in Irish).

Now, today, things have begun to swing to the side of the people and away from the wealthy who get their power from britain. There is still much work to be done. So what is SF about? Well, here is why they exist, why the IRA is still around, and whats happening with racism, bigotry, and human rights in the North of Ireland.

First we have employment as mentioned. Much like blacks in the early 1900's in the united states, Catholics are denied jobs based on their religion because it usually signifies their political beliefs. Employers don't want disgruntled people in their ranks, they want team players, they want people they can relate too, people who live in their social bracket and go to their types of establishments. So they find reasons not to employ Catholics. Even as the stats show, to this day, its a 3-1 descrepancy when it comes to hiring.

Next lets look at politics. Nationalist parties were banned by law until just a few decades ago. They don't have long ties to other people in the government, so they aren't able to pull resources that other pro-brit parties can use. They don't get extra funding from britain, so even financially they are at a loss. Plus, ever few years the pro-british groups talk the british parliment into 're-districting' to help split up Catholic neighborhoos and merge their districts into the prodestant neighborhoods to help cut down on the voting power. Since the Nationalsit parties are still so small, they have been successful at this everytime, something that the united states calls gerrymandering and was a popular tool in the south to help 'control' the black vote during the 60's.

Policing is another area where there is much conflict. Police do not respond to Catholic neighborhoods at nite. They also dont respond unless its a Class 1 Offense. When they do, its in full riot gear in an urban tank. Of course when responding to a loyalist call, they happily come out in their nice hats in a patrol car. Crime in Nationalist areas stays for the most part unsolved. The stats on this are extremely slanted, and right now their is a special commission looking into this. They also have a policing board now setup to handle complaints on this, of course the board is made up of all prodestants from areas where there is no police problems and very low crime rates.

Irish until the brits invaded was the national language. The natioal sport was hurling, and Gaelic football was extremely popular. The british banned the irish language for years. They also banned all non-british sports. Only in the past decade has traditional Irish sports began returning to the north thanks to the public outcry of groups like Sinn Fein. For those who don't know, Irish dancing was also banned. Tis where the Riverdance style of Irish dancing emerged. By british law, one had to move their arms to be considered dancing. The Irish who wanted to dance but were banned by law created the style of dance to get around the british law. Anyone caught preforming Irish dance or speaking in the Irish language could be shot on site, a practice which continued up until the late 1800's.

Now, thats just a few of the problems facing the Irish today. However, as mentioned in another article, Sinn Fein has for the first time taken a dominant place in NI politics. The people HAVE given them a mandate. They want the way things are heading to continue as such. The british however do not want to lose a large source of revanue (Belfast is a huge international port with lush fishing waters). The natural resources available in NI are ones not found in the continental UK. To lose NI would set a significant set back to the UK economy. They would live, move on, and eventually get over it, but no one in the government there wants to cut the budget in such a way so to speak.

Today, Nationalists are denied jobs (once again it jsut happens they tend to be Catholic). Nationalists are also kept out of the political system, or made insignificant. Their neighborhoods have to police themselves (IRA NPU's - neighborhood protection units). If your kid gets *****, murdered, or ends up dead because of a drug overdose, you don't call the police, as they will merely file it away, if they show up. You know the man in your neighborhood who takes the complains straight to the people who police your block. If you want work, you visit your local SF office and read the message board. If you need a loan, you can't go to the bank (much like the blacks in the united states today), you contact your local SF MEP and talk to him about finding a private loan company to help you.

I could sit here for hours and tell of even more issues but, think thats enough to get us started. Anyone else live in such a place? Anyone else ever been subject to this type of life? Had their rights deprived because of what they believe in? Been shot for defying the government? If you had, what did you do? How did you do it?

Slán
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Old 05-30-2005, 06:52 PM   #2
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All very well and Good Sternn, but the unemployment figures you posted at the beginning can easily be argued against:

The catholic unemployment rate is 3 times higher than the protestant unemployment rate, but aren't there 3 times as many catholics as there are protestants?

I agree with a free united Ireland, but not the IRA's way. I agree with a free Basque country, but not in ETA.

Sinn Fein needs to break off with the IRA and be the real voice of the oppressed instead of just being the political side of the IRA. Just like Euskadi Batasuna needs to break off with ETA.

Don't know what the fuck does Euskadi Batasuna mean?
Thats' ok, no one else who isn't Basque knows, as it has absolutely nothing to do with ANY hispanic or latin language.
To this day, we still don't know the true origins of that language, but they are as different from spanish as the Irish are different from Congolese people.

Religion is as much as excuse for conflict in Ireland as it is in the Middle East/Israel affair.

Racism and bigotry?
Not me. Like I said before, I HATE EVERYONE! :P
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Old 05-31-2005, 11:18 PM   #3
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Alright, I'll post something on racism.

http://www.affirmativeaction.org/

*******

Okay, seriously this time, something on a human-rights violation:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/S...430298,00.html

Mukhtaran Bibi thought her nightmare was over when the men who gang-***** her - on orders from village elders - were sentenced to death more than two years ago. But yesterday the nightmare began again.

The victim of Pakistan's most notorious **** case wept bitterly after a court in the southern city of Multan overturned the verdict against three of the four alleged rapists and two tribal elders, and quashed the death sentence against the sixth.

...

Her 12-year-old brother was accused of having an affair with a woman from the higher-caste Mastoi tribe. In punishment, the elders ordered that Mukhtaran be *****. As several hundred people watched, four men dragged her screaming through a cotton field. Pushing her into a mud-walled house, they assaulted her for more than an hour.

She emerged afterwards with her clothes torn. Her father and brother, who had been forced to wait outside during the ordeal, draped her with a shawl and helped her home.

In the days that followed her first impulse was to commit suicide, she recently told the Guardian. "In this area, there is no law and no justice. A woman is left with one option, and that is to die," she said.


Lovely country, Pakistan.
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Old 06-01-2005, 07:21 AM   #4
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As to protestant-catholic employment problems, I am not very informed, so i suppose i can't write much to that. As to gender discrimination i can give a minor example of from my own experience:
Last year i lived in Moscow and went there to school. we had a subject called computers and a subject called sewing. The boys went to computers while the girls to sewing. And this was considered completely normal. this shows that the girls were not even expected to make carriers that involved computer but were prepared to be good house-wives. I went to the directress of the school myself and asked (politely!) to be trancefered into the computers class, but she said no way. The reason : i am a girl. this isn't in all russian schools, but in many never the less.
As all the other teachers found out about my act, they began to dislike me (i won't even start teling about the mysterious Fs that started apearing among my grades...).
This most certainly isn't as serious and shocking as ****, but simply shows the morality of most of russia's population.

As to racism...there is plenty of that in Russia, as well as where i live now (Austria). In russia the amount of "skinheads" has increased dramatically. This is due to the poorness of most of the population and their will to rid the country of anyone that "doesn't belong there" so that they wouldn't take up the jobs, space and whatever ele. Many citizens of the post-soviet countries have suffered much from this. I could propose mayn articles about peacefull chcechenian and other families that have been cruely beaten up because of their nationality. And from the side of the government, such families are not getting much support.

Austria is of course still full of nazis, but there is now a strong ressitance against them. I read a few days ago about an incident in a provincial town in Germany. A boy was killed (i won't explai in detail : don't want you to loose your appetite for a week) by a sister and brother because he didn't look German.

religious, sexual, and racial discrimination will be always, I fear. Just as poorness and difference among humans will always exist.
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Old 06-01-2005, 09:28 AM   #5
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illy - That tends to be the norm worldwide in most all countries with the exception of a few. Women at home and men in the workplace is also based on ideals instilled by years of various religions.

Moscow is no different than say, Japan or India in that aspect. I have experienced similiar experiences, being denied jobs based mainly on religion, but have never been discriminated against because of my sex.

I was however denied the lease on a house here in Ireland because I was a man though! The house owner had a bunch of lads living in another house he owned and they trashed it, so he told us he only rents his homes to women now. Illegal, but there is not much you can do if your not trying to purchase the home. In the end I found a better place that I moved into last week.

So I can empathasize on some level.

Slán
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Old 06-03-2005, 05:46 AM   #6
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true about the religious influence....especially Orthodoxy (of the Christian ones. Islam is a different story), but that has to stay within the churches borders. in places like school, work, or wherever, people can't insist on these religious views (though the views may not even be religious anymore, but just oldfashioned, once initiated by religion).

as to the house renting...well, men and women are different. I get annoyed about this too, but it i don't think it's a serious problem. Infact, it usualy makes me laugh. Me and my mother were also once looking for an appartment and didn't get the one we wanted only because the landlord we "afraid" of women.
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Old 06-03-2005, 06:53 AM   #7
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Mael - the stats are based percentagewise on each group, not overall stats. So if there were 300 Catholics and 100 prots, then percentagewise within that example 180 Catholics would be unemployed while only 20 prots would be unemployed. Ye see?

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Old 12-21-2005, 05:50 PM   #8
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Neo-Nazism

This morning, I was reading an interesting article titled "Sad songs of hate", in a newspaper. The article was in regards to the 13 year old twin Prussian Blue singers, Lynx and Lamb Gaede, from California, USA, who support "America's white supremacist movement". Apparently, they are "articulate" for their age, and their heroes include Adolf Hilter and Rudolf Hess.

"The twisted outlook was learned primarily from mother April and grandfather Bill" and their mother "writes some of their lyrics"

Lynx Gaede, thinks that the most important social issue facing America, is that there is "not enough white babies born to replace themselves". I think these girls' upbringing was poor and it's sad to know that Neo-Nazism is believed and followed by these girls Even worse, such beliefs is publically promoted on websites and in their songs. The thought of their parents teaching them such racist values is demeaning others of their race.

No race is superior than the other.

The recent Neo-Nazism seems to be surfacing again, in the city of Sydney, NSW, Australia, especially the recent racist bashing between the Anglos and the Jews in that city. In comparison, racism of that kind seems not as predominate in the state of Victoria, as as opposed to New South Wales.

Such racism has made me more aware of their existence, which is continuing to breathe harder.

*shrugs*

------------------------------------
Source: “The Herald Sun” newspaper, Thursday, December 22, 2005-12-22

More information regarding the twin singers:

http://www.emma.tv/music/news/octobe...es_racism.aspx
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Old 12-21-2005, 06:37 PM   #9
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Definition of racism?

I thought these two particular paragraphs of an article was an interesting way of viewing racism:

"Racist beliefs are always false because race does not, in a biological sense, exist. Science considers human beings to be a genetically homogenous species; that is, there is no trait or gene that distinguishes the members of one "race" from another.

Often when we think we are talking about "race" we are really talking about culture, social conditioning or tradition. This may seem an unimportant distinction but it is, in fact, vital."



------------------------------
Source:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/e...032077073.html
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Old 12-22-2005, 01:52 AM   #10
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I participate in a group called Equality Now. They are active in areas that concern women...like equal rights, ****, domestic voilence, etc. around the global community.

If you see or hear of things that are rascist and/or discriminatory, you can make a difference by even just writing an email or a letter.

Organizations like this give you addresses to write to, how to format your letter, etc. And it doesn't even have to cost you a dime, and you don't have to picket or be physically active.

Even if you don't stop something from happening, and even if you 'lose' the fight (as I have in the workplace time and time again) just standing up and letting your voice be heard is better than silence.
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Old 12-22-2005, 04:23 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by illuminatti
Austria is of course still full of nazis, but there is now a strong ressitance against them.
Uhm well, I don't want to defend my country, but stating "of course Austria is still full of Nazis" is simply incorrect.

It sounds like not much hs changed since the end of the second world war and the country is still running the old structures, that would allow it to be "still full of Nazis" which is not correct at all.

We have, as the Germans, very strong laws against "Wiederbetätigung"-reactivation. Which is the reason, why most neonazi activities are not centered in Austria in Germany, but in other cuntries, to give some examples, the Netherlands, Switzerland or the United States (Hammerskins for instance) - simply because there the sitation with the law is much more difficult-where you never hat activation it is hard to accuse reactivation, so there are some grey zones there.
It is true, that the years after the war, some Nazis-and people with contentios relationshipsto the regime still held political offices, for the reason that the coutries suffered a breakdown and it took a while to rebuild after the war, and it took a while to build new political structures.

In all Austrian schools (and I think it's quite the same for Germany-) at least one year at least is reserved to focus only on the horrors of the regime in history classes, the how it came to it, the what happened, how it ended, how dangerous the role of revisionism is and how easy it is to proof it is wrong with some education and and. And it's good that way.

You have still some old people in Austria, who were young during the times of the regime. It was their youth, the years others can be proud about, they have to feel ashamed.
Children accusing their parents or grandparents why they hadn't resisted is nothing that happened rarely. Of course, there are some who miss the times, when they still have been "someone", I don't want to doubt that.

But you can't say there are many or Austria is full of Nazis.
Also for the plain reason, that there are only few left of that generation, people die - and Nazism is not tolerated by our laws and society.

I don't want to deny that there are right wing tendencies in nowadays politics, too, but it is not a phaenomenon that you coud expalin as a ontinuance since the time of the Reich, because there was a lot inbetween-I don't have the time now to give a short lection on Austrian politics, but you can easily look that up in several history books-but it is a phaeomenon that occurs in many other countries, too, look at France, look at Greece, at Spain, at the Netherlands after the murder on Van Gough, look at Turkey, look at Russia, I'm just mentioning a few, I think every single country in this world is facing problems with fascist tendencies, because everytime people are in bad conitons, suffer unemployment and and and they tend to take the easiest way and look for someone to blame.

This is the phaeonomenon, we have to fight, and one way to fight it has always been good education. And there I see a big problem-the eductaion systm doesn't seem to get better, but due to the lack of money for social welfare that was flowing into education system (and healthcare, pension etc.) it is actually getting worse. While some fields like economy are flowering, other fields like history, humanities etc. are being more and more neglected.
Um, got to go now, just some thoughts.
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Old 01-06-2006, 01:47 AM   #12
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Nike, good education is indeed the answer to many a problem that plagues this world. Today there was news about teachers getting killed in Afghanistan by Taliban members/sympathizers all because they don't want the girls to be educated. It makes me want to barf when I hear news such as this.
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