A, B and C: A parable for our (neo-liberal) times

A was born shortly after the establishment of the state of Israel to a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish family. He was an independent child who rebelled against authority – school and exam regimes were not for him. Like most Jewish (but also Palestinian-Bedouin and Palestinian-Druze) men, he joined the IDF, but once his military service was over, realizing he would not get a university place in Israel, his independence of spirit moved him to study engineering in a small US town. Since graduation he has worked on and off in a variety of managerial jobs in the armaments and construction industries. His American-born children were settled in the US so A and his wife, after one inconclusive attempt to return, and despite the longing for home, did what most migrants do and became settled in America, but socialized mostly with other Israelis.

Continue reading “A, B and C: A parable for our (neo-liberal) times”

View Ilan Pappe and Ronit Lentin in Trinity College

Part 1: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKvc2P9nPcE

Part 2: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sCPAR26bio

Part 3: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyGgPaiJu3E

Part 4: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVyIZjRTPuo

Part 5: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIIme0rT_nM

Part 6: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo0bMm2zAec

Part 7: Ilan Pappé & Ronit Lentin. Trinity College Dublin. 17-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQeBoLMS7HM

Human rights, migrants and anti-racism

On September 9 the European parliament passed a resolution calling on Paris to ‘immediately suspend all expulsions of Roma’, saying the policy ‘amounted to discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity’. French Gendarmes were accused of compiling secret illegal lists of Roma and other travelling minorities in violation of French laws on ethnic profiling. In 2010 France deported 5,000 Romanians and Bulgarians (10,000 in 2009), and vows to continue deporting Roma, all EU citizens, even though the expulsions are against the constitution and break international human rights laws on discrimination and despite the European Commission’s announcement on 1 October that it would initiate legal action against France. Indeed France began fingerprinting departing Roma to prevent their return, proving the futility of invoking human rights law (Crumley, 2010). Continue reading “Human rights, migrants and anti-racism”