tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12664114559501625612024-02-19T15:52:07.164-08:00EUtopiaEUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-73291408684630057042015-11-11T03:02:00.000-08:002015-11-11T03:50:22.786-08:00Is the Arab World Facing its Own Thirty Years’ War?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">My boss has
the habit of placing photocopies of articles he read on my desk in the morning,
before I arrive at work. Today what I found was a short review of a book which
argued that the Arab world is currently experiencing its own version of Europe’s
Thirty Years’ War (Rainer Herrmann, </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Endstation
Islamischer Staat?</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">). Just to recap, the Thirty Years’ War broke out in 1618
in response to the Holy Roman Emperor’s attempts to reconvert the Empire’s Protestants
to Catholicism, which resulted in some of the Protestant states’ open revolt
against the Emperor. While starting out as a religious war, it eventually
turned into a devastating conflict for continental domination involving all of
Europe’s great powers. Parts of Europe, including Western Saxony, became
largely depopulated.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.waldorf-ideen-pool.de/medien/Faecher/Geschichte/Neuzeit/DreissigKrieg/Krieg004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.waldorf-ideen-pool.de/medien/Faecher/Geschichte/Neuzeit/DreissigKrieg/Krieg004.jpg" height="317" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Europe during the Thirty Years' War</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Nevertheless,
I think that drawing comparisons between the contemporary Arab wars and the European
Thirty Years’ War is not only patronizing but misleading. Yes, the Arab wars
are religiously motivated. They involve many of the world’s major powers and in
Syria they have caused destruction and population movements comparable to that
of the Thirty Years’ War. Nevertheless, there is a crucial difference. Early
modern Europe was a religiously homogenous space, with nearly the entire population
being Catholic. The Thirty Years’ War broke out in response to increasing
religious diversification, eventually resulting in this new diversity being
accepted. The Arab world in the other hand was historically a highly
diversified space. Syria for instance was predominantly Christian until at
least the turn of the millennium (i.e. during the first 400 years of Muslim
rule). Before the war, at least 10% of Syrians were Christians, among them
several varieties of Orthodox and Catholics. The Muslim population in turn was
divided between Shiites, Sunnis, Sufis, Alawites and Druze, with each group
representing a significant share of the Muslim community. Religious diversity
was very much the norm in most of the Arab world until very recently.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The comparison
between the Arab wars and the Thirty Years’ War obfuscates the deeper causes of
the contemporary conflicts. I am of course a big fan of Gramsci, having based
much of my PhD thesis on his writings. In the <i>Prison Notebooks</i> he states,<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“If one were to accept the fact that
modern civilization in its industrial-economic-political form will, in the end,
triumph in the Orient […], why should one deny that Islam will necessarily
evolve? Can it remain as it is? No: already, it is no longer what it was before
[World War I]. Can it collapse suddenly? Absurd. Can it be replaced by a
Christian religion? Absurd, when one thinks of the great masses. […] In
reality, the most tragic problem of Islam arises from the fact that a society
numbed by centuries of isolation and by a corrupt feudal regime (naturally, the
feudal lords are not materialists!!) is brought into contact much too abruptly with
a frenzied civilization which has already entered its phase of decomposition. […]
Islam is forced into a headlong rush. But, in fact, it reacts just like
Christianity: the great heresy from which the real heresies will arise is the ‘national
sentiment’ against theocratic cosmopolitanism. Then the theme of a return to ‘origins’
will arise in exactly the same way as in Christianity.” (Q2 §90, Buttigieg
translation).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gramsci
raises several important points which deserve further emphasis.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Firstly,
just as there is an inherent conflict between capitalism and Christianity,
there is an inherent conflict between capitalism and Islam. Gramsci argues that
in the case of Christianity, this conflict has become largely invisible because
of the erosion of Christian ethics through casuistry, i.e. abandoning Christian
moral principles can be justified if this serves some greater good (Gramsci
refers to this as Jesuitism). This allows for a capitalist society that thrives
on greed to continue calling itself a Christian society. The Calvinist emphasis
on predestination relieves the individual of their social responsibility. Islam
has undergone no such transformation, which is why the clash between capitalism
and Islam is more visible. The arrival of capitalism, and subsequently Fordism
and consumerism, was in fundamental contradiction to Islam’s religious
transcendentalism. The materialist values that capitalism requires were in turn
rightly associated with the American strive for global domination, providing
fertile soil for discursive creation of an eschatological conflict between Christianity
and Islam. Indeed, this narrative further reinforced by the US-led invasion of
Iraq. Many combatants in the Syrian civil war now seem to believe that the
United States actually escalated the conflict.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Secondly,
Gramsci calls nationalism the ‘great heresy from which the real heresies will
arise’. The European model of the nation-state and the division of the Middle
East among Britain and France following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
created the foundation of the contemporary Arab states. Attempts for pan-Arab
unity have failed and Ba’athism has inadvertently strengthened national identities.
Ironically, despite the 60 million dead of World War II, the nation-state was
perceived as a Western success story. The corruption of Islam was thus reinforced
– not only did capitalism clash with Islamic non-materialism, but now nationalism
stood in open contradiction to Islamic cosmopolitanism. Reformist movements
were the inevitable consequence of these corruptions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The
question is now, why have these reformist movements taken on the barbaric
character of the so-called ‘Islamic State’? I think this occurred because of
the lack of an Islamic hegemonic power. Despite the obvious corruption of the
Ottoman aristocracy and the inheritance of the caliphate, the caliph was the
successor of the Prophet. Turkey’s abolition of the caliphate in 1924 has left
the Muslim world in a state of religious disorientation, which has facilitated
the increasing fragmentation of Islam into competing groups. Moreover, the
absence of a high religious authority has permitted for the issuance of fatwas (including
declaring other Muslims to be infidels) by amateurs and extremists, such as the
murderous bands of the ‘Islamic State’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An analysis
of the contemporary Arab wars would benefit greatly from a conversation with
Gramsci’s <i>Prison Notebooks</i>. Herrmann’s
populist thesis on a hypothetical Arab Thirty Years’ War is not only without
foundation, but patronizing to the Arab world.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-76759428851158197202015-06-19T08:47:00.001-07:002015-06-19T08:55:09.707-07:00Keep calm and muddle through it: three reasons why a Grexit will not happen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/15/greek-talks-european-central-bank-mario-draghi-athens-creditors">Greek talks must yield immanent agreement</a>,” “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/business/dealbook/greek-exit-from-euro-appears-increasingly-likely.html?_r=0">Greek exit from euro appears increasingly likely</a>,” “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/jun/18/eurogroup-president-urges-greece-last-opportunity-debt-agreement-crisis-video">last opportunity</a>” – I can’t take it anymore. For months my Facebook page has been spammed with doomsday scenarios. Every meeting is interpreted as a sign of the coming Grecopalypse. Every statement by a European politician is seen as revelation. Every day is the final chance for the Greek government to avert disaster. Enough. It is clear that this is nothing but a desperate attempt to keep an audience fixed on a topic that is starting to bore them. Of course I am no prophet either, but here are three reasons why Greece will most certainly not leave the eurozone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Firstly, the Greek government continues to successfully place its government bonds on the global bond market. Only yesterday Greece sold government bonds at a reasonable interest rate of 2.5%. If Greece were going bankrupt, it certainly <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-19/greek-default-risk-belied-in-markets-as-bond-liquidity-dries-up">isn’t showing</a> on the international bond markets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/868012030f15b35d4e562e4888ff16e2137c3bdf/0_50_4000_2402/4000.jpg?w=700&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=fd3bb8de0500aab2a66bd09ef2a905b2" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/868012030f15b35d4e562e4888ff16e2137c3bdf/0_50_4000_2402/4000.jpg?w=700&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=fd3bb8de0500aab2a66bd09ef2a905b2" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Secondly, the eurozone governments are aware of the
consequences of a Grexit. It may be true that the exposure of eurozone banks
has decreased dramatically over the last four years (French exposure to Greek
debt is approaching zero); nevertheless, if one country drops out of the
eurozone, financial speculation will surely target the next. Remember that the
reason for the explosion of Greek debt level has been a skyrocketing interest
rate on Greek government bonds following the financial crisis and the
instability of the Greek banking sector. These interest rates could only be
financed using the EU/IMF bailout money. From the point of view of financial
speculators, the Greek sovereign debt crisis has been a hugely successful endeavour.
If Greece drops out, the next country will surely follow. Avoiding this
scenario of a potential collapse of the eurozone is in everybody’s interest. Also,
while Mrs Merkel is certainly no friend of mine, she does see herself as a
European with heart and soul. She doesn’t want the European project to fail
while she is chancellor.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Thirdly, from the point of view of the Greek government,
the consequences of a Grexit would be absolutely catastrophic. You have
probably read the Greek version of the Book of Revelation – but let me remind
you of the best parts: pensions and public servants’ salaries would be received
in a worthless currency; inflation would make imported products (like petrol)
unaffordable; Greece has very little to export and thus has no way of getting
out the mess in the medium-term future. Rising unemployment would lead to
riots, demonstrations and finally new elections. A victory of far-right groups
is not unthinkable. Any deal with the EU and the IMF is better than this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now, keep calm. You’re convinced...right? All this panic
is all just a media scam... Surely, our representatives will act rationally...in
the end…* So, I really hope that this post will be widely read, have a huge
impact and become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Otherwise I fear that we may all
wake up from the European dream into a neo-nationalist nightmare.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*PS: Okay, fine. People don't act rationally. Neoliberals assume that they do, but they don't. A Greek default would thus be the ultimate defeat of rationalism and neoliberalism. Yet another reason why it can't happen.</span></div>
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EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-5148873032092709922014-05-04T00:30:00.000-07:002014-05-04T00:30:31.837-07:00"I Don't Have Any Choice": Forced Prostitution in Sicily<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">3 May 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My job for today was to
drive to Mineo – the notorious refugee camp I wrote about yesterday. After
having breakfast and writing the article on Greece, I left Catania at around
11.30 for the 50km trip. The road was quite busy, and it wasn’t long before I
saw the first African prostitutes by the side of the road. I called Alex and
wanted to ask her whether what I had in mind was a good idea. Part of me
probably thought that I may be putting myself in a dangerous situation. The
other part of me wanted his fiancée’s approval to allow a prostitute into his
car. Alex told me that I had nothing to lose. So, after a few kilometres I saw
another woman approaching and decided to pull over. I asked her whether she
speaks English, and whether she would be willing to speak with me about her
life here in Italy. She was happy to do so, and got into my car.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6UZ-BR37js8Zo0zbCDjYliziwyN2KY9eTvPBUygHZFdWTDsfZtBa9RgFyYnMoQvjb9Wm3YeQeOiGcEqrg-1ei-d4CSS4AoV0q2dAVe9eZxLeDPPufb4r5StfRkl13dJMtkYQnDnGBKHc/s1600/IMG_3505%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA6UZ-BR37js8Zo0zbCDjYliziwyN2KY9eTvPBUygHZFdWTDsfZtBa9RgFyYnMoQvjb9Wm3YeQeOiGcEqrg-1ei-d4CSS4AoV0q2dAVe9eZxLeDPPufb4r5StfRkl13dJMtkYQnDnGBKHc/s1600/IMG_3505%5B1%5D.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Residenca degli Aranci in the middle of fruit farms</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The 21-year old girl was
from Nigeria and had come to Italy nine months ago, arriving by boat. She
vividly described to me how the waves had crashed over her boat six times, and
that she is lucky to be alive. She kept saying how powerful God is. She left
Nigeria because she had known a “girlfriend” in Sicily who promised her a job in
an old woman’s house – but when she arrived, she was forced into prostitution
by that same girlfriend. “I don’t have any choice,” she said and I can still
hear those words ring very clearly in my head. After spending three months in
Sicily, she also moved to Genoa in the north of Italy. It was far more
difficult to do “streetwork” there, so after three months in Genoa, she came
back to Sicily. She has no documents and no money. All the money she earns on
the side of the road she submits to the woman who ‘employs’ her. When I heard
this story I felt totally helpless. I simply didn’t know what to do or say.
Before she left I prayed for her and handed her a little bit of money, which
she said she would keep as a gift from me, rather than give it to her pimp. I
really don’t know whether I did the right thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I drove on, even though I
was still completely in thoughts about what I had just heard. I had no idea
where the <i>Residence degli Aranci </i>was
located, so I drove up a hill, helping me to spot the place immediately. Being
situated in the middle of endless lemon and orange fields the former US army
base stood out like a false penny. I drove towards it through seemingly
infinite rows of fruit trees, noticing immediately a crowd of Africans standing
outside the gates as I approached the camp. About 30 cars were parked by the
side of the road for reasons unknown to me. The entire facility is high
militarised. There was a Humvee patrolling the barbed wire fences, and dozens
of soldier equipped with machine guns stood at all corners of the camp.
Remember that Mineo is not a detention centre, but a “Housing”-facility, as the
roadsigns on the way had politely reminded me of. From a distance, I have to
admit, the Residence looked very pleasant. The houses actually appeared
American rather than Italian, and they did not seem older than 10 years.
However, a closer look revealed the reality behind this façade: many of the
houses did not have functioning windows, and often they were boarded up. I
tried to enter the camp, but was referred to the authorities in Catania which
may or may not provide me with an authorisation to enter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAq_z8LCahgzQxw1Ft7WxCrjCTKM9h6tNaMnhohVxeg1iNr1r5p6g_BNNd1yOCUPzSvV0eWfOo1JKfS1p8vf58oKpQ2LPJT1Kak-8rRm_DzSFcAsVzOyDwmOth2OrCz6sJJ1jLHIG3mQR/s1600/IMG_3507%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAq_z8LCahgzQxw1Ft7WxCrjCTKM9h6tNaMnhohVxeg1iNr1r5p6g_BNNd1yOCUPzSvV0eWfOo1JKfS1p8vf58oKpQ2LPJT1Kak-8rRm_DzSFcAsVzOyDwmOth2OrCz6sJJ1jLHIG3mQR/s1600/IMG_3507%5B1%5D.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Seemingly idyllic</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At around 15.15 I decided
that I needed to speak with people. The first guy I spoke with had just
returned from Catania with two dozens of lemonade bottles and some fruits. He
wasn’t very approachable though, and his English was limited. Then I got into a
conversation with three guys who spoke Arabic between themselves, and they told
me a few things about the camp which were very interesting. The first thing
they all complained about was the food. Apparently a daily meal consists of
nothing other than pasta with oil. The camp’s clinic is primitive, which one of
the guys evidenced by showing me badly scarred wound on his ankle. Rooms are
usually shared with seven other people, meaning that up to 24 people live in
the same building. Everyone who lives at the camp has ID card that allow him or
her to enter the premises. The ID card of one of the guys I spoke to said that
he had arrived about a year ago. The ID card number, which is specific to the
Mineo camp, ran into the 8400s. However, apparently some people had been there for
over three years. If you leave the camp for more than three days, you are
“dismissed,” meaning that you cannot come back. Although you are an asylum
seeker, you will then have to live in the streets. Life inside must be
horrible. The high population density, lots of young men with nothing to do,
and the melange of sometimes hostile nationalities is fertile ground was
constant clashes and confrontations. Only last week, I was told, a guy hung
himself. Drugs evidently form one way out of this situation. Two out of four
guys I spoke with were clearly under the effects of drugs. As the residents
have little or no money, cigarettes form the currency of Mineo. They can be
used to be something different to eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As we were chatting, a
group of around twenty young men approached the camp and eventually walked past
us towards the gates of the camp. “They are coming back from work,” I was told.
Apparently the vast majority of people who live at Mineo work in the lemon and
orange farms that are surrounding the camp from all directions. Although the
people work all day, three different people confirmed that the salaries amount
to only €15 per day. I had noticed on the way that one of the farms advertised
its organic production methods. I became acutely aware that while there is a
European organic label, there is no way of knowing whether a fruit or a
vegetable was produced with the help of irregular workers. We seem to worry
more about the mistreatment of animals than about the exploitation of human
beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">One of the first things
one of the guys told me he was actually born in Barcelona. “I am not African, I
am European. </span><i>I am European Union!</i>”
While I am a proponent of open borders, I would also want Africans thinking
about migrating to Europe to know that the ‘European dream’ has in many cases
turned into the nightmare of forced prostitution and inhumane refugee camps. So
far, I have never seen this exemplified more vividly than in Mineo.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-64594460483056015822014-05-03T12:21:00.000-07:002014-05-03T12:21:08.045-07:00The Greek Deal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Greece likes to see itself
as an exceptional case. Think of the naming dispute with its neighbour in the
north, or the paranoia about Turkish invasion causing an outrageously high
military budget. In turns out that in matters of immigration, Greece too, forms
an exceptional case. In the early 2010s, Greece has formed the hotspot of
irregular immigration into the European Union. Hundreds of thousands of
Africans, Afghans and Pakistanis live on Hellenic streets. It is impossible to
find regular employment, and until recently, first-instance accept<span style="font-size: small;">ance rates of
asylum seekers had been less than 0.1%. Something was clearly very wrong in
Greece.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Until last year, the Greek
asylum system was managed and operated by the police. The police was
responsible for the screening of all irregular immigrants, which means that
regular police officers needed to ascertain the identity of all persons who
crossed the border without passing through a border checkpoint. As was reported
all over the press, Greece employed an extensive and relentless detention
policy for so-called ‘illegal immigrants’. Hundreds of police stations all over
the country served as temporary prisons for people who had committed no crime
other than having crossed a border without valid documents. NGOs, the UNHCR and
a countless number of institutions had condemned Greece for its inhumane
policies. The vast majority of EU member states had furthermore suspended all so-called
Dublin-transferrals, but the effects had been limited. Seeking asylum in Greece
was either pointless or impossible. The police personnel that was responsible
for asylum was both incompetent and hopelessly understaffed. The statements on
first instance decisions were usually no longer than a page, and it was not
seldom the case that people were queuing at police stations for days or weeks
before they had a chance to ask for asylum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFfeSjnhiynxylOQAgEybzpjN1LTaMFGLjvsJ0Sua07-gpCRPrjSr2GnUQSLQNJFjAFnA8fcHeogoXONSpnAO9knESm1j1-FIkmSGTYE-7tE-24h3OVAFsjd5yX3v5-Suc9EcgVt3sa931/s1600/IMG_3381%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFfeSjnhiynxylOQAgEybzpjN1LTaMFGLjvsJ0Sua07-gpCRPrjSr2GnUQSLQNJFjAFnA8fcHeogoXONSpnAO9knESm1j1-FIkmSGTYE-7tE-24h3OVAFsjd5yX3v5-Suc9EcgVt3sa931/s1600/IMG_3381%5B1%5D.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">The main offices of the Greek Asylum Service in Athens</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 2013 much of this
changed. Greece set up a so-called First Reception Service which is took over
the police’s role of screening irregular immigrants. They are still detained,
but only for a couple of days until they are designated one of three labels:
asylum seeker, humanitarian protection or illegal immigrant, with the vast
majority being placed in the third category. Greece is a transit country.
Hardly anyone really wants to apply for asylum. Furthermore, the Asylum Service
was set up, staffed not by police officers but by civilians. Having been trained
by the European Asylum Support Office, the Greek Asylum Service is far more
competent than the police. Acceptance rates for first-instance decisions
currently lie at 18% and are approaching the European average. Five regional
asylum offices and one mobile unit have so far been set up in Athens,
Thessaloniki, Orestiada, Rhodes and Lesbos. Clearly, this is progress, but much
remains to be done. I have seen the queue outside the Asylum Service’s
headquarters myself, and given that the number of regional offices is limited,
access to the asylum procedure has, if anything, become even more difficult.
One needs to consider that Greece is a country composed of thousands of
islands, over 200 of which are inhabited. Furthermore, the Asylum Service is
hopelessly understaffed. Forty case workers currently assess asylum
applications while eighty are required. Funding is insecure. The NGO Metadrassi
provides interpretation services for the Asylum Service, but it is funded by
European funds which are regularly and rigorously reviewed. The fact of the
matter is that even though the Greek asylum system has undergone a radical
reform, Dublin-transferrals to Greece have not been resumed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So what happened in
Greece? Why has the Greek government decided to overhaul its asylum policy? The
first trigger for change was a decision of the European Court of Justice which
condemned the abhorrent human rights situation in Greece. An asylum seeker who
entered the EU through Greece yet sought asylum in the UK challenged the
provision of the Dublin-Regulation which demands his transferral to Greece,
claiming that his human rights would be infringed due to the inability of the
Greek asylum system to handle asylum applications properly. Mr Saeedi won the
case, but the Dublin-Regulation is the cornerstone of the European asylum system
– preventing the large-scale arrival of African refugees in core Europe depends
on the functioning of the Dublin-system which essentially creates an asylum
buffer zone in the EU periphery. Several member states, and first and foremost
the European Commissionincreased pressure on Greece to reform the asylum
system. The responsible Commissioner Malmström travelled to Greece several
times – the political pressure was immense, and it was finally the cause of the
deal between the EU and the Greek government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This deal foresaw that the
EU would support the fortification and patrolling of the Greek borders, while
the Greek government would reform its asylum system, partially with European
money. Frontex is omnipresent – both at the Greek maritime border and on the
small land border. I witnessed the presence of Frontex in Orestiada, and I have
heard of their activities by a member of the Hellenic Coastguard. The Greek
First Reception Service is 75%-funded by EU money, and the Asylum Service
relies on the assistance of the European Asylum Support Office to achieve the
kind of quality that is needed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now we come to the heart
of the matter: the Dublin-Regulation, which determines that the member state of
first entry is responsible for an asylum application, creates a disincentive
for Greece to set up a proper, functioning asylum system. The Greek government
has created an asylum service, but it remains incapable of granting everyone
immediate access to the asylum procedure. This is because the government has in
interest is preventing the re-launch of Dublin-transferrals to Greece. The
Greek government can therefore use the Dublin-Regulation as a pawn to squeeze
more money out of European funds. “Yes, as you can see, we have tried to set up
an asylum system, but we just don’t have the money to do it properly! You want
to have Dublin-transferrals to Greece? Sure! Just give us the money, and we
will build the type of asylum system you want.” Greece has no problem with
taking care of asylum seekers per se. It merely has a problem with paying for
them. At the same time, the rest of the EU, and particularly the core member
states, have an interest in reinstating Dublin-transferrals to Greece. The
Dublin-Regulation guarantees that African and Middle Eastern refugees will not
enter Germany, France or the UK in huge numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Greek strategy works –
it is only a matter of time until more money will begin to flow into the Greek
Asylum Service and the First Reception Service. I am convinced that the people
who actually work there have only the best of intentions, but their agencies
are used as pieces on the political chessboard that is the European asylum
system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">You have now read a lot
about European and Greek interests, but have you noticed something? At no point
are the interests of the refugees themselves taken into consideration. At no
point is the question raised, “How does what we’re doing affect </span><i>them</i>?” Let us hope that this mentality
will eventually change.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-64931558725730949752014-05-03T01:17:00.001-07:002014-05-03T01:17:26.201-07:00The Mafia Connection<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I said yesterday that
today would probably give me lots to write about. In fact, I want to say so
much that I am not sure where to start. I had three appointments today – one
with the Italian Refugee Council, one with the Centro Astalli of the Jesuits,
and a phone interview with a representative of the Greek asylum service. All
three were very successful from the point of view of Harald the PhD student,
and very troubling from the point of view of Harald the human being. Let me
tell you what happened.<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This morning I drove back
into Catania at 9am, having no trouble at all with finding the IRC’s offices.
In fact they share offices with the intercultural centre of the city of
Catania, and I certainly felt like the attraction of the day when I entered the
building. I don’t know why, but everyone stared at me and two girls were
giggling in the corner when I sat down to wait for my appointment. The
interview was very useful. I will not summarise every single detail, but
essentially the situation is as follows: the agriculture of Southern Italy is
entirely dependent on migrant workers. Both my interview partners confirmed
that agriculture in Sicily would be “dead” without the cheap labour that immigrants
provide. Agriculture in turn is managed by the mafia. It is therefore in the
interests of the mafia to get immigrants to come to Sicily. One way this is
apparently done is vividly demonstrated by an incident that occurred two years
ago at the Italian maritime border. When a migrant boat from Egypt (!!) arrived
at that border, the people on it were transferred into a different boat – the
latter process was organised by people linked to the mafia. One of my interview
partners said that he would not be surprised if the mafia manages the smuggling
operations on the other side of the Mediterranean. But this is not were
business ends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1KX3woSD9OGdXgB9HIp42DNyK6vJkMgNy5Pn5hn9Fr4BxTvFHTNPgfWcM7Lg00lNm5_FIyXdYo6Rd9ENNm4ww2iGs3xq_mXVur42_RTf45MMCGi-KUnjYYdmRFnTarjKyrVu_n__lGfBo/s1600/IMG_3489%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1KX3woSD9OGdXgB9HIp42DNyK6vJkMgNy5Pn5hn9Fr4BxTvFHTNPgfWcM7Lg00lNm5_FIyXdYo6Rd9ENNm4ww2iGs3xq_mXVur42_RTf45MMCGi-KUnjYYdmRFnTarjKyrVu_n__lGfBo/s1600/IMG_3489%5B1%5D.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Seemingly idyllic Sicilian scenery</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">About 50 kilometres from
Catania there is a small town called Mineo. Although the town is in the middle
of nowhere and hardly worth mentioning, it had gained a reputation among the
Sicilians since it housed an American army base of about 400 soldiers. The US
army had built a whole village for itself, including an entire infrastructure,
villas and lots of pretty houses. A couple of years ago, the Americans
abandoned the base and left behind a ghost town. The owner of the land the base
was built on, an extremely rich man named Pizzarotti, was now in trouble. For
years the Americans had paid insane amounts of rent, and now he was left with a
worthless piece of land nobody would ever be interested in renting. That’s when
he had the idea of converting the place into a camp for immigrants. Mineo now
houses 4,500 people. As could be expected, Pizzarotti is notorious for being a
Mafiosi himself. Every year the Italian government pays him hundreds of
thousands of euros in rent for his property. Most shockingly of all, the
Italian government pays with money from the European refugee fund – €37 per day
per person. Spend ten seconds calculating in your head and you will begin to
see what dimensions we are talking about. Initially the people who lived around
Mineo were very upset about the relocation of the refugee camp to their
doorstep. Now, they have begun to base their livelihoods on it. Hundreds of
people are either employed in the camp itself, or they live off it indirectly
by selling food to the residents. Officially the place is called <i>Residenze dei Aranci</i> – Residence of
Oranges.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After this meeting I went
to the Centro Astalli. It is an amazing institution that provides help for
immigrants of all kinds. Many immigrants avoid submitting their fingerprints to
the Eurodac-database, because it will ruin their chances of applying for asylum
in another EU member state according to the Dublin-Regulation (in most cases
anyway). However, this also means not having access to many basic services such
as receiving medication. In Sicily, everyone has to right to essential care at
public hospitals, but medication costs money. That’s why the Centro Astalli
provides all kinds of meds for free, including anti-retrovirals antibiotics.
Assistance is also provided for people suffering from alcoholism, which is
increasingly wide-spread because people are sleeping outdoors in the cold.
Although the centre is run by Jesuits and there were crosses on the walls, I
also saw posters with the Islamic prayer times on the walls.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the most shocking
things the lady who showed me around told me also concerns Mineo. Some
criminals have made it a business to drive the residents to Catania and back,
expecting money in return. Money is obviously something immigrants lack, which
is why the drivers often ask for alternative means of payment. There have been
numerous incidents involving prostitution. Furthermore, the drivers will ask
the Mineo residents to smuggle drugs back into the camp. This is another way
that immigration has benefitted the Sicilian mafia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After I left, I walked for
a bit around town. At the train station there were immigrants sitting on every
single bench, many of them no older than 15. At the IRC I was told that 300
unaccompanied minors had recently escaped from a nearby ‘reception’ centre. Of
course, 300 people do not just escape – it is obvious that the authorities who
were theoretically responsible for protecting them let them leave, knowing very
well that this would result in their homelessness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The amount of human
suffering here is difficult to grasp. I remember being in the European
Commission a year ago, being told by someone working in the asylum unit that
the Italians exaggerate about their problems with immigration. She pointed to
the statistics, which show that the number of asylum applications on Italy is
totally normal for a country of that size. It is obvious that the people in the
Commission have no idea what they are talking about. Spend fifteen minutes in
the city centre of Catania or Palermo and you will know that this problem is
real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’ll stop for today. The
phone interview I had with the Greek asylum service was so insightful that it
merits a post of its own, which I will write later.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-91178733825897425532014-05-02T05:30:00.000-07:002014-05-02T05:32:32.845-07:00"You Don't Actually Pay for Parking..."<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1 May 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Okay, whatever I had
planned for today, it didn’t work out. I left my hostel for Palermo quite early
in the morning, making sure I’d be on time. When I arrived at the accommodation
centre, no one was there. But let me tell you what else I experienced. It turns
out that after all, this day wasn’t totally worthless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Driving in Sicily is a nightmare.
If there is a traffic jam, the two lanes on a dual carriageway will quickly
turn into four – cars will even block the emergency lane. I nevertheless drove
successfully into the city centre of Palermo, which turned out to be quite
different from what I had expected. Forget what I wrote yesterday about Greece
and Sicily being not very different from one another – they are. One of these
differences concerns the mafia. Apparently</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> it is everywhere. A number of shops
in Palermo have stickers in their windows though, saying “Pizzo Free,” which
means that they do not pay the mafia. I had my own experience with…irregular
authorities this morning when I parked my rental car. As soon as I turned off
the engine, a black man started walking towards me. I asked him, “Is parking
okay here?”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yes, of course,” he
replied. “But how much do you want to give us?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“How much is it per hour.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Well, you don’t actually
pay for parking.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Okay, so what do I owe
you then?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“It depends on how much
you want to give.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi10wjVAMgb9CG_4Z-_ejrtWZNnpM6pHXQJMIBjzWbOauX0tQITVnABSXlOLcGPkO4UT-XngvhmMHYWCz820DdBZSisrO6ogb5Up0JouK6ZYD2wLBGBOtb88LCcsExUwpfPqJt9ptmeR2uV/s1600/IMG_3481%5B1%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi10wjVAMgb9CG_4Z-_ejrtWZNnpM6pHXQJMIBjzWbOauX0tQITVnABSXlOLcGPkO4UT-XngvhmMHYWCz820DdBZSisrO6ogb5Up0JouK6ZYD2wLBGBOtb88LCcsExUwpfPqJt9ptmeR2uV/s1600/IMG_3481%5B1%5D.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Islamo-Christian architecture in Palermo</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was slightly confused,
and handed the man two euros, hoping that this would be enough to avoid any
damage to my car, for which I don’t really have insurance by the way. When I
got out of my car, the guy was very happy to speak to me though, and I found out
his name and that he had come to Italy from Ghana seven years ago. He usually
lives in Milan, but had recently moved to Palermo because he found it easier to
find “days jobs” there. He told me that the north of Italy is very industrial,
while the south is more rural, and thus better suited for people like him. When
I enquired what kinds of ‘day jobs’ he meant, he talked about “helping with
parking” and agricultural jobs. Now I was onto something – this is what I had
come for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The guy told me that
Africans work in Sicilian agriculture because it relies on the use of manual
tools rather than tractors. Africans have experience with sickles and gathering
fruit. I was very curious about how much people are paid, and after some
hesitation, I was told that a day’s work earns one between €20-30. According to
the man I spoke to, Italians have a strange attitude towards black people, and
that they are not like Germans. An Italian would easily get €50 for the same
amount of work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The more we spoke, the
angrier another guy near the parking space seemed to become. He started walking
towards us, and turned out to be the Ghanaean’s boss. That’s when our
conversation ended. The guy I spoke to was very warm to me and kissed me
goodbye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I started walking towards
the accommodation centre, and I am not exaggerating when I say that about a
quarter of the people on the street were either black or Indian. I quickly
noticed that Palermo has an Islamic past. Many of the road signs are written in
Italian (both with Latin and Hebrew letters) as well as in Arabic. I walked
through a street market whose smells and sounds reminded me very much of the
Middle East. Huge fly-infested chunks of meat hung from butcher’s hooks, and
people were selling chunks of swordfish by the kilogram. I bought a few bananas
and walked on. I reached the <i>Piazza de Quaranta
Martiri</i> after asking a few people for directions. This is where the Jesuit
accommodation centre was supposed to be, yet I saw no signs that would indicate
this to be the case. I called the centre, and heard a telephone ring somewhere.
I was at the right place, but no one picked up the phone. Eventually I found a
doorbell that said <i>Centro Astalli</i> on
it. I rang, and a minute later a black man stepped on a balcony and asked me
who I want to speak with. I asked for Emmanuel, only to be told that no one is
working today because it’s a public holiday. Great.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because driving off to
Catania, I decided to make the most of it and walk around the city. Sicily was
an Islamic emirate for two centuries after the year 1000. Around 1200 the
island was invaded by the Normans, who turned out to be surprisingly tolerant
towards the Muslims. A unique blend of Moorish and Norman architecture was the
result of this intercultural period of history, the traces of which can still
be found in Palermo today. I visited a church that was designed according to
Islamic architectural principles, with domes and all. It turns out that the
Southern Balkans and Sicily do have similarities after all. Both regions share
an Islamic cultural heritage. I am sure that Muslim immigrants appreciate this
heritage, finding it somewhat easier for them to feel at home than in the cold
European north.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After my walk I started
driving to Catania. At many traffic lights dozens of Indian-looking men waited
to clean people’s windshields – I guess this is another one of these ‘day
jobs’. Sicily is a very green and mountainous island. Right now I am at the
base of Mount Etna, the famous volcano. I had never seen a volcano before.
Tomorrow I have lots to do, and probably lots to write about again…</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-60050838069188650152014-05-02T05:21:00.000-07:002014-05-02T05:21:41.228-07:00Arrival in Sicily<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">30 April 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have arrived in Sicily.
This is my final research trip, and it will hopefully conclude the impressions
I had been gathering from the Southern border of the European Union. I have a
lot of plans here, although the thing that currently preoccupies my mind are
the unpleasant effects of some kind of gastrointestinal problem, the details of
which I will spare you. I am going to visit two Jesuit accommodation facilities
for asylum seekers in Palermo and Catania, and I will interview someone from
the Italian Refugee Council. The people who work at refugee councils are often
extremely well-informed, being able to give you inside information on the
problems of asylum seekers that are impossible to find anywhere else. On Friday
I am also going to have a phone interview with an employee of the Greek asylum
service. My plan of speaking with fruit farmers and their migrant workers may
turn out to be difficult to implement. I have noticed already that there may be
unsurmountable language barriers. Nevertheless, I will try to do my best by
driving around the Sicilian countryside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had been to Italy many
times before, although never to the South. My knowledge of Sicily was limited
to the TV-series Montalbano, to the few scenes in the Godfather, and to a
documentary I remember about the ‘Moorish’ traces found in Sicilian
architecture. So when I arrived here, I was very surprised. The terrain is
extremely mountainous, and there is far more vegetation than I thought. Another
thing: the contrast between here and Northern Italy could hardly be any
starker. Sometimes the resemblance to Greece is stunning. You see unfinished
construction everywhere, and pavements that are apparently not meant for people
to walk on. There appears to be a garbage problem, as evidenced by vast amounts
of black garbage bags you often find piling up next to trash cans. Driving is
more stressful than in Greece. There are ports and harbours everywhere, and
lots of people are selling fruits, vegetables and fish by the side of the road.
The houses are very cute, colourful and they usually have lots of little
balconies attached. There is far less tourism than I had expected. I have had
pizza from two different places, and was rather disappointed both times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I will keep you posted.
Tomorrow’s visit to an accommodation centre in Palermo should be interesting.
Hopefully I will be able to speak with refugees as well.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-77832156511836727852014-05-02T05:19:00.002-07:002014-05-02T05:30:45.926-07:00Greece<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">4 April 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My stay in Athens
represents the second part of my field research. The reasons for my stay here
are twofold: first of all, I have family here. Secondly, during my attempt to
acquire authorisation for visiting the detention centre in Orestiada, I came
across a high-level employee of the newly established Greek first-reception
service, which is of course located in Athens. The person concerned was kind
enough to offer me an interview, which I gladly accepted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Greece is not just any
European country. With a population of just 10 million, it is far smaller than
the average member state, representation merely 2% of the EU-population.
Nevertheless, the country has dominated international headlines because of its
sovereign debt crisis that was caused by skyrocketing interest rates following
the financial crisis of 2008. Severe austerity measures, arbitrary tax
increases, ineffective governance and a corrupt political elite have brought
the country into a situation, where unemployment has soared to 25%, where a
highly militant, radical neo-Nazi party has enjoyed great popularity (up to 15%
in the polls), and where the economy has been in severe recession for nearly
half a decade. On top of all that, Greece has also been the hotspot of
irregular migration into the EU. No country has been in the press more the
Greece when it comes to the undignified treatment of migrants. My research
agenda here was very open. I wanted to know about the relationship of the Greek
asylum system with the EU, and about the experience of asylum seekers of
European integration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have been here for two
days now, and some of the insights I have gained have indeed been very
interesting. When I arrived on Wednesday, I had an interview at night with the
employee of the first-reception service I spoke about earlier. I found out that
since last year, the structure of the Greek migration management system has
undergone a radical transformation. Until last year, the police was responsible
for the first reception of all ‘illegal immigrants’ as well as for asylum
applications. Now, two new services have been set up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Firstly, there is the
first-reception service, which screens irregular migrants. Screening means
determining whether an irregular migrants is an asylum seekers, a vulnerable
person, or a non-asylum seeker. About 80% of irregular migrants are part of the
third group. All members of this group should in theory be brought to so-called
‘pre-removal centres’ where they wait to be deported. These centres are the
most notorious aspects of Greek migration management, and there are numerous
reports about human rights abuses in these facilities. Most non-asylum seekers
arrive without papers, which is why nationality determination is an essential
aspect of screening. Nationality is determined by asking questions about a
migrants’ supposed hometown, and by listening to her accent. Recently a large
number of Syrians has arrived in Greece, most of whom similarly do not apply
for asylum. Nevertheless, as a war wages in Syria, they cannot be sent back
home, which is why they are released, often leaving Greece for applying for
asylum in another EU member state. I was somewhat confused by this, as the
Dublin-procedure would foresee for these migrants would have to be sent back to
Greece. However, when I asked my interviewees about that, they simply said that
this does not fall within their responsibility. Another aspect of screening is
a medical check-up. The vast majority of migrants is vaccinated to prevent a
public health threat to the EU. Refusal to be vaccinated would result in
quarantine, although this apparently has not occurred. Furthermore, Greece is
overwhelmingly regarded as a transit country. This is not an official
statistic, but up to 90% of Greek irregular migrants have no intention
whatsoever of staying in Greece. This sheds some light on why the number of
asylum applications in Greece is very low. The first-reception service is
80%-funded from the EU, which may imply that it was the EU that pushed for
Greece to change its migration management.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The high-level employee of
the first-reception service told me that another service had been set up to
deal with asylum applications: the asylum service. This was my next clue. I
have tried without success to arrange an interview with that service, but I and
Alex did a little excursion to the service’s headquarters which is located
right next to Greece’s national police headquarters in Athens. I was told that
in the morning there is a long queue of asylum seekers outside the asylum
service’s offices. When we arrived we saw an Iranian couple who were rejected
at the entrance to the building, even though they arrived well within the
opening hours. We immediately called the attention of the service’s security
employees, because I took a photo through the fence. However, I calmed them
down, and told them that I had already spoken with someone inside over the
phone to arrange an interview (which was indeed the case). An employee who I
had unsuccessfully tried to call earlier that day came out of the building, and
we were lucky enough to be able to chat with her for a good fifteen minutes. It
is much easier to remember a conversation when two people try to do so, and
with Alex’s help I was able to reconstruct most of what was said. It turns out
that since the asylum service had been set up in early 2013, it became the only
route in Greece to apply for asylum. The police was no longer responsible, and
the asylum service has only a few officers. The person we spoke to acknowledged
that this makes it more difficult for people to apply for asylum, although the
service is currently in the process of setting up more offices. When you beat
the queue to get into the office in Athens, it does not mean that you will have
the chance to apply for asylum. All it means is that you will be able to
receive information about how the process works. An asylum application requires
the presence of an interpreter, which is difficult to arrange, especially in
more remote locations. An NGO called Metadrassi is used to provide interpretation,
and teleconferencing can sometimes help to overcome logistical problems. All in
all, I had the impression that the employee from the Greek asylum service was
sincerely interesting in protection – this is a good thing. However, I also
began to understand where the complaints that not every irregular immigrant in
Greece has the chance to apply for asylum may come from. I now had a further
clue – Metadrassi. What kind of organisation is this? Why pays them, who set
them up, and did they also support the police?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I was to get the answers
to all these questions the following morning on the phone. Metadrassi is an NGO
that was set up to give asylum seekers the possibility of applying for asylum
through providing interpretation services. The person on the phone acknowledged
that Greece had been condemned for human rights abuses for not allowing people
to apply for asylum. Metadrassi intended to change this situation. The NGO also
worked with the police, but apparently there were some problems and this
cooperation seized. Cooperation with the new asylum service is apparently much
smoother, as the asylum service apparently does ‘real work’. Metadrassi
receives its funds mostly from the EU, employing 200 active interpreters who
can translate from thirty different languages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have to say that I am
left with more questions than I had when I arrived:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">·
<!--[endif]--><i>The Greek asylum system is taken out of the hands of
the police – why?</i> This question I
could answer by speaking to the police. I have made arrangements for an
interview to take place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">·
<!--[endif]--><i>Is it really true that the police is no longer
responsible? The person I spoke to at the first-reception service used to work
in the prison system, and had a police email address. Perhaps the police
mentality persists.</i> Again, the police
may be able to help here. I could also speak to the first-reception service
once more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">·
<!--[endif]--><i>In the last couple of years the migratory routes have
changed, and Greece receives far less irregular migration. This has to do
mostly with the smugglers. But why have the smugglers changed their routes?</i> If the Greek police or even Frontex had attempted to
cause the smugglers to change their routes, this would be a major international
scandal. Speaking to the police/Frontex would probably not tell me anything,
and I would have to speak with the smugglers themselves. I don’t have the first
clue for how to do that though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-left: 36pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -18pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">·
<!--[endif]--><i>Why does the Greek government attempt to screen every
irregular migrant? Is Frontex here to make sure of that? Who requested
Frontex’s presence?</i> It is not in the
Greek interest to screen migrants, as this means that Greece is responsible for
their potential asylum applications. Clearly, the EU has put pressure on Greece
to screen migrants, and perhaps Frontex is here to supervise this process.
Interviewing Frontex officers might answer these questions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tomorrow I have an
interview with someone from a Greek immigrants’ organisation, with the former
head of the Greek coast guard in the Aegean, and I am also planning on visiting
an accommodation centre for asylum seekers.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-67947233095301879332014-03-19T12:09:00.000-07:002014-03-19T12:32:43.057-07:00Chasing Frontex through Orestiada<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">19 March 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
had great expectations for today’s trip to Orestiada, but unfortunately they
were not met with results. I did not visit the detention centre, and the person
responsible for granting the authorisation was not available. However, today’s
efforts where not totally in vain – research, especially research that builds
in critical grounded theory, is not about everything going as planned. In this light
it would be heretical to know exactly what I am going to do at what time. Research
agendas build themselves. Let me tell you what happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5stwRlk0V5QL8PjsSEon4JWRHmcThsfeUymcTsDF6o43bFPf3F2pk0ea1vNN89E4haV_WyVWAV7E_aApBSAQ5ui5f-4bIfGiMkInEz241QuH7KfKfhek1Dl4MXB80MTcKpEJbJ7XBAeo/s1600/IMG_3323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5stwRlk0V5QL8PjsSEon4JWRHmcThsfeUymcTsDF6o43bFPf3F2pk0ea1vNN89E4haV_WyVWAV7E_aApBSAQ5ui5f-4bIfGiMkInEz241QuH7KfKfhek1Dl4MXB80MTcKpEJbJ7XBAeo/s1600/IMG_3323.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">This is the GR-TR border fence and stretches on for 12km</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
got up early and drove up to the border checkpoint near the Greek village of
Kastaniés, which is about a ten minute drive. As I wrote before, the entire frontier
area is highly militarised. I had the chance to take a few good shots of the
border fence, and to speak with a couple of Greek soldiers. One of them was
particularly talkative, and I could ask some questions. The explanation for the
level of militarisation does indeed lie with illegal immigration. I was told
that the number of people who used to cross this border ‘illegally’ was once
very high. Since the ‘wall’, as the soldier referred to it, was erected, that
number has dropped. They didn’t want to give me more precise information, and
there was some discussion among the soldiers when I asked about this. From what
little Greek I understood, I could tell that they were not happy to reveal
details.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Behind
the border a got a ride to Orestiada pretty quickly. The first thing the guy who
picked me up told me, was that one has to be careful with hitchhikers these
days. If you pick up a Pakistani, you can get into real trouble with the
police.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At
about 13.00 I made it to the Orestiada police station. Everybody spoke English,
and the police officers were generally very approachable. I was surprised at
the number of women in uniforms. After I told them that I was doing research on
refugees, and that I was from Liverpool University, I was taken sufficiently
seriously for them to call someone they thought may help me. I was asked to
take the phone and spoke with the police station’s press officer. He was also
very friendly, telling me that the only person who could give me an interview
was the director of Orestiada’s police. Well, this sounded great! The problem
was that they had received no information about my arrival from the national
police office in Athens. Unless they give an authorisation, no interview would
take place. I tried calling Athens to ask about my fax and my email, but the person
responsible had a day off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhF5zNkD42DYkIccrMQqlGcPmTJFGyUpFOctmn3nBTVBS2RIzjkBDWOFav-28IyZu68xQuWatGFFTWRYX28iHa_4dL1xactbAsN0r8XGb-gBA3QEwObunWfXuFGZh9u39Y3L1yNTyGfrUV/s1600/IMG_3346.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhF5zNkD42DYkIccrMQqlGcPmTJFGyUpFOctmn3nBTVBS2RIzjkBDWOFav-28IyZu68xQuWatGFFTWRYX28iHa_4dL1xactbAsN0r8XGb-gBA3QEwObunWfXuFGZh9u39Y3L1yNTyGfrUV/s1600/IMG_3346.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Trying to get a ride back to Turkey</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
had lunch (best food on the trip) and went back to the police station at 14.30
to call the press officer again, just to see whether they were any news. As I
approached the building, I suddenly noticed two guys in German (!) police
uniforms. They also wore the characteristic blue arms bands with EU flags and
the word FRONTEX on them. I didn’t want to leave Orestiada empty-handed, so I
introduced myself. They were pretty friendly and, in principle, they were open
to an interview – but not without authorisation the headquarters of Frontex in
Warsaw. They were volunteers from Cologne, and told me that there were also some
Dutch Frontex police in Orestiada. Then they had to go. I went inside the
police station to make my phone call, when another two huge German police
officers arrived. They too were from Frontex and seemed like the biggest guys I
had ever seen. They pointed at me, saying, “That’s the guy.” I was on the phone
though, and couldn’t speak to them. They went through a wordless procedure with
the Greek police, and left after a half a minute. I finished my phone call (the
press officer told me to come back with the authorisation on another day), left
the building and watched the police officers disappear around a street corner. I was very curious about what they were doing in Orestiada, but their presence remains
intriguing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
wanted to speak to these guys, so I called Frontex in Warsaw. I got through to
the right person straight away, who seemed very keen on helping me. She couldn’t
promise anything, but told me that she would try to arrange for an interview on
the same day. I called back an hour later, only to be told that the Frontex
officer in Oresiada was unavailable, and that an email has been sent out. I
knew at this point that I would not speak to anybody today. I waited for
another hour in the sun for a potential phone call, but I didn’t really believe
it was going to come. Eventually I made my way back home. It was very easy to
hitch a ride back to Turkey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
did I take from this day? I know now more or less exactly what I need to do. I
need to get authorisation for interviews from Warsaw and Athens. The detention
centre is 25km outside Orestiada in the middle of nowhere. I will have to come
back here, and I need to have a car. This story is not over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today
was the last day of this short research trip to Thrace, but I will return in a
few weeks. So long!</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-55509028875984891922014-03-18T14:37:00.000-07:002014-03-18T14:37:23.002-07:00Hawar's Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">18 March 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today
I did what I came here for. Once again I set off to make my way through the
jungle of controls at Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint. Everything went
smoothly, and I took the conventional bus route to Pastrogor’s refugee camp.
When I arrived I called Hawar, the guy I met yesterday when I unsuccessfully
attempted to get inside the camp. His wife picked up the phone and told me that
Hawar would be outside in fifteen minutes. During my short wait I met another young
Syrian refugee and had a short conversation. He didn’t speak much English, but
he seemed really friendly and happy to meet me. Hawar arrived pretty quickly
though, still sweaty from doing some exercise. I explained the procedure of the
interview, and asked him to sign the consent form. These forms are rubbish. I
understand the purpose behind them, but the ethical review committees do not
realise that these standardised forms can give the impression that an
interviewee’s story may thus be reduced to standardised data. Hawar was kind
enough to go along with the procedure though, being apparently used to
paperwork. Off we went on a walk. The refugee camp was about a kilometre outside
the village of Pastrogor. The landscape was beautiful, and a car only drove by
every other minute.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hawar
was Kurdish and grew up in Aleppo. In August 2012 the situation in Syria’s
second city became so bad that he and his wife decided to leave the country,
just two weeks after they got married. Hawar was in the fourth year of his
degree in economics, and he was just about to finish when the situation in
Aleppo became unbearable, forcing him to leave everything behind. Hawar and his
wife, her parents and her brother paid smugglers to take them to an unpatrolled
part of the border, and walked across to Turkey. In the first Turkish village
they reached, a car picked them up, and they travelled to Istanbul. Hawar got a
job in an Internet café and made a bit of money, but eventually he lost that
job, and the family decided to go to Europe. Finding someone to take them out
of Turkey was easy. Istanbul is a market for war-profiteers. Without war,
smugglers would be out of business very quickly, but as it is, the city is full
of them. As a Syrian refugee, you don’t have to find smugglers – they find you.
Going to Bulgaria is pretty cheap compared to other European destinations:
Bulgaria, €300 per person; Greece, €3,000; Germany, €8,000; Denmark and Sweden,
€10,000. Every country has its price. Greece is in the Schengen area, but many
cannot afford to pay the smugglers. Furthermore, the trip may be deadly, as you
have to take a small boat across the Mediterranean. For Hawar and his family,
Bulgaria was the only viable option. Once again, they left everything in
Istanbul behind and were taken to the border. They walked across. There is a
fence, but it’s small enough to climb over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hawar
described detention in Kapitan Andreevo as the worst experience of his life. He
was separated from his wife and her family, and his locked cell door terrified
him. Nevertheless, his stay in detention lasted only for a couple of days, and
the family was eventually reunited and transferred to another refugee facility.
Finally, they got into a camp in Harmanli. It turned out that Hawar’s wife was
pregnant, and that her parents had the opportunity to go to Germany. Hawar
tried hard to get him and his pregnant wife into what he heard was the best
Bulgarian refugee facility: Pastrogor. Once again he had to pay, but things
worked out, and they were transferred. A week ago his wife gave birth to twin
boys, Boran and Ivan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hawar
knew all about the European asylum system. He told me that everyone knows about
Dublin, and he knew that Dublin-transfers to Greece were suspended. What he didn’t
understand is why people are still sent back to Bulgaria. He said that Germany
should send a delegation to Bulgaria, and that he cannot believe that they will
find what is going on here acceptable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
told him about the ideas to replace Dublin with a quota-system, to which he had
this to say: it doesn’t matter which country you stay in as long as it’s safe
and as long as you can make a living. He said that Bulgaria is a beautiful
country. Everyone he met was friendly and kind, and people do want to help
refugees. If he could get a job and have enough money for an apartment and
enough to eat for him and his family, he would stay in Bulgaria. The soil in
Germany is no better than the soil in Bulgaria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
thought that these were profound words. The final question I asked him was
whether he thinks he made the right decision by leaving Syria. One really needs
to consider what he and his wife went through, yet they still stand behind
their choice. Syria is not safe, and he wants his children to grow up in peace
and security.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTK2jSEo2-tDdwnIlmtPxbk0o3RDVtQW6QuKRJ29B9d3Zn_F1pABXLiZYS7OkxiXuyoKBpc4tO2Ndvfu_tYGIHGMsAq1BrRSVbFlk58VNeHqudF_LgqN8mXM8-ngFJUAbEbCcgE31ajVB/s1600/IMG_3311%255B1%255D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixTK2jSEo2-tDdwnIlmtPxbk0o3RDVtQW6QuKRJ29B9d3Zn_F1pABXLiZYS7OkxiXuyoKBpc4tO2Ndvfu_tYGIHGMsAq1BrRSVbFlk58VNeHqudF_LgqN8mXM8-ngFJUAbEbCcgE31ajVB/s1600/IMG_3311%255B1%255D.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Courtyard of Edirne's amazing Selimiye mosque</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
have to say that I was deeply moved by our conversation. I hitchhiked back to
my hotel with two different cars. At the border I briefly chatted with the
drivers of the ‘Projekt Syrien’ ambulances I mentioned yesterday. They were
German Muslims who drove to Syria to donate the vans to local doctors. When I
arrived back in Edirne I sat in the awesome Selimiye mosque for a while just to
put what I’d heard into order. I hate the fact that I have had to record and
transcribe this interview, turning it into ‘data’ for analysis, but I hope that
this work will give refugees a voice. Hawar said that although he was in
Bulgaria, he hadn’t seen Europe yet. I hope that the Europe he referred to
really exists. I am extremely grateful to Hawar for sharing his story with me.
I could tell that it was no easy task for him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tomorrow
I’m going to Orestiada in Greece.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-30376557825581774222014-03-17T12:51:00.000-07:002014-03-17T14:27:10.893-07:00"If you are illegal, you're just a shadow"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">17 March 2014<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So
this has been the first day of my research. I would not say that I have been
exceptionally lucky. Only some of what I hoped to accomplish got done, but at
least there is hope. But I’ll come to that later. Let me first tell you about
the intricacies of this day, which has indeed been rather eventful…and tiring, awfully
tiring. After a short night of terrible sleep, I found a copyshop pretty much
straight away, and printed lots of consent forms for just €1. A true bargain. I
also had a nice conversation with a Masters-student who studied architecture in
Edirne. I hopped into my rental car, and left Edirne for the Turkish-Bulgarian
border. And what a border it was – a veritable fortress. I passed the frontier
checkpoint without any problems, but at the Turkish customs checkpoint they
realised that I didn’t have proper papers for my car, but only a car rental
agreement. Unfortunately this agreement contained a clause that forbade me from
leaving Turkey. The customs officer even called the rental car company, which very
much made clear that their vehicles have to remain within the country. Thus I
was turned back at the border. I was told to go to the border police to cancel
the exit stamp in my passport. After a confusing drive across the border
checkpoint, I made it to the police station. I made use of the opportunity to
try and get an interview, but without success. Nobody spoke English. I drove
back into Turkey, parked my car, and made up my mind to hitchhike! As an experienced
backpacker, walking across border checkpoints was something that I was used to,
but I have never had to show my passport as many times on a single day as I
have had to do today. The checkpoint was indeed weird: there were section for
border control, sections for customs, and just sections for ‘controls’. What
exactly they were controlling I don’t know – usually it sufficed to wave the
pretty burgundy red of an EU-passport at them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9Z5h2Ox1WQs_CPzbTqtsR74ld0aN7ygCrd6DDCvKl7mj2Pw1m6Tx5T2PbfcNbTe0vhgU63cWrKjM_IBj6QDxVOCNL0c1Ydt5_5XWFpTo5z0CTpjxZN0A_OmI-LUYXhrEBaobYEXmoPG_/s1600/IMG_3283.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia9Z5h2Ox1WQs_CPzbTqtsR74ld0aN7ygCrd6DDCvKl7mj2Pw1m6Tx5T2PbfcNbTe0vhgU63cWrKjM_IBj6QDxVOCNL0c1Ydt5_5XWFpTo5z0CTpjxZN0A_OmI-LUYXhrEBaobYEXmoPG_/s1600/IMG_3283.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Border TR-BG</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">About
half an hour later, at around 10.45, I had made it across the checkpoint.
Determined not to leave from this odyssey empty-handed, I introduced myself to
about everyone I met who was wearing a uniform. The problem is, that if you don’t
speak the local language – Turkish – people act as though you don’t exist. They
just don’t take you seriously. You can say whatever you want – most border
policemen won’t even try to understand you. Nevertheless, I had one extremely
interesting encounter. When I asked for interviews at the Bulgarian border police,
a guy was sunbathing outside who wore a blue armband with an EU flag on it. I
asked whether he speaks German (in Bulgaria, most of the older generation seem
to know some German), to which he ironically replied, “A little.” I could tell
immediately that he was Austrian. Upon closer inspection his armband turned out
to say ‘Frontex’ in some pretty bold letters. He wasn’t ready to be
interviewed, although I assured him that everything he says will remain
anonymous (he claimed that he was forbidden from being interviewed).
Nevertheless, he gave me some pretty useful information. He volunteered for
Frontex and according to him, problems related to immigration in Bulgaria are ‘minimal’.
Of course, his mere presence states the opposite… He pointed out that problems
with refugees exist not in Bulgaria, but in Sicily and on Greek islands. If I
wanted to speak with someone, I should go to the border protection command in
Svilengrad.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAvl1saQhHP5VUbfLsC6N2qBx3Wy_bhzP2-74J-T4wuF-Org8HQFxkn-dVxsmuT69s-v_ypZ5sJ1yficqgSniyjA4YQ5axeQa7jqHB_Z1Ly3CXjtACGuOVI_Yj9GtNJLxxQ80pLqAuXsZ/s1600/IMG_3287.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAvl1saQhHP5VUbfLsC6N2qBx3Wy_bhzP2-74J-T4wuF-Org8HQFxkn-dVxsmuT69s-v_ypZ5sJ1yficqgSniyjA4YQ5axeQa7jqHB_Z1Ly3CXjtACGuOVI_Yj9GtNJLxxQ80pLqAuXsZ/s1600/IMG_3287.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Welcome to Bulgaria</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Well,
this is precisely where I was headed next. Hitchhiking to Svilengrad was easy. I
was picked up by a Bulgarian minibus that was full of women. Only the drivers
were men. In fact, one of the drivers, Mustafa, used to sell Turkish delicacies
in Paunsdorf Center, a well-known shopping mall in Leipzig. Funny to meet a guy
like that 2000km from home. I was served a chocolate bar, water and Fanta as we
drove past a queue of hundreds of lorries that stretched on for many miles.
Finally they dropped me off at a junction near Svilengrad. The contrast between
Svilengrad and Edirne was shocking. The city appeared to be in severe decline.
Abandoned industrial areas, rusty fences, potholed roads – those were my first
impressions. The presence of vast amounts of horse carriages in many ways made
me feel like a time traveller. I was wondering whether this is what refugees
expected when they crossed the external border of the European Union. I had
spaghetti for lunch at a pretty neat restaurant for €1.30. At the town hall I
managed to arrange for my first interview. It was not with the local expert on
asylum questions, but with what appeared to be the only person who spoke
English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Although
the person I spoke to was not an expert, it was nevertheless a very insightful
conversation. Svilengrad does indeed have a problem with ‘irregular immigration’.
My interviewee, Petar, is one of the people responsible for managing projects
funded with European money. Petar<a href="file:///C:/Users/hkoep_000/Documents/University/PhD%20European%20Immigration%20Policy/Field%20Work/Field%20Diary.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>
was of the opinion that the Bulgarian government gives more to those migrants
than it gives to its own people. While refugees receive beds and shelter, many
Bulgarians do not possess such luxuries. Petar’s explanation of the sudden
influx of thousands of Syrians into Bulgaria is that the Bulgarian government
is in the mood to just give to everybody, while countries like Greece and
Turkey make clear that refugees are unwanted. He confirmed that refugees are a hot
problem in the public debate, although he was not politically-minded, and thus
unable to speak about the issue in more detail. What Petar did tell me though,
is that some families are afraid of letting their kids play in the streets out of
fear of the migrants. After all, one never knows who these people are. They may
be rich, having escaped a war, or they may be criminals. Petar told me about
the Pastrogor open centre that was just out of town. He said that the place was
overcrowded, and told me a story of a clothes collection that had been
organised by some residents of Svilengrad. Everybody participated, and a whole
truck full of clothes was gathered for the Syrians of Pastrogor. When the
donations were delivered, the refugees refused to take them. They said that
they did not need clothes, but beds and heaters. Petar interpreted this as them
being ungrateful. There are stories going around of thefts, although they have
not been reported in the media. Petar was unaware of there being major problems
in Greece. He called Dublin a stupid rule, although he was not very
well-informed about the exact nature of the regulation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha2WFuOxoPVe1aHMybJ1P3Snn0JZkm8CR92BNhEl7yFFjNDVQGCYbQ3kTELigVpCIxCWimhMPU6yZZk-PvdiKpwsGWEC8csXpYeYMGH8UW5rnHyRYiOgpIHqv9MZRsipHeUet4FRRNCkLS/s1600/IMG_3292.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha2WFuOxoPVe1aHMybJ1P3Snn0JZkm8CR92BNhEl7yFFjNDVQGCYbQ3kTELigVpCIxCWimhMPU6yZZk-PvdiKpwsGWEC8csXpYeYMGH8UW5rnHyRYiOgpIHqv9MZRsipHeUet4FRRNCkLS/s1600/IMG_3292.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Poster I saw in the Svilengrad border police station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Before
leaving for Pastrogor, I had another look around town. I found the central border
police station, and made some interesting discoveries. The first thing that
struck me was a poster in the police station that read, “If you’re illegal, you’re
just a shadow. The legal way, is the only way.” It had an EU flag printed
underneath. Clearly immigration was an issue here. I spoke to a police officer,
who, although not wanting to be interviewed, told me about the process of
applying for asylum in Bulgaria. The first thing that happens is that you come
to Svilengrad’s border police station to be interviewed. I asked to speak to
the person responsible, but she was on holiday. After Svilengrad, detention
follows in Lyubimets, another town about half an hour away. Once the concerned
person’s identity has been established, they may reside on Pastrogor. The
border police officer advised me to visit both the open centre in Pastrogor,
and the detention centre in Lyubimets. For the latter I would however need
authorisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtVEXtp0oDnrIUM2XS3HEBnckzt_nfd2CmdnLv3lWob11eIEZrjeHHpDHItXnODxR5GgYX4qRBV_qnO6KSdnsUw_vmdY3wSzkYB7EXc8f9wZyxl32curSeaKpRY90tBes8LFqXmI2-ujxK/s1600/IMG_3293.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtVEXtp0oDnrIUM2XS3HEBnckzt_nfd2CmdnLv3lWob11eIEZrjeHHpDHItXnODxR5GgYX4qRBV_qnO6KSdnsUw_vmdY3wSzkYB7EXc8f9wZyxl32curSeaKpRY90tBes8LFqXmI2-ujxK/s1600/IMG_3293.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pastrogor open centre</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It
turned out that authorisation is required for visiting Pastrogor as well, which
is not that open after all. I had to take a cab to get to the place (€4), which
was right in the middle of nowhere. My first impression was very good. In fact,
from the outside, this looked like the best-taken care of refugee camp I had
ever seen. The grass for green, the courtyard was tidy, and the walls were
freshly painted, pleasantly orange. I found out later that the camp was just
five months old. Yet again, English was difficult to get by with. After trying
to introduce myself unsuccessfully, I was forwarded to the camp’s chief of
security. He made clear that I could not just walk in and say hello, refusing
also to introduce me to the camp’s residents. He referred me to an agency in
Sofia, giving me their address, and asking me to leave. He had no problem if I
spoke to refugees outside the camp’s boundaries, which, by the way, were
secured with barbed wire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Me
being a pale guy with brighter-than-usual hair however, I got the residents’
attention pretty quickly. Not a minute passed before I spoke to a guy who asked
me where I was from. I conversed with him using all the Arabic I could think of
before he called a friend of his who spoke better English. He also lived in
Pastrogor, and happen to just get out of a taxi with his wife and lots of
groceries. Petar was right. Most people at the camp was well-dressed, probably
better-dressed than most Bulgarians. At a first glance, one did get the
impression that the residents of Pastrogar were well taken care of. The guy who
got out of the taxi spoke very good English, and after introducing myself as a
PhD student from Liverpool, he was more than happy to speak to me – tomorrow.
Still, this was a start. I took his number and told him that I would call
before I come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
decided that I should get back to Edirne. I was somewhat frustrated at the
staff’s refusal to help me, and it was getting late. Hitchhiking next to a
refugee camp in the middle of nowhere was easier than I thought, and an elderly
man brought me to the road that leads to the Turkish border. From there I was
picked up by a Bulgarian customs officer who spoke some German, but not enough
to tell me his opinion on immigration. I was back in Turkey pretty quickly. As
I walked to my rental car, I was a whole series of German and Austrian
ambulances which had ‘Project Syria’ printed on them. I am guessing that they
are going to the war zone to provide some medical assistance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbZY7H8I0sjXIygnNEa-7Tdz7m4fsnsS6uDfb22w31Kqm9MCOSSYG3n90w7TPXG-egXSBOcNWjwE2YwAo6HEUM2xp3c0G2IBaEOPg4RwiQEfqMDzbGs2LC07Ms6Dr1fU7uf1yInQN6sABN/s1600/IMG_3296.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbZY7H8I0sjXIygnNEa-7Tdz7m4fsnsS6uDfb22w31Kqm9MCOSSYG3n90w7TPXG-egXSBOcNWjwE2YwAo6HEUM2xp3c0G2IBaEOPg4RwiQEfqMDzbGs2LC07Ms6Dr1fU7uf1yInQN6sABN/s1600/IMG_3296.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bridge across the pretty mighty Evros river</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My
efforts to enter Bulgaria via automobile were unsuccessful, but that did not
necessarily mean that I could not enter Greece in this way. The Greek border is
even closer to Edirne, being literally a couple of hundred meters away from the
city centre. I drove across the Evros/Maritsa river, and I became instantly aware that
this would be a nearly impenetrable obstacle for any refugee trying to get to
Europe. The Evros forms the vast majority of the Greco-Turkish border. Only a
small part, right next to Edirne, is an unnatural land border. The border
checkpoint between Greece and Turkey was very different. Controls were minimal,
but the whole area was highly militarised. The notorious fence scars the
landscape. It is about two meters high and stretches on as far as the eye can
see. On both sides it is secured by military bases, which are themselves surrounded
by barbed wire. Upon seeing that river and that fence, it became blatantly
clear why Bulgaria was suddenly experiencing an influx of refugees – it did not
possess frontier fortifications of this type. Once again I was turned away at
the border because of my car being rented. A chat with the Turkish border
police revealed that there were no problems with immigration here, and that
instances of asylum applications were rare at most. I am guessing that this
situation is rather new – why else would this border be more militarised than a
Cold War frontline. Maybe the guy was just making fun of me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRBSA4cygyyvQPIS6HvHkNhRBW-NDRLXVCSAfgNjf8lCTjRyPIbo6NDd3ndvktW1mYGLL0GETwUqVykbHPO2bkfaYihr6Y1YPA0GKPOaRIIxQV1tkdfeAK0p1nbDdO464T-SAWVBScLv7Q/s1600/IMG_3304.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRBSA4cygyyvQPIS6HvHkNhRBW-NDRLXVCSAfgNjf8lCTjRyPIbo6NDd3ndvktW1mYGLL0GETwUqVykbHPO2bkfaYihr6Y1YPA0GKPOaRIIxQV1tkdfeAK0p1nbDdO464T-SAWVBScLv7Q/s1600/IMG_3304.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Abandoned Kastaniés train station</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As
I went for a walk into Greece I was barely asked once for my passport. I saw
Turkish soldiers playing volleyball, and Greek soldiers playing basketball.
Kastaniés, the Greek village on the border, appeared a lot tidier than anything
else I have seen so far. I strolled through the village, which blazed with
freshly mowed lawns and neatly cut hedges. I walked to the train station,
hoping to get a good look at the border fence. I was disappointed though. The
station lay abandoned, and as the sun set, I could only make out the fence
around the military base – the fence around the fence. I made my way back to
Turkey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
have a meeting in Pastrogor tomorrow. Something to look forward to, and
something to place my hopes in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Users/hkoep_000/Documents/University/PhD%20European%20Immigration%20Policy/Field%20Work/Field%20Diary.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a> Name
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EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-4193350179910677712014-03-16T15:13:00.002-07:002014-03-16T15:13:42.311-07:00Arrival in Edirne<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">16 March 2014<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So
here I am! Edirne! My hotel room could be better, but it’s alright. You do feel
like you’re in a different part of the world here. There is a massive, beautiful
mosque outside my window. It’s Sunday night, yet everyone seems to be out in
the streets playing backgammon. All major roads are decorated with thousands of
flags, which I am guessing are meant to show support to a political party. I’ve
driven for two hours from Istanbul to Edirne and scanned every radio station –
I did not hear a single English-language song. It’s not that I minded. I love
Turkish music. But it’s still surprising. As you approach the border Turkish
songs are mixed with Greek and Bulgarian. The transition is gradual. The people
across the border are probably still Muslims. I’ll see tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/1959256_10151936234687595_740172560_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-frc3/t1.0-9/1959256_10151936234687595_740172560_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">View from my hotel room</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First
thing I’ll do when I get up will be to find a copyshop of some sort. Stupidly,
I forgot to print out participant information sheets and consent forms. All
interviewees will have to read and sign before they can participate in my
research. Then I’m going to head over to Swilengrad accommodation centre, and
start doing some interviews. I really have no idea what to expect… Will people
even speak English?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Last
time I wrote I was quite optimistic that everything was going to work out. This
was somewhat unreasonable. Martin keeps warning me that I am underestimating
the language issue. Swilengrad have changed their mind, and no longer want to
be interviewed. It seems as though they have no one who speaks English. They told
him that I should just drive straight to the accommodation centre. That’s what
I’ll do then, but it still poses the question how they can communicate with
asylum seekers. How can they inform applicants for asylum about their rights if
no one can talk to them? I guess this is one of the first things that I will
have to find out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
am hoping for a response from Mr Nikas tomorrow, so I’ve got a green light for
visiting Orestiada detention centre. If I don’t get a response by 2pm, I will
call him again. Alright, off to bed now. Long day ahead tomorrow…</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-28064924047084281882014-03-16T15:10:00.004-07:002014-03-16T15:10:50.153-07:00Tickets Booked!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">13 March 2014<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Finally,
good news! Lots of good news actually. After my initial attempts to get in
touch with the responsible authorities have been somewhat unsuccessful, I am
now on track towards getting this field research done. I tried calling
Caltanissetta and Swilengrad, but as soon as they realised I was speaking
English they hung up the phone. Another strategy was called for. I contacted my
friend Martin and asked if he could help me. He lives in Italy and speaks both
Italian and Bulgarian. Martin replied promptly, “I must help you, comrade.” He
called up the municipal authorities in Harmanli and Swilengrad. Both of them are
willing to assist my research! In Harmanli, the reception centre is located in
a small village nearby. They told Martin that I would just have to swing by and
tell them I want to visit. In Swilengrad, it seems as though I will be able to
speak with the authorities as well. Sounds really good! Lyubimets is the only
place that I want to visit that we haven’t contacted yet. It is home to one of
the most notorious camps in Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Alex
and I also undertook serious efforts to get my research in Greece going. Emails
don’t seem to work. Phone calls were needed. The first thing I suggested was
that we call the municipal authorities in Orestiada. Orestiada is a city of
around 25,000 people right next to the Turkish border. It is one of the few
parts of that border where there is no river which makes entry into Greece for
undocumented migrants significantly more difficult. The city houses the only
Greek detention centre, although a second one is currently being set up on the
island of Lesbos. Alex called Orestiada’s authorities and spoke Greek. People
were reasonably cooperative, and we were forwarded to the local police station.
It turns out that the police is indeed who is responsible for organising visits
to the detention centre, but that it is the Greek national public relations
department who hands out the authorisation to do so. This was clearly a step
forward. A visit to the detention centre was at least possible. We then called
the public relations department in Athens. The person we spoke to had no idea
why we would call there, but forwarded us to someone who may know something
about asylum and migration issues. That person, in turn, was very helpful, and
after a small wait found out the number of Panagiotis Nikas – this was the guy
I needed. His secretary asked me to write a formal application letter to
acquire the necessary authorisation. I did so immediately and faxed it through
right away. I hope that a fax is harder to ignore than an email. They told Alex
that a response could be expected very soon, which I hope means tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another
thing I should perhaps mention: yesterday I booked tickets to fly from Leipzig
to Istanbul. I am leaving on Sunday and will only stay for a couple of days. I
got a cheap hotel in Edirne and a rental car set up. (Can’t wait to drive in
Istanbul!) I was planning on just having a look around the area to prepare for
my real research trip. But now it looks as though I could actually get the bulk
of it done! I am really starting to look forward to all this. Now I have some
more reading to do on applying grounded theory.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-61887737345195422922014-03-16T15:09:00.001-07:002014-03-16T15:09:26.798-07:00First Thoughts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">10 March 2014<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My
field research is about to begin. This is the essence of my PhD. My field
research is the reason I got funding, and it was the impetus for this whole
endeavour. Without it, this project would be meaningless.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What
is Europe? What is the EU? For most academics, asylum seekers would not be the
first place to start. In fact, I often feel as though academics are
uninterested in field research. Indiana Jones remains a fiction, real only to
TV audiences. Real researchers sit in front of a screen. But that is not the
world. I want to see the world through the eyes of immigrants, a group
voiceless and displaced, yet a group with so much potential power. They are the
proof that the EU is not a closed system. The laboratory conditions that Haas
speaks of are an illusion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First
problem I am facing: recruitment. When I submitted the application for ethical
approval, the procedure seemed so smooth. Now I know that what I wrote in that
application was non-sense. I was hoping to simply write the Italian, Bulgarian
and Greek authorities, getting a response a couple of hours later. This was a
total fallacy. The problem is, that for now I cannot think of a better
recruitment procedure. Of course, I have written NGOs. In fact, I have written
about thirty NGOs. Given their values and ideals, one would expect them to be
just as enthusiastic about my project as me, but it turns out that all I have
gotten is a single response from UNHCR Italy. I was very pleased when I read
their message, hoping that this would lead me somewhere, but it turns out that
what I am left with is a list of email addresses that I have to go through.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sicily
houses asylum seekers in three different locations: Caltinissetto, Trapani und
Ragusa. I have written the prefetturas of all three locations, without getting
any responses so far. If they did respond, my research could proceed. I would
acquire authorisation to enter refugee camps, could speak to the local staff,
and I could interview asylum seekers. Finally I could see through the lens that
makes this dissertation distinct from anything anyone has read so far.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right
now I think of my trips to Sicily and Thrace as holidays. Sure, I know that
what I’ll hear will terrify me. When I went to Malta I often thought how incredibly
lucky I had been to grow up in a wealthy area. (Since then I have become far
more sensitive.) Nevertheless, although we are currently blessed with
temperatures reaching up to the low twenties, I can’t wait to see the land of
Commissario Montalbano. Probably the reality of the situation I am
investigating will hit me really hard when I arrive. It really is about time
for me to book my flights…</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-71622623112202391122014-02-18T11:02:00.002-08:002014-02-18T11:02:16.810-08:00The two mistakes of Venizelos in front of the EP last week!<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The EP is a very fascinating
institution, even more so for a social scientist. There are so many things one
could research on, from an anthropological study of the different casts’ social
relations (MEPs, assistants, staff and stagiaires) to how national politics are
being uploaded to the EP level; or perhaps a study on different fashion trends
in the EP? What I am researching in my project is how the international
ambitions of the MEPs translated into practice. At this moment I am working on
what they call inter-parliamentary delegations and their role and how they
developed in the last 30 years. But today the subject of my blog post is not
related to my research. It is more related to my political activism. As a Greek
living in Germany I am very sensitive to the stigmatization that both Greek and
German media (to a large extend supported a part of the political elite) have
created against the other. I was in Strasbourg this week for the plenary; I
decided to give you an example of how national politics are being played out in
the EP.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Greece happens to have the presidency of the
Council of the EU for the next 5 months. Therefore, the Vice-President of the
Greek government <i>Evangelos Venizelos</i> (President
of PASOK) was in the EP to represent the Council in front of the Parliament. He
also claims to be a Social Democrat – hence there was a speech before the S&D
group of the EP. It is no secret that Greece has been in trouble for some years
now and that the current government, a coalition between the conservatives and
the “social-democrats” of PASOK, has implemented some very harsh reforms that
have entirely destroyed the welfare state in Greece. This had dramatic
consequences not only economically but also socially as we have witnessed the
rise of Nazis in Greece. At the same time, the two traditional Greek parties (the
ones in the coalition) have seen their percentages drop with the Social Democrats
having the biggest loss. On the other side we have also seen the rise of the
non-Communist left wing party Syriza and the appearance of another
social-democratic party, the Democratic Left. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">You might have heard that the Social-democrats
all over Europe have a common candidate for the Head of the European Commission:
Martin Schulz. This will probably come up in the election campaign; at least it
is what they are trying to achieve. In Greece, the Democratic Left wants to join
the S&D and will also support Schulz and has already made contact with the
leadership of the S&D. With the European elections approaching and
considering the very pessimistic polls for his party and the direct competition
from the Democratic Left, Venizelos is under extreme pressure. Venizelos therefore came to discuss with
Martin Schulz and Hannes Swoboda (leaders of the European social democrats) how
they could ‘save’ Social Democracy in Greece. That meeting was not public, but
Venizelos announced their decisions in front of the S&D MEPs on Tuesday
night. He said that there is going to be a common electoral list of all parties
that support Martin Schulz. How is that problematic? Well the Democratic Left understandably
does not want to be associated with PASOK under any circumstances (to be honest
I get them; PASOK is responsible for the situation in Greece) and is more
likely to refuse that deal. For the Greek public PASOK has mutated into some
kind of neo-liberal party, as most of its left-wing has left the party and I
suppose that more are to leave. By making that announcement he wanted to a)
threaten some of his own MEPs who might want to join the Democratic Left and b)
discredit the democratic Left in the eyes of the leadership of the S&D by
accusing them of being uncooperative and selfish. Hopefully, Swoboda and Schulz
are not stupid. And in any case, <a href="">rendez-vous </a></span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">after the elections.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The second mistake of Venizelos during that
meeting was to tell the head of the German S&D delegation that Greeks are
not corrupted and that “if we look behind every major scandal in Greece there
is a German company”. I suppose he said that because there were cameras in the
room and he was probably talking to a Greek audience rather than to Mr Bullmann.
In any case, this move is a sign of an incompetent politician who plays on the
polarization between Greeks and Germans. He is no better than the <i>Bildzeitung</i> or <i>Focus</i> magazine. Right now I am seriously trying to be pull myself
together because I am so furious with that guy. You cannot tell something like
that to a German Social Democrat who is part of your political family and from
my personal experience with German Social Democracy there is no discourse like
“Greeks are corrupted”. On the one side you polarize the situation even more
because to your Greek audience you are saying, “It’s not us it’s them.” On the
other side you are making yourself not very likeable to your allies in Germany. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US">story is also sad because it shows a
bit how politics are made in the EP. National considerations prevail, and most
of the timespeechesare made toward you own national audience and not toward a
European public. It makes me furious with the European political elite because
the conservatives and PASOK are the parties they want to see in power; the same
parties that brought on the crisis in the first place. And you end up seeing
Greek politicians who <a href="">hold discourses</a></span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US">about the ‘corrupted Greek state’
when they were in power for the last 20 years! If we want a massive change in
Greece, we need to remove all the political elites in power right now and <a href="">replace them with
young people. </a></span><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span style="font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Well, I guess I went a bit further away and
shifted a bit toward Greece. In any case this is the kind of blog post you can
expect from me. I hope you enjoyed it and see you soon!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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alexandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16718801835044449036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-69144643333383330872013-10-06T06:58:00.000-07:002013-10-06T06:58:45.998-07:00Europäische Asylpolitik: Warum Dublin abgeschafft werden muss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mehr als 300 tote Flüchlinge an Europas Mittelmeerküste sollte uns eigentlich dazu anregen,
über die Grundlagen der europäischen Flüchlingspolitik ernsthaft nachzudenken,
doch bei den Reaktionen europäischer Politiker stößt man vor allem auf
grenzenlosen Zynismus. „Kann man mehr tun? Ja, aber das ist eine Sache der
Mitgliedsstaaten,“ sagte vorgestern ein <a href="http://www.heute.de/Br%C3%BCssel-sieht-Rom-am-Zug-30057204.html">Sprecher von Innenkommissarin Cecilia Malmström</a>. „Man darf sich da keine Illusionen machen,“ sagt der Sprecher, und
weist darauf hin, dass es „nicht realistisch ist zu denken, dass man jede
Tragödie oder jeden Tod im Mittelmeer vermeiden könnte.“ Zwischen 1993 und 2012
sind insgesamt <a href="http://www.unitedagainstracism.org/pdfs/listofdeaths.pdf">17,306 Menschen</a> beim Versuch Europa zu erreichen ums Leben
gekommen, mal ganz von den undokumentierten Toten abgesehen. Ist es etwa
idealistisch zu glauben, dass ein anderen Europa alles in seiner Macht stehende
hätte tun sollen, um diesen Menschen das Leben zu retten? Ein Massengrab im Mittelmeer ist der Preis, den die Europäische Union und ihre Mitgliedsstaaten
gewillt sind zu zahlen, um Flüchtlinge daran zu hindern, die EU-Außengrenze zu
überschreiten.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn2.spiegel.de/images/image-552509-galleryV9-kinr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://cdn2.spiegel.de/images/image-552509-galleryV9-kinr.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hunderte Tote in Lampedusa</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eigentlich
wollte ist diesen Eintrag ganz anders beginnen, denn das Thema, um das es mir
gehen soll, ist ein Anderes, obwohl es im gleichen Zusammenhang steht. Vor ein
paar Wochen sind Alex, ich und unser Hund Napo zusammen mit dem Auto nach
Griechenland gefahren, und unterwegs überquerten wir die rumänischen und bulgarischen
Grenzen. Obwohl beide Länder schon lange zur EU gehören, wird man an der
Grenze noch immer kontrolliert, denn Rumänien und Bulgarien wurde es bisher
verwehrt, dem Schengenraum beizutreten. Zuletzt war es die französische
Regierung, die sich am heftigsten gegen einen Schengen-Beitritt wehrte, doch
Deutschland steht seinem Nachbarland hier in keinerlei Hinsicht nach. Warum das
Ganze? Ein paar kluge Journalisten scheinen da Antwort ja gefunden zu haben,
und verweisen auf eine <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/us-france-roms-idUSBRE98T08120130930">potentielle Immigrantenflut</a> aus dem Ostbalkan, oder auf
<a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20130930-france-against-romania-bulgaria-schengen-roma-europe-immigration">Probleme mit Sinti und Roma</a>. In Wirklichkeit liegt der Grund für das deutsch-französische
Veto ganz woanders, und es wird einem beim Blick auf die Landkarte schnell klar
wo das Problem liegen könnte. Bisher hat der Schengen-Raum nur eine Grenze mit der
Türkei, nämlich über Griechenland. Wenn man über Griechenland irregulär in die
EU einwandert, und ohne Grenzkontrollen weiterkommen will, muss man also eine
Fähre nach Italien nehmen, was für Flüchtlinge unmöglich ist, ohne aufgegriffen
zu werden. Alternativ kann man eine weitere Grenze illegal überschreiten. Wären
Rumänien und Bulgarien im Schengen-Raum, könnte man bequem nach Deutschland und
Frankreich weiterreisen, ohne kontrolliert zu werden, und genau deshalb gibt es
das deutsch-französische Veto.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bereits 1996
schrieb Sarah Collinson über eine europäische Asylpufferzone, welche im Jahr
2013 größtenteils realisiert wurde. In diesem Fall entsteht eine Pufferzone,
indem Rumänien und Bulgarien systematisch der Beitritt zum Schengener Abkommen
verwehrt wird. Griechenland wird so mit Absicht von EU-Kerngebiet
abgeschnitten, um Flüchtlingen die Weiterreise nach Deutschland oder Frankreich
zu verwehren. Für irreguläre Migranten führt der Weg in die Legalität über
einen Asylantrag, denn zur legalen Einwanderung braucht man entweder den Pass
eines reichen Landes oder einen Job in der EU bei dem man mindestens €60.000
verdient. Nach dem Einreichen des Asylantrages sagt die Dublin-Verordnung,
dass in vielen Fällen jenes Land zuständig ist, indem zuerst EU-Territorium
betreten wurde. Um die Reiseroute nachvollziehen zu können, werden von jedem
irregulären Einwanderer beim ersten Kontakt mit den Behörden eines
EU-Mitgliedsstaates die Fingerabdrücke aufgenommen. Es gilt also zwischen den
Mitgliedsstaaten folgendes Prinzip: wenn man einem Flüchling die Einreise
ermöglicht hat, ist man auch für ihn verantwortlich. Ein Land mit EU-Außengrenze
sollte deshalb besser seine Grenzen dicht machen, und Flüchtlinge gar nicht
erst einreisen lassen. Ich denke mir das nicht aus, sondern habe das vor Kurzem
von einem hochrangigen Mitarbeiter der Kommission bestätigt bekommen, dessen
Namen ich hier nicht nennen kann. Die Kommission sagt, es liegt an den
Mitgliedsstaaten ein anderes System zu entwicklen – das stimmt aber so nicht.
Die im Moment gültige dritte Version der Dublin-Verordnung wurde vor Kurzem von der
Kommission selbst vorgeschlagen, und eben diese Verordnung ist teilweise dafür
verantwortlich, was jede Woche auf Neue an Europas Grenzen passiert. Das
Dublin-System muss enden, und die Kommission hat die politische Aufgabe eine
Alternative vorzuschlagen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nächstes
Wochenende, beim Landesparteitag der SPD-Sachsen, werde ich fünf Minuten Zeit
dafür haben, über eine weitreichende Reform des europäischen Asylsystems
zu sprechen. Ein von mir entworfener, und von der AG Migration und Vielfalt
der SPD-Sachsen eingereichter Antrag dazu liegt vor, und ist <a href="http://spd-sachsen.de/sites/default/files/u3724/Antragsbuch.pdf">hier</a> nachzulesen –
er orientiert sich an einem <a href="http://eutopia-blog.blogspot.de/2012/07/vision-of-fair-asylum-system-for-europe.html">Blogpost aus dem letzten Jahr</a>. Es ist leider eine
traurige Ironie, dass die aktuellen Geschehnisse uns für dieses Anliegen Rückenwind
geben. Wenn der Antrag angenommen wird, muss er beim Bundesparteitag
eingereicht werden, und es besteht die Chance, dass er ins SPD-Parteiprogramm
aufgenommen wird. Wünscht mir also viel Glück, denn das hier könnte wirklich
etwas bewirken.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-28949334336997791442013-10-04T08:36:00.000-07:002013-10-04T08:37:06.678-07:00The Cynics Win: European Asylum Policy 130 Deaths Later<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hundreds of dead refugees on Europe’s shores on a single
day should give us cause to reflect on the basic principles of the European
asylum policy, but cynics would not be disappointed if they heard the responses
of our policy-makers today. “Can we do more? Sure, but that’s the member states’
responsibility,” <a href="http://www.heute.de/Br%C3%BCssel-sieht-Rom-am-Zug-30057204.html">says a spokesman</a> of Home Affairs Commissioner Malmström. “Be
under no illusion,” he continues, “it is not realistic to think that every
tragedy, every death in the Mediterranean can be avoided. We are neither naïve nor
too idealistic.” Between 1993 and October 2012 there have been <a href="http://www.unitedagainstracism.org/pdfs/listofdeaths.pdf">17,306 documented refugee deaths</a> along the borders of Europe. This week this is already
the second incident. Is it idealistic to think of a different Europe that does
everything in its power to save those lives? The mass grave that the
Mediterranean has become is the price that the European Union and its member
states are willing to pay to prevent refugees from ever crossing our borders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.france24.com/en/files/imagecache/france24_169_large/article/image/border.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://www.france24.com/en/files/imagecache/france24_169_large/article/image/border.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bulgaria's border with Turkey</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have to say I did not mean to start this post like
this. The issue that I want to talk about is another, even though it is closely
related. Alex, me and our dog Napoleon have recently driven all the way to
Greece, crossing Romania and Bulgaria on the way. Although both countries have
been members of the EU for some time, we have had to show our ID-cards at the
border, as they have not been permitted to enter the Schengen Area. Last week it
has been France that has voiced its opposition the loudest, although Germany
has been equally vocal. Ever wondered why? Well, it seems that some journalists
have come to some very insightful conclusions on the matter. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/30/us-france-roms-idUSBRE98T08120130930">Reuters </a>links it
to a supposed “new influx of immigrants if Romanian and Bulgarian citizens are
allowed to travel freely without passports in the Schengen zone.” <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20130930-france-against-romania-bulgaria-schengen-roma-europe-immigration">France24 </a>thinks
immediately of a potential Roma-issue, ignoring that the border between Romania
and Hungary poses no frontier to EU-citizens, which the Roma in question
clearly are. In reality the reason for the Franco-German veto is to be found
elsewhere, and it becomes quite apparent when one looks at the map of Europe.
At the moment, the Schengen Area has only one border with Turkey, via which a
large part of Europe’s irregular immigrations currently enter the EU, and that
border is with Greece. From Greece, one has to either take a ferry to Italy,
which is next to impossible for a refugee without being spotted, or one needs
to attempt crossing another border illegally. If Romania and Bulgaria were to
join Schengen, one could easily travel to the EU-core without the need for any
further hassle. Keeping Romania and Bulgaria out of Schengen avoids such a
scenario.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In 1996 Sarah Collinson wrote about the construction of a
European asylum buffer zone. In 2013, this buffer zone has, for the most part,
been realised. In this case, a buffer zone is created by the unfounded and
systematic exclusion of Romania and Bulgaria from the Schengen Area. Greece is thus
deliberately cut off from the mainland EU, preventing irregular migrants from
reaching the European core. The only way for irregular migrants into legality
is an asylum application, as regular immigration requires either a rich country’s
passport or a job in the EU with an income of over €60,000. If an asylum application
is finally submitted, the Dublin-Regulation establishes that in many cases an
asylum application needs to be handled by the member state of first entry into
the EU. To verify which member state that is, the fingerprints of every
irregular migrant are taken upon first contact with public officials. The idea
behind these rules is that if an immigrant is able to illegally enter a member
state’s territory, it is that same member state’s responsibility to deal with
them, and to finance and lodge them while their application is processed. If
you have an external border, you thus want to do everything in your power to
prevent asylum seekers from entering your territory. I have had this confirmed
by an official from within the Commission during my PhD research, whose name I
cannot give here. The European Commission says that it can do nothing, that it
is up to the member states to create a more humane asylum system. This is a
fallacy. The Dublin-Regulation, which the Commission itself has proposed, is in
part responsible for the ever-increasing fortification of the EU. The Dublin-system
has to end, and it is the role of the Commission to propose an alternative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Next weekend, at the party congress of the Saxon SPD, I
will have five minutes to speak on a substantial reform of the European asylum
system along the lines of a <a href="http://eutopia-blog.blogspot.de/2012/07/vision-of-fair-asylum-system-for-europe.html">previous blogpost</a>. I had drafted a <a href="http://spd-sachsen.de/sites/default/files/u3724/Antragsbuch.pdf">proposal</a> on
this, which has now been submitted the party in the name of the working group “Migration
and Diversity” of the Saxon SPD. If the proposal is accepted, it will be
forwarded to the national party congress, where it will again have to be
presented. Wish me good luck that things are going to work out. If this all works
out as planned, it could really make a difference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Collinson, S. (1996). Visa Requirements, Carrier Sanctions, 'Safe Third Countries' and 'Readmission': The Development of an Asylum Buffer Zone in Europe. <i>Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers</i>. 21 (1). 76-90.</span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-44431759523516897022013-07-03T03:21:00.000-07:002013-07-03T03:21:12.374-07:00Asyl für Snowden in Europa?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Edward Snowdens Offenbarungen über ein
weitreichendes amerikanisches Spionageprogramm haben in ganz Europa für Schock
und Empörung gesorgt. Millarden europäischer SMS, Telefonate und Emails wurden
systematisch vom US-Geheimdienst überwacht, und die diplomatischen Vertretungen
der EU in Washington und New York wurden verwanzt und abgehört. Die Frage, ob
die EU in der internationalen Politik eine Rolle spielt oder nicht, ist
beantwortet.<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/06/10/snowden102way_sq-e640efc5481e6a88137c4aa402822717bc5c48b2-s6-c30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/06/10/snowden102way_sq-e640efc5481e6a88137c4aa402822717bc5c48b2-s6-c30.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Edward Snowden</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In den letzten Tagen gingen Schlagzeilen über
Snowdens Asylanträge in mehreren europäischen Ländern durch die Presse. Manche
meinten, man solle Snowden Asyl bei uns gewähren, damit die Russen den Skandal nicht weiter instrumentalisieren
können. Europe hätte damit die Chance, jemanden zu belohnen, der uns einen
großen Dienst erwiesen hat. Außerdem könne man Russland damit eins auswischen,
da Putin es schwer hätte, Snowden weiterhin auf russischem Territorium zu behalten.
Ich jedoch glaube, dass Europa einen schweren Fehler begehen würde, wenn
Snowden hier Asyl bekäme, und das aus zwei Gründen:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Zunächst würde Europa mit zweierlei Maß messen,
wenn man Snowden Asyl anböte. Wäre nicht Europa sondern China in den Skandal
verwickelt, würde uns die ganze Sache dann überhaupt interessieren? Niemand
würde das Wort Asyl auf nur in den Mund nehmen, und vielleicht wäre Europa
sogar froh über die amerikanische Spionagepolitik. Wenn Snowden hier Asyl
bekäme, hätten im Grunde alle Amerikaner, die wegen Verrats gesucht werden das
Recht, in Europa unterzukommen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Zweitens
nervt mich die mediale Verwendung der Wortes ‚Asyl‘. <span lang="DE">Laut
Genferflüchtlingskonvention hat das Recht auf Asyl wer<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 1cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="DE">„aus der begründeten
Furcht vor Verfolgung aus Gründen der </span><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rassentheorie" title="Rassentheorie"><span lang="DE" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: DE; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Rasse</span></a><span lang="DE">,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion" title="Religion"><span lang="DE" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: DE; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Religion</span></a><span lang="DE">,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalit%C3%A4t" title="Nationalität"><span lang="DE" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: DE; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Nationalität</span></a><span lang="DE">,
Zugehörigkeit zu einer bestimmten sozialen Gruppe oder wegen seiner politischen
Überzeugung sich außerhalb des Landes befindet, dessen<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staatsangeh%C3%B6rigkeit" title="Staatsangehörigkeit"><span lang="DE" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: DE; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Staatsangehörigkeit</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="DE"> </span></span><span lang="DE">er
besitzt, und den Schutz dieses Landes nicht in Anspruch nehmen kann oder wegen
dieser Befürchtungen nicht in Anspruch nehmen will; oder der sich als<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staatenlos" title="Staatenlos"><span lang="DE" style="color: windowtext; mso-ansi-language: DE; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">staatenlos</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span lang="DE"> </span></span><span lang="DE">infolge
solcher Ereignisse außerhalb des Landes befindet, in welchem er seinen
gewöhnlichen Aufenthalt hatte, und nicht dorthin zurückkehren kann oder wegen
der erwähnten Befürchtungen nicht dorthin zurückkehren will.“<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Die USA sind eine Demokratie mit einer der
längsten demokratischen Traditionen und einer der besten Verfassungen der Welt.
Es wird dort keine Gruppe systematisch verfolgt, und die USA sind mit
Sicherheit kein totalitärer Staat. Edward Snowden hat freiwillig für eine
Einrichtung gearbeitet, deren Aufgabe es ist, Geheimnisse zu hüten. Er wusste
genau, dass er als Verräter gelten würde, wenn er diese Geheimnisse verrät –
eine ganz normale Sache in wohl allen Staaten dieser Welt. Snowden leidet nicht
unter politischer oder religiöser Verfolgung, und ihm Asyl zu gewähren würde
nicht nur gegen die Genfer Flüchtlingskonvention verstoßen, sondern es wäre
auch eine Beleidigung für all jene Flüchtlinge die wirklich hilfe und Schutz
benötigen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Trotzdem sollte man die Beziehungen zwischen den
USA und Europa überdenken. Während die kulturellen, wirtschaftlichen und
geostrategischen Gemeinsamkeiten der beiden nicht zu leugnen sind, muss es auch
Grenzen geben. Gegenseitige Spionage stellt eine solche Grenze dar, die nicht
überschritten werden darf. Die Europäische Kommission verhandelt gerade mit den
USA über die Errichtung der größten Freihandelszone der Welt. Obwohl dies
eindeutig dazu dient die hegemoniale Position Europas und Amerikas in der
Weltwirtschaft zu vertiefen, können beide Parteien von einem solchen Abkommen
nur profitieren. Europa muss Druck auf die USA ausüben: bis Obama die Vorwürfe
nicht öffentlich anspricht und aufklärt, dürfen die Verhandlungen nicht
fortgesetzt werden. Die USA müssen sich bei ihrem engsten Verbündeten entschuldigen,
und wir brauchen eine Übereinkunft die gegenseitige Spionage verbietet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ich persönlich mag Snowden nicht besonders. Zuerst
verrät er sein Land, veröffentlicht dann geheime Informationen im Namen der
Transparenz, fliegt ins semiautoritäre Russland, und stört sich auch nicht
daran, dass die russische Regierung sich das zu nutze macht (denkt da noch
jemand an Depardieu?). Snowden darf kein Asyl in Europa erhalten.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping</span></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-88203416489938459042013-07-02T03:00:00.001-07:002013-07-02T03:00:21.474-07:00Should Europe Grant Snowden Asylum?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Edward
Snowden’s revelations about the United States‘ extensive espionage programme
have caused shock and irritation throughout Europe. Not only were billions of
European text messages, phone calls and emails tapped systematically by the
American secret service, but bugs were installed in the European diplomatic
representations in Washington and New York. The question of whether or not the
role of the EU in foreign policy ought to be taken seriously or not, has been
answered.<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media.salon.com/2013/06/snowden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://media.salon.com/2013/06/snowden.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Edward Snowden</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Snowden’s
whistleblowing has caused an eruption of arguments about granting him asylum in
the European Union. Supposedly, one must not allow the Russians to
instrumentalise the scandal for their own benefit, missing an opportunity to
award someone who has done a great service to Europe. Offering Snowden asylum
would furthermore cause a problematic situation for Russia, which would find it
difficult to justify keeping him in Russia much longer. Nevertheless, I think
granting Snowden ‘asylum’ would be a fundamentally misled move for Europe, and
here’s why:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First
of all, Europe would clearly employ double-standards if it was to grant Snowden
shelter. Would we care about the case at all, if Snowden revealed that the NSA
is spying on China? We might actually be grateful about the additional
intelligence. The only reason why the case is of concern to us is because it
affects Europe. If principles rather than double-standards where employed, all
persons wanted by the Americans for treason are potential asylum applicants in
Europe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Secondly,
I am somewhat annoyed by the media’s use of the word ‘asylum’. The Geneva
Convention on Asylum defines a refugee in the following manner:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 1cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“A person who owing to a
well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion,
nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is
outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is
unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not
having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual
residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is
unwilling to return to it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-right: 1cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The
United States is a democratic country, with one of the longest democratic
traditions and one of the best constitutions in the world. No group is
systematically persecuted, and the US is certainly no totalitarian state.
Edward Snowdon voluntarily worked for an agency whose job it is to keep
secrets. He knew that if he accepts this job, breaching the terms of his
contract may be considered treason. This is not unique to the US, but it is the
case in pretty much all states. Snowdon does not suffer from persecution, and
granting him asylum would not only go against the Geneva Convention on the
matter, but it would be an insult to all those refugees who come to Europe in a
serious need for protection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nevertheless,
the relationship between the EU and the US needs to be reconsidered. While the
cultural, economic and geostrategic ties between the two regions are undeniable,
there are limits to the strains that can be put on the alliance. The European Commission
is currently in the process of negotiating the transatlantic free-trade
agreement, which would create the largest FTA in the world. While this FTA
clearly serves the purpose of entrenching the hegemonic position of Europe and
America in the global political economy, both Europe and America may nevertheless benefit from
it immensely. Pressure ought to be put on the US by putting these negotiations
on halt until Obama has issued a public statement clarifying the accusations.
The US needs to apologise to its closest ally, and an agreement between Europe and
America preventing hidden mutual surveillance is needed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I
personally don’t like Snowden very much. He betrays his country, publishes
secret information in the name of transparency, goes to semi-authoritarian Russia,
and then allows the Russian government to instrumentalise the scandal for its
own benefit (anyone else think of Depardieu?). Granting him asylum in Europe
ought to be out of the question.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping</span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-6525435603780537222013-06-14T07:13:00.000-07:002013-06-14T07:13:50.844-07:00Irrwege der Sparpolitik Teil I: Die Fehldeutung der Krise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Vor ein paar Tagen stellte sich der französische
Präsident Hollande bei einer Konferenz mit japanischen Unternehmen ans
Rednerpult und verkündete lautstark: „Die Krise ist vorbei!“ Wow, das sind ja
tollte Nachrichten. Leider hat die OECD gleichzeitig ihre diesjährige
Wachstumsprognose für die Eurozone auf -0,6% nach unten korrigiert. Nach vier
Jahren Austerität zeigen sich noch immer keine Erfolge, und ich befürchte dass
die Sparpolitik Europa in einen Abgrund trei<span style="font-size: small;">bt, aus dem es kein Entkommen mehr
gibt. Die Sparpolitik gehört nicht bloß abgeschwächt, sondern abgeschafft.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dieser Post soll der erste von einer Reihe von
Artikeln zu den Fehlern der Sparpolitik werden, und er orientiert zu einem
großen Teil an einem Artikel von Robert Boyer zu diesem Thema. Einer der
Hauptgründe für des unweigerliche Scheitern der Sparpolitik ist eine
fehlleitete Diagnose der Krise – Europas Poltiker verschreiben Antibiotika
gegen einen Virus. Eine Grundannahme der Austerität ist, dass die Krise durch
unverantwortlich hohe Staatsausgaben verursacht wurde, während sie im Grunde nur
ein Auswuchs des privaten Kreditbooms in den USA ist, der auch zur Finanzkrise
geführt hat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://bilder.t-online.de/b/63/76/74/66/id_63767466/tid_da/der-franzoesische-praesident-fran-ois-hollande-in-tokio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://bilder.t-online.de/b/63/76/74/66/id_63767466/tid_da/der-franzoesische-praesident-fran-ois-hollande-in-tokio.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Hollande in Japan: "Die Krise ist vorbei!"</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Die Deregulierung der Finanzindustrie in den 80er
Jahren hat es erlaubt, dass Kredite mit geringer Bonität* abgesichert wurden,
indem man sie in Kreditpaketen mit Krediten hoher Qualität vermischte. Man nahm
an, dass dadurch des Ausfallrisiko dieser Kredite auf in Minimum reduziert
werden könnte, was dazu führte, dass immer mehr der ärmsten Amerikaner Kredite bekommen
konnten. Die Banken fühlten sich von der Verantwortung befreit, sich sorgfältig
ihre Schuldner auszusuchen, und eine Immobilienblase begann zu wachsen. Der
freie und unbesteuerte, weltweite Handel mit Finanzprodukten brachte diese
toxischen Kreditpakete unweigerlich auch nach Europa, und als die Blase
platzte, mussten die meißten EU-Mitgliedsstaaten ihre ruinierten Banken mit
staatlichen Rettungspaketen unter die Arme greifen. Die Krise ist nicht das
Ergebnis unverantwortlicher Haushaltspolitik, sondern eines deregulierten
Finanzmarktes. Spanien hatte 2008 dank seines boomenden Immobilienmarktes sogar
einen Haushaltsüberschuss.<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Gründe
der Deregulierung der Finanzindustrie<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSxw90ABLN3VRfcU_N9qA5JoMNj_-uzPSPu8qf7szCILVAjeus-5XQ-BAzmwMZZi7YrjzWPt2CsiCGoJ59mcsayjpUo1hV20D5ThDKW9IMkxDxApRcRkjGwPBuIvO1oBSFeVNHqXGBjcXv/s1600/Figure+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSxw90ABLN3VRfcU_N9qA5JoMNj_-uzPSPu8qf7szCILVAjeus-5XQ-BAzmwMZZi7YrjzWPt2CsiCGoJ59mcsayjpUo1hV20D5ThDKW9IMkxDxApRcRkjGwPBuIvO1oBSFeVNHqXGBjcXv/s320/Figure+2.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Die wachsende Ungleichheit in den USA</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Die Geschichte der Krise beginnt unmittelbar nach
dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, als eine keynesianische Wirtschaftspolitik zu Jahrzehnten
nachhaltigen und stetigen Wachstums beitrug. Bis in die später 70er Jahre
stiegen sowohl die Produktivität als auch die Gehälter immer mehr an. Als
dieser Trend dann in den USA ins Stocken gerat, begannen die Löhne von gering
ausgebildeten Arbeitern zu stagnieren. Gleichzeitig stiegen aber die Gehälter
für Fachkräfte weiter an, und es bildete sich eine Einkommensschere.
Weitreichende Sozialsysteme gleichten diese Entwicklung anfangs noch aus, doch
sie basierten auf der Solidität der Reichen gegenüber der Armen, und in den
80er Jahren regten sich erste Widerstände. Die staatlichen Sozialsysteme
mussten immer stärker durch Kredite finanziert werden, und die Staatsverschuldung
stieg massiv an. Insofern kan man öffentliche Schulden aus Versuch der
Regierungen verstehen die steigende gesellschaftliche Ungleichheit
auszugleichen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Die Finanzindustrie wurde nicht nur durch die
wachsende staatliche Schuldenabhängigkeit immer wichtiger, sondern auch
dadurch, dass man versuchte, trotz der stagnierenden Produktion künstlich
Wachstum zu erzeugen. Wirtschaftswachstum und hohe Staatsausgaben konnten nur
durch Innovation in der Finanzindustrie aufrecht erhalten werden, und die Deregulierung
des Finanzsektors wurde als beste Methode angesehen, dies zu erreichen – diese
Deregulierung ist somit als Wurzel des Finanzkrise von 2008 anzusehen, durch
die die Sparpolitik ausgelöst wurde.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Strukturelle
Probleme in der Eurozone<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR2e4sX8uZYGjfuUQkfobKBFpTYD_8dHZHWnZLbnZFl3Wo922uxMjZVaPIc-2EJOSFJ_0R-0nERZAKcaayJAon0XTsFlPWnGGgwZe6Gqm5kkuJl9zVprhwDpBvO0LQavBq30HrC3zE3LIp/s1600/Figure+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR2e4sX8uZYGjfuUQkfobKBFpTYD_8dHZHWnZLbnZFl3Wo922uxMjZVaPIc-2EJOSFJ_0R-0nERZAKcaayJAon0XTsFlPWnGGgwZe6Gqm5kkuJl9zVprhwDpBvO0LQavBq30HrC3zE3LIp/s320/Figure+1.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Die Polarisierung von<br />Außenhandelsüberschüssen/-defiziten in Europa</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Die Probleme von finanzgetriebenem Wachstum wurden in Europa durch die Währungsunion von
1999 verschärft. Die Einführung des Euro unter strengen, anti-inflationären
Regeln hat die Mitgliedsstaaten an einer künstlichen Währungsabwertung
gehindert, und die Eurozone ist so konstruiert, dass es keinen organisierten
Ausgleichsmechanismus für dieses Problem gibt. Es wurde einfach angenommen,
dass sich durch mehr Preistransparenz die wirtschaftliche Lage in den
Mitgliedsstaaten angleichen würde; die Realität jedoch sah ganz anders aus.
Sogar noch vor der Bargeldeinführung 2002 begann sich die Eurozone zu teilen:
da die Regierungen noch immer mit dem Versuch beschäftigt waren ihre
Sozialsystem aufrecht zu erhalten, musste Geld beschafft werden, und das
funktionierte nicht über eine exportanregende Währungsabwertung. Deutschland
betrieb eine deflationäre Niedriglohnpolitik, die den gleichen Effekt auslöst,
und die Deutschland zum Exportweltmeister machte. Andere Mitgliedsstaaten
besaßen keine großen Produktionskapazitäten, und konzentierten sich stattdessen
aus kreditgetriebenes Wachstum und auf ihre Finanzsektoren. Diese Länder waren
2008 dann besonders verwundbar, als die amerikanische Immobilienblase platzte.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Die
Sparpolitik ist die falsche Heilmethode<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Der Mythos von unverantwortlichen Staatsausgaben
ist äußert oberflächlich, und bricht bei genauerem Hinschauen in sich zusammen.
Wenn die Kommission ihren Diskurs und ihre Politikempfehlungen nicht
fundamental ändert, wird sich Europa nicht erholen können. Die Regulierung der
Finanzmärkte, und die Einrichtung eines permantenten europäischen
Solidaritätsmechanismus sind von zentraler Bedeutung für die Zurückgewinnung
wirtschaftlicher Stärke, und für den Erfolg des Projekts Europa. Die
Sparpolitik zerstört nicht nur die Wirtschaft, sondern sie verpflanzt die
wirtschaftliche Spaltung Europas in die Köpfe seiner Bürger.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">* Kurz gesagt ist die Bonität die Wertigkeit
eines Kredits. Je höher die Bonität, desto größer ist die Chance, dass dieser
Kredit in die Bank zurückgezahlt wird.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Bitte
lest auch: Boyer, R. (2012). The four fallacies of contemporary austerity
policies: the lost Keynesian legacy. </span><i>Cambridge
Journal of Economics</i>, 36. 283-312.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-60877716142410673652013-06-13T06:35:00.001-07:002013-06-13T07:46:08.988-07:00The Latest Act of the Greek Tragedy: Public Broadcasters and European Democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Last Tuesday I went to see Before Midnight in the cinema. I loved the fact that it was filmed in the Southern Peloponnese, and when I come back home, I realize that ERT - the Greek television and radio broadcaster - is closed. Some times ago we were saying here in this blog that the crisis is not over despite what the head of the Greek government was saying. Once again events are proving us right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />As shocked as many other people, I immediately reacted on the spot to share my disagreement. The comment caused some of my Facebook friends to point out that I should get myself informed about the wages of the people in ERT and how ERT has been continually wasting Greek state funds. I have many feelings on this event that I will try to share here as clearly as possible. On the one side you need to understand that I am part of the Greek diaspora, being born and raised in Brussels and that I therefore have a particularly emotional attachment to ERT. I will thus argue why it is important to for Greece to have a public broadcaster.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-507567-galleryV9-cylm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-507567-galleryV9-cylm.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fired ERT employees</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Today I am a 25 year old greek who has lived all her life outside Greece. However, when I go to Greece no one can tell. I speak, read and write Greek fluently and I understand all Greek cultural references. Why is that? My parents of course, we spoke Greek at home and they also insisted on the fact that my brother and I go to Greek school as kids. Like all kids we hated it, but at the end of the day I am so grateful to my parents for forcing us to go, because Greek school was an important factor in the construction of my Greek identity. But there would have been no Greek school without the Greek state which funds Greek teachers in countries where there is a big Greek community. Without this service, me and my brother would not consider ourselves Greek today.<br /><br />The same happens for the Greek broadcaster ERT. I remember the first time we watched Greek TV in Belgium: I was so exited that I was gonna be able to watch TV in Greek like I did during my holidays. Of course I was quickly disappointed because the series I used to watch were broadcasted by private channels. But as I grew up I became more and more interested in Greek public life and ERT was definitely a part of it. Without it I would not have been able to follow the debates that were going on in Greece, as in my house we did not get a computer until I was 17. So as a part of the Greek diaspora, ERT has been for years the link between me and Greece, a link that has now come to disappear. Of course internet is here and I have the possibility to get informed through it. But don’t forget that I am fluent in Greek, which is not the case for the entire Greek diaspora, and all those people who sometimes are further away than I am from Greece, won’t have the possibility to perpetuate their link with Greece. But this is not the first case where the Greek state has completely ignored its immigrant communities. Greeks who leave abroad cannot vote in Greek national elections, they have pay money to take a plane and go to Greece if they want to vote.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What shocked me the most in all this story is the lack of public debate on the issue, not even in the Greek Parliament. The whole thing was decided though a ministerial ruling that did not need to go through the Greek Parliament. I am not an expert on Greek public law, but when I was studying Belgian public law they taught us that a ministerial ruling is supposed to help the implementation of a law that was passed through the Parliament. I still struggle to understand the logic behind shutting down ERT. I doubt that the government would close the Greek public electricity provider (ΔΕΗ) or the water provider (ΕΥΔΑΠ) so abruptly - it would create chaos in Greece. So on Tuesday the Greek government decided that the right to information was a secondary right of Greek citizens at the moment, thereby de facto bringing the country 30 years back. The governments leaves the right to information to private interests because what is left today in Greece are private channel and radios whose main aim is entertainment.<br /><br /> From the reactions in the international media, but also by Greeks in Greece and abroad it looks like the government underestimated the importance of its public broadcaster. In fact, I believe that every democratic country should have a public broadcaster that reflects the public interests. The Lisbon Treaty agrees with me, stating that “the system of public broadcasting in the Member States is directly related to the democratic, social and cultural needs of each society and to the need to preserve media pluralism.” But I will make a small clarification because I read somewhere that shutting down ERT is against the Lisbon Treaty. It is not. What the Lisbon Treaty says is that the Member States have the right to finance a public broadcaster as long as it does not go against the rules of trade and competition of the EU. Basically what it means is that the European Commission did not have the right to ask the Greek government to close ERT. That is why yesterday the spokesperson of the Commission made clear that the EC never asked such a thing from the Greek government. That would have been against the Treaties.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now what the Greek government has been saying all this time is that ERT did not reflect the public interest and was a nod of clientelism and corruption, which drained the state finance. Well with that definition in mind I can think of some other Greek institutions that need to be shut down. For example today the Greek Parliament has 300 parliamentarians; for a country of 10 million people it is way too much. Why not cut their number in half??</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyway, once again it seems that this 'euro crisis' has set a bad precedent in European politics that undermines the supposedly democratic features of Greece and of the European Union. But what also pisses me off the most is that now international media are shocked by what is happening in Greece. This 360 degree turn of discourse in the media, comes a bit late. Well, but better late than never...</span><!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<!--EndFragment-->
</div>
</div>
alexandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16718801835044449036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-62058535136512276942013-05-30T06:07:00.000-07:002013-05-30T06:07:13.049-07:00Pitfalls of Austerity Part I: A Misdiagnosed Crisis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Yesterday the European Commission gave its annual
recommendations for the member states’ economic policies. Barroso said, that
“Europe must move beyond the crisis.” Policy proposals focus on growth, rather
than austerity, allowing several member states to take more time to cut their
deficits. The EU’s executive celebrated the reduction of countries suffering
from severe deficits from 24 to 16 since 2011, calling on Germany to consider
wage increases to boost domestic demand. Wow, it seems like the crisis is about
to pass! Of course, at the same time the OECD reduced the eurozone’s growth
forecase to -0.6% this year, down from -0.1% six months earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.acus.org/files/images/barroso.preview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://www.acus.org/files/images/barroso.preview.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Barroso seems lost</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Commission is panicking, and it has got every reason
to. The EU’s strategy to combat the crisis is failing, and calling the
Commission’s proposals “a shift from austerity,” as <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/priorities/move-crisis-commission-tells-mem-news-528135">EurActiv </a>does, seems almost
cynical. Giving the member states a few extra years to cut their deficits
cannot seriously be called a policy shift, particularly as the proposal is met with
resistance from the EU’s largest member state. Austerity should not be weakened
a bit, as this would mean a mere extension of the policy – it has to be
abandoned altogether. It is 2013, and austerity has been in place for four
years without success. It seems necessary to spell out once more why austerity
is a misguided, dangerous and hopeless policy that will lead Europe into an
abyss that it might not recover from.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This post is the first of a series of blog posts
discussing the fallacies of austerity. It draws heavily on an article by Robert
Boyer on the subject. One of the major reasons for why austerity cannot work is
because it is based on a false diagnosis of the roots of the crisis – Europe’s
policy-makers are administering antibiotics against a virus. <i>The underlying assumption behind austerity
is that the crisis is caused by irresponsible public spending, when it has
really the result of a private credit boom in the US.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The deregulation of the banking sector in the 1980s
allowed for toxic subprime loans to be securitized by mixing them with high
quality loans. It was thought that this would spread out the fallout risk of
these loans to a minimum, allowing for a surge of private lending to the
poorest fraction of Americans. Banks felt relieved of the responsibility
related to the need for the careful selection of their debtors, and the real estate
bubble was allowed to grow. The untaxed free global trade with financial
products enabled these loans to be spread out to Europe in particular, and when
the bubble burst, several EU member states became afflicted with excessive debt
burdens as a result of having to bail out their ruined banks. The crisis is not
the result of irresponsible public spending, but of a deregulated financial
market. Spain even ran a budget surplus before the shock of 2008 as a result of
its own booming real estate market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Underlying Causes
of Financial Deregulation<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSxw90ABLN3VRfcU_N9qA5JoMNj_-uzPSPu8qf7szCILVAjeus-5XQ-BAzmwMZZi7YrjzWPt2CsiCGoJ59mcsayjpUo1hV20D5ThDKW9IMkxDxApRcRkjGwPBuIvO1oBSFeVNHqXGBjcXv/s1600/Figure+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSxw90ABLN3VRfcU_N9qA5JoMNj_-uzPSPu8qf7szCILVAjeus-5XQ-BAzmwMZZi7YrjzWPt2CsiCGoJ59mcsayjpUo1hV20D5ThDKW9IMkxDxApRcRkjGwPBuIvO1oBSFeVNHqXGBjcXv/s400/Figure+2.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Growing inequality in the US in the late 20th century</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The story of the crisis begins after WWII. Keynesian
policies were adopted, allowing for a steady and sustainable growth pattern in
the capitalist world over the post-War decades. Productivity and the mean
incomes per household were rising. In the US of the late 1970s, the increase in
productivity began to slow down, causing the wages for low-skilled labour to
stagnate. Wages for in the services sector and in the high-tech industries on
the other hand continued to increase, initiating the growth of the income gap. Initially
governments were able to compensate for this trend by the establishment of extensive
welfare systems, which were based on the solidarity of those with high
salaries. In the 1980s, this assumed solidarity was quickly met with
resistance, and governments began to finance their welfare system with cheap
credit from their central banks. This caused public debt to grow radically.
Public debt may thus be seen as the attempt to states to balance out the rising
inequality in their societies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The increasing importance of the financial sectors was
due to the rising dependence of governments on debt, as well as to the use of
the financial industries to compensate for the slowing growth figures of the
manufacturing sector. Economic growth and high public spending could only be
sustained by innovation in the financial sector – the deregulation of the
financial ‘industry’ was seen as the most effective method to ensure its
continuing growth. It is that deregulation that ultimately allowed for the
emergence of the financial crisis of 2008 which triggered the implementation of
austerity policies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Structural
Problems within the Eurozone<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR2e4sX8uZYGjfuUQkfobKBFpTYD_8dHZHWnZLbnZFl3Wo922uxMjZVaPIc-2EJOSFJ_0R-0nERZAKcaayJAon0XTsFlPWnGGgwZe6Gqm5kkuJl9zVprhwDpBvO0LQavBq30HrC3zE3LIp/s1600/Figure+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR2e4sX8uZYGjfuUQkfobKBFpTYD_8dHZHWnZLbnZFl3Wo922uxMjZVaPIc-2EJOSFJ_0R-0nERZAKcaayJAon0XTsFlPWnGGgwZe6Gqm5kkuJl9zVprhwDpBvO0LQavBq30HrC3zE3LIp/s400/Figure+1.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Polarization of trade surpluses/deficits in Europe</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The finance-based growth of the post-1970s was exacerbated in
Europe by the introduction of the euro. The introduction of a common currency
under strict anti-inflationary regulations disallowed the member states from
devaluing their currencies. When the euro was designed, policy-makers did not
think of a compensating mechanism for this problem, and it was assumed that the
price transparency linked to the common currency would drive the participating
economies to convergence. Reality was quite different. Even before the
introduction of the euro banknotes in 2002, the eurozone had begun to divide.
Still faced with the effort to compensate for the rising inequality within
their societies, the member states adopted different strategies to finance
their welfare systems without increasing exports by devaluing their currencies.
Germany adopted a deflationary low-wage policy, which has the same effect as a
currency devaluation. This drove up Germany’s exports. Having no strong
manufacturing sectors of their own, other member states focused on an imaginary
credit-led growth, leading to the vast growth of their financial industries.
When the real-estate bubble burst in 2008, these countries were particularly
vulnerable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Austerity is
Fighting the Wrong Malady<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The myth of irresponsible public spending is extremely
superficial, and falls apart upon a minimum of close examination. As long as
the European Commission does not fundamentally change its discourse and its
policy recommendations on the crisis, Europe cannot recover. The re-regulation
of the financial markets, and the establishment of a permanent European
solidarity mechanism is of paramount importance to economic recovery and to the
success of European integration. Austerity is not only destroying the economy,
but it is translating the economic divisions of Europe into the hearts and
minds of Europe’s citizens.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also read: Boyer, R. (2012). The four fallacies of contemporary austerity policies: the lost Keynesian legacy. <i>Cambridge Journal of Economics</i>. 36. 283-312.</span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-11970568738583065452013-05-28T02:26:00.000-07:002013-05-28T02:30:33.703-07:00The Misleading Change of Focus in the European Commission’s Discourse on Economic Policy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXl0SU2JXwtkbd9iQsrVcKrR6D_eZNCpWKMHfd7ZjDwVcjl-De1B0QVCRkUIOdKKeZCR6v6MtDTqyXLLtMq1MepNHn0kgqKhIlUl5JLvdjE-9d8ltzPKIcUNdMuyhnfirCa9EewzojJkW/s1600/Olli-Rehn--007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAXl0SU2JXwtkbd9iQsrVcKrR6D_eZNCpWKMHfd7ZjDwVcjl-De1B0QVCRkUIOdKKeZCR6v6MtDTqyXLLtMq1MepNHn0kgqKhIlUl5JLvdjE-9d8ltzPKIcUNdMuyhnfirCa9EewzojJkW/s320/Olli-Rehn--007.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Olli Rehn</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">So, this morning I read
in the <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/euro-finance/brussels-recommend-eu-countries-news-528078" target="_blank">papers</a> that the European Commission said that the Member States should “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">shift the EU's policy focus from austerity to
structural reforms to revive growt</span><span style="text-align: left;">h.” The authors quote a European
Commission official who said that “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;">the main message
will be that the emphasis is shifting to structural reforms from austerity</span><span style="text-align: left;">.”</span><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"> That sounds interesting, I thought, so I read
further in the hope to see a change of discourse by the European Commission
just as the article describe. In the last couple of years my hope has been that
the European Commission will initiate an alternative discourse within the EU. I
am not hoping that the Commission will promote hardcore neo-Keynesian policies
tomorrow, but I still hope that it will stop stigmatizing individual countries,
and perhaps understand that there are more <i><a href="http://newleftreview.org/II/75/michel-aglietta-the-european-vortex" target="_blank">structural problems</a></i> within the Eurozone, promoting an approach that focuses on
sustainable growth. I can’t describe my disappointment at the end of the article,
and I would say that the article is misleading and even dangerous because the
title and the first ten lines suggest something completely different from what
the article actually says.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; color: #111111; line-height: 115%; text-align: left;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So to cut a
long story short, the Commission has not stopped promoting neoliberal policies –
it has merely <i>changed its justifications</i>.
So instead of cutting expenditures and increasing taxes to reduce budget deficits
and obtain fiscal consolidation, Member States should reduce the minimum wage
when it is too high like in France, or “open up closed professions like taxi drivers.”
(What does that remind me of? Oh yeah, they did the same in Greece, wanting to
open up the taxi market. I mean of course, people want to become taxi drivers –
that was their dream job when they were kids! I have to say at this point that
this completely failed in Greece, because now no one takes cabs anymore and it
has become somewhat of a luxury. So what exactly is the point of becoming a
taxi driver if you have no costumers?). The Commission also wants France to
reduce the really rigid labour code, to basically reduce workers’ protection
from getting fired.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;">I have to
say this should not really surprise me. The lack of imagination of the
Commission’s staff is really worrying. This recycling of old ideas has become a
bit annoying, especially because in Greece this has been done for three years
and Greece still has one the biggest unemployment rates in the Eurozone. I don’t
really get how it’s going to work for France. We are one year away from
European elections, and I fear the rise of Eurosceptisicm once again. No one
has actually explained that the problem is not the Commission itself, but the
people at its top, the composition of the European Parliament and the Composition
of the Council. In those three institutions, there is a majority of right wing,
conservative/liberal politicians. What are they supposed to say? Let invests to
have growth? No, this has never been their ideology. So it is not surprising. So
goes the famous quote by Jean Monnet: “</span><em><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">Nothing is possible without men
and women, but nothing is lasting without institutions.”</span></em><em><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; line-height: 115%;">
</span></em><em><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 115%;">Monnet also says that nothing is possible without people; people and
their ideas matter as much as institutions. So perhaps we should start being
more critical of the people who are dictating these policies and not of the
institutions.</span></em><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"> I mean let’s
not forget that Olli Rehn is a liberal, member of the Center Party in Finland,
what was he supposed to suggest?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some media just
have no critical analysis whatsoever! They only repeat what the Commission says. </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #111111; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A. A.</span></span></div>
</div>
alexandrahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16718801835044449036noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-75104428638781556342013-05-27T06:13:00.001-07:002013-05-28T02:31:22.725-07:00Marx gegen Jesus? Warum Sozialismus und Christentum zusammen gehören<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ich bin Christ, und ich bin
Sozialist.<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Wenn man diese zwei Aussage im
gleichen Satz liest, ist man zunächst vielleicht verwundert – war es nicht
Marx, der die Religion ‚Opium für’s Volk‘ genannt hat? Steht das ‚C‘ in ‚CDU‘
nicht für ‚christlich‘, und wählen die meißten Christen nicht eher konservativ?
Das stimmt vielleicht alles, aber trotzdem glaube ich, dass sich Christentum
und Sozialismus nicht gegenseitig ausschließen. Ich bin überzeugt, dass eine
Koalition aus Christentum und Sozialismus nicht nur möglich, sondern notwendig
ist. Ich möchte diesen Standpunkt nun zunächst aus einer philosophischen, und
danach aus einer ethischer Sichtweise belegen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Der
Kapitalismus und die Anbetung der Habgier<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Der Kapitalismus ist viel mehr
als nur ein Weg die politische Ökonomie zu organisieren – er ist eine
Ideologie. Die Ideologie des Kapitalismus nimmt an, dass die soziale Welt vom
Eigennutz angetrieben wird, und dass der Dynamik des Marktes die Habgier und
der Egoismus des Menschen unterliegt. Jede Entscheidung beruht letztendlich auf
Eigennutz, und ein jeder versucht so viel Profit wie möglich für sich selbst
herauszuschlagen. Aus dieser Annahme heraus kann man nun Modelle entwickeln,
die versuchen, menschliches Verhalten vorauszusagen, denn wenn jeder Akteur in
einer Situation stets jene Entscheidung trifft, die mit dem größten Profit
verbunden ist, werden Entscheidungen vorhersehbar. Genau wie die Natur Gesetzen
unterliegt, ist also auch soziales Verhalten durch Gesetze bestimmt. Die Ideologie
des Kapitalismus sieht den Menschen als Zahnrad einer Maschine – unser
Verhalten ist im Grunde nicht anders als das eines Computers, bestimmt durch
den Algorythmus des Eigennutzes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://theinsanityreport.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/jesus-socialist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://theinsanityreport.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/jesus-socialist.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus als Sozialist?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bei Lesen denkt man jetzt
vielleicht, dass diese ultra-materialistische Weltsicht nicht allzuweit von der
Realität entfernt ist, doch sie sie entmündigt den Menschen davon seine eigenen
Entscheidungen zu treffen. Der freie Wille ist bloß Illusion, und wir tragen
keinerlei Verantwortungen für unsere Handlungen. Der Kapitalismus ist die
ultimative Rechtfertigung für Habgier, Egoismus und Stolz, welche Christen als
die schlimmsten aller Laster ansehen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christen haben schon immer
intensiv über die Frage der Vorherbestimmung diskutiert und Paulus Brief an die
Epheser deutet tatsächlich darauf hin, dass die individuelle Erlösung durch
Gott verherbestimmt wurde (Epheser 1, 5). Warum jedoch sollte Gott Propheten an
die Israeliten senden um sie zu warnen, wenn sie nicht frei darüber entscheiden
könnten ihren Lebensstil zu verändern? Warum fordert Jesus von uns an ihn zu
glauben, wenn wir letztlich keine Wahl hätten? Es scheint mir eher so, als wäre
der freie Wille die Quintessenz der christlichen Weltanschauung.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eine Maschinenwelt in der alles
vorherbestimmt wird ist christlicher Theologie absolut fremd, denn sie würde
Gott als ungerecht entblößen, da er genau wusste, dass er die Welt mit seiner
Schöpfung ins Unheil stürzen würde. Ich kann nur an einen gerechten Gott
glauben, wenn er uns den freien Willen lässt. Das Christentum widerspricht
deshalb philosophisch betrachtet dem Kapitalismus, und erlaubt es der
Menschheit, ihr Schicksal selbst zu bestimmen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Der
Sozialismus und das Christentum<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Eines meiner Lieblingsbücher in
der Bibel ist die Apostelgeschichte, in der Lukas die fast utopische Gemeinschaft
der frühen Christen beschreibt. Privatbesitz scheint es dort nicht zu geben,
und alles gehört der Gemeinschaft:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: 42.5pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">„Alle aber, die gläubig
geworden waren, waren beieinander und hatten alle Dinge gemeinsam. Sie
verkauften Güter und Habe und teilten sie aus unter alle, je nachdem es einer
nötig hatte.“ (Apostelgeschichte 2, 44-45)*<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: 42.5pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">„Die Menge der Gläubigen
aber war ein Herz und eine Seele; auch nicht einer sagte von seinen Gütern,
dass sie sein wären, sondern es war ihnen alles gemeinsam. [...] Er war auch
keinen unter ihnen, der Mangel hatte; denn wer von ihnen Äcker oder Häuser
besaß, verkaufte sie und brachte das Geld für das Verkaufte und legte es den
Aposteln zu Füßen; und man gab einem jeden, was er nötig hatte.“
(Apostelgeschichte 4, 32-35)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Auch andere Stellen im Neuen
Testament ermahnen Reiche soziale Verantwortung zu haben:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: 42.5pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">„Nicht, dass die andern
gute Tage haben sollen und ihr Not leidet, sondern dass es zu einem Ausgleich
komme. Jetzt helfe euer Überfluss ihrem Mangel ab, damit danach auch ihr
Überfluss eurem Mangel abhelfe und so ein Ausgleich geschehe, wie geschrieben
steht: ‚Wer viel sammelte, hatte keinen Überfluss, und wer wenig sammelte,
hatte keinen Mangel.‘“ (2. Korinther 1, 13-15)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-right: 42.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Vielleicht bin ich altmodisch,
aber meine Definition des Sozialimus sieht den biblischen Schilderungen der
urchristlichen Gemeinde sehr ähnlich. Materieller Erfolg ist im Kapitalismus
von einer ganzen Reihe Faktoren abhängig. In unserer Gesellschaft zum Beispiel,
vervielfacht sowohl das Geschlecht als auch der Bildungsstand der Familie die
finanziellen Erfolgschancen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ohne das Auffangnetz, das der
Staat zur Verfügung stellt, würde wohl so manches Unternehmen nicht gegründet
werden. Das Staat sorgt nicht nur für soziale und materielle Sicherheit, sondern
unter anderem auch für ein funktionierendes Bildungs- und Gesundheitssystem.
Materieller Reichtum wird somit durch den Staat ermöglicht, was widerum höhere
Steuern für die, die es sich leisten können, rechtfertigt. Die Bibel bestätigt
sozialistische Moralverstellungen mit den obengenannten Versen, und auch mit
einem ihrer wichtigsten Grundprinzipien: „Richtet nicht, so werdert ihr auch
nicht gerichtet“ (Lukas 6, 37).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Für mich als Sozialist sollte es
das oberste Ziel der Menschheit sein, für die Emanzipation jedes Einzelnen von
allen Formen der Unterdrückung zu kämpfen. Die Menschheit muss sich von der vom
Kapitalismus verordneten Vorherbestimmungsideologie befreien. Jeder sollte die
Möglichkeit haben ein selbstbestimmtes Leben zu führen, und seine Talente zu
nutzen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Selbst in der EU, in der es
weltweit die gerechteste Einkommensverteilung gibt, ist dies nicht der Fall,
und die soziale Mobilität bleibt eingeschränkt. Weiterhin haben drei Milliarden
Menschen keinen Zugang zu sauberem Trinkwasser. Ich bin überzeugt, dass man
eine zentrale Institution (den Staat) damit beauftragen muss, Ressourcen
gerecht zu verteilen, um die Möglichkeit zu einem selbstbestimmten Leben zu
gewährleisten. Damit meine ich nicht eine undemokratische Diktatur in
sowjetischer Tradition, sondern einen Sozialstaat, in dem die wichtigsten
Dienstleistungen in öffentlicher Hand liegen (z.B. Energie, Wasser, Banken,
Verkehrsinfrastruktur, ÖPNV), und in dem größere Firmen als Kooperativen
organisiert sich (nach dem <a href="http://eutopia-blog.blogspot.de/2012/09/mondragon-es-geht-auch-anders.html">Vorbild Mondragón</a>). Ich glaube, dass die Umsetzung
dieser Ziele die mittelfristig wichtigste Aufgabe sozialistischer Parteien in
Europa sein sollte. Diese Ziele sind erreichbar, und entsprechen biblischen
Grundsätzen. Die Errichtung einer sozialistischen Gesellschaft kann mit der
Rechtleitung Jesu in Übereinkunft stehen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Alte
Vorurteile abbauen<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Das Christentum und der
Sozialismus sind zwei Weltanschauungen, die sich politisch sehr nahe stehen,
und trotzdem haben viele Sozialisten historisch für das Christentum nicht viel
übrig gehabt, und umgekehrt. Ich kann es oft kaum glauben, dass Marx die Natur
des Christentums zu radikal missverstanden hat, und sie mit der der
katholischen Kirche verwechselt hat. Trotzdem war die Emanzipation von den
Fesseln der Kirche in der Tat eine der großen Aufgaben früher Sozialisten.
Heutige Sozialisten sollten sich davor hüten, die Botschaft Jesu mit der
Botschaft der Kirche gleich zu stellen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christen widerum, müssen ihre
politische Apathie überwinden. Wohltätigkeit ist gut, wird aber die strukturellen
Wurzeln von Armut und Ungerechtigkeit nicht beseitigen können. Nur durch
politisches Handeln kann Armut wirklich bekämpft werden. Es ist erschreckend,
dass christliches politisches Engagement meißt nur in Protesten gegen Homoehe,
Stammzellenforschung oder Abtreibungsgesetzte zu sehen ist. Jesus wichtigstes
Gebot ist es, unseren Nächsten so zu lieben wie uns selbst – wie können wir
diesem Gebot folgen, ohne die Struktur unserer Gesellschaft zu verändern?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: 42.5pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">„Wenn aber jemand dieser
Welt Güter hat und sieht seinen Bruder darben und schließt sein Herz vor ihm
zu, wie bleibt dann die Liebe Gottes in ihm?“ (1. Johannes 3, 17)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-right: 42.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ich setze meine Hoffnung auf
politisches Handeln, das nach innen hin von der Rechtleitung des heiligen
Geistes profitiert, und auf ein Christentum, das nach außen hin von den
politischen Prinzipien des Sozialismus bereichert wird. Der Antagonismus der
Christen und Sozialisten so lange getrennt hat, muss überwunden werden.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="DE"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*Alle Bibelzitate sind entnommen
aus der 1984er Lutherübersetzung</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1266411455950162561.post-67699059877052048912013-05-26T05:57:00.001-07:002013-05-26T06:02:59.287-07:00Marx vs Jesus? Why Christianity and Socialism Should Go Hand-in-Hand<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am a Christian, and I am a
Socialist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You may read those two
statements with some bewilderment, and you may wonder – wasn’t it Marx who said
that religion was the ‘opium of the people’? Doesn’t the ‘C’ in ‘CDU’ stand for
Christian, and don’t most Christians vote conservative? While all these things
may be true, I believe that Christianity and Socialism are, in fact, not
mutually exclusive. I will argue that a coalition of Christianity and Socialism
is not only possible, but desirable. I will now proceed to argue this claim
from two perspectives – one philosophical, and one moral. It is then up to you
to draw your own conclusions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Capitalism and the Worship of Greed<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Capitalism is more than a way
to organise the political economy, it is, in fact, an ideology. The ideology of
Capitalism presumes that we live in a world ruled by self-interest. The dynamic
of the economy develops as the result of the greed and selfishness of every
human being. Every decision is based on self-interest, and everyone is
attempting to gain as much as possible for themselves. As a result, models can
be developed, which attempt to predict human decisions. If we assume that every
actor in a situation will always attempt to maximise their profit, human
decisions become foreseeable. The natural world is bound to laws, and the
behaviour of human beings too, is determined by laws. Capitalism thus views us
like automatons in a machine – our behaviour is in essence no different from
that of a computer, dictated by the algorithm of self-interest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You may read this, and you may
think that this is not too far from reality. The truth is though, that it
removes the ability of human beings to make their own decisions. Free will
becomes an illusion, implying that we can no longer be held accountable for our
choices. Capitalism is the ultimate apology for greed, selfishness and pride,
which Christians see as the worst of human vices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Historically, Christians have
debated intensely about the idea of predetermination. In fact, I have recently
read the Epistle of the Ephesians, which seems to suggest that salvation is indeed
predetermined (Ephesians 1, 5). However, why would God send prophets to Israel to
warn them what would happen, if the Israelites did not change their ways? Why
would Jesus call on us to have faith, and to show our faith through our actions,
if we have no choice about it? Free will seems to be at the very heart of
Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A machine-world that is
pre-determined is alien to Christian theology, for it would portray God as
unjust, having created the world knowing full-well that he would plunge us into
misery. I can only believe in a just God, if he allows us to make our own
choices. I therefore feel that Christianity is philosophically it odds with the
logic of Capitalism, allowing me to embrace an idea that allows humanity to
choose its own destiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Socialism and Christianity<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is something that has
always struck me when I read the book of the Acts of the Apostles, where Luke often
portrays a utopian society of believers. Private property does not seem to exist,
for everything is shared out among the entire community:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: 42.5pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“All the
believers were together and had everything is common. They sold property to give
to anyone who had need.” (Acts 2, 44-45).*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“All the
believers were one in heart and mind. No one claims that any of their
possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. […] And God’s
grace was so powerfully at work in them all, that there were no needy persons
among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them,
brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was
distributed to anyone who had need.” (Acts 4, 32-35).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-right: 42.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Other books of the New
Testament also speak of a social responsibility of people who do well
materially:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-right: 42.5pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: 42.5pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Our desire
is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there
might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need,
so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality,
as it is written, ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one
who gathered little did not have too little’.” (2 Corinthians 8, 13-15).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You may call me old-fashioned,
but my definition of Socialism is very similar to the Biblical depictions of
early Christian communities. Material success in a capitalist society depends
on a number of factors. In our society, being male for example, and coming from
a well-educated family, multiplies your chances of making lots of money.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://theinsanityreport.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/jesus-socialist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://theinsanityreport.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/jesus-socialist.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Jesus as a Socialist?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Without the social protection
provided by the state, far less people who take the risk of opening up a new
business. The state provides social and material security, education and
healthcare, and countless other benefits, and the material success of the rich
is in part owed to the state, which is what justifies higher taxes for those
who can afford to pay them. The Bible confirms Socialist morality with the
verses mentioned above, and also with one of Jesus’ most famous statements: “Do
not judge, and you will not be judged.” (Luke 6, 37).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For me as a Socialist, the
long term aim of humanity should be to bring about the emancipation of every
human being from all kinds of oppression. Humanity ought to escape the shackles
imposed on it by capitalist determinism. Everyone should have to chance to live
his life as he wants, and everyone should be able to use her gifts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even in the EU, which is the
part of the world with the highest income-equality, this is not the case, and
social mobility remains limited. On top of that, three billion human beings do
not even have access to clean drinking water. I believe that the only way to
provide for the fair distribution of resources is to authorise a central authority
with that task – the state. By that I do not mean a Soviet-style undemocratic
dictatorship, but a welfare state in which basic services are public property
(such as energy, water, banking, traffic infrastructure, public
transportation), and in which large private companies function as <a href="http://eutopia-blog.blogspot.de/2012/10/mondragon-there-is-alternative.html">Mondragón style co-operatives</a>.
The implementation of this alternative way of organising society is what I
believe the medium-term goal of Socialist parties in Europe should be. I
believe that these goals are achievable and that they are in line with Biblical
ideas. The establishment of the Socialist society can go hand in hand with following
the guidance of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Overcoming Old Misconceptions</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christianity and Socialism are
two world-views that have remarkably similar political implications. Despite
that, many Socialists have historically shown animosity towards Christianity,
and vice versa. It often strikes me as hard to believe that Marx so radically
misjudged the nature of Christianity by mistaking it for the nature of the
Catholic Church. One of the major tasks of early Socialists was however indeed
the emancipation from the bondage of organised religion. Socialists today have
to beware not to equate the message of Jesus with that of the Church.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Christians, in turn, have to
overcome their apathy towards politics. Charity is good, but it will not
fundamentally alter the structural problems in human society that cause poverty
and human suffering. It is only through political action that poverty can
really be alleviated. It is heinous that Christian political engagement today
is limited to debates about same-sex marriage, abortion and stem-cell research.
The most important commandment of our Lord is to love our neighbour as we love
ourselves – how can we follow that commandment without attempting to change the
way our society is organised?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“But if
anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart
against him, how does God’s love abide in him?” (ESV – 1 John 3, 17)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I place great hope in political
action that is inwardly fuelled by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and
Christianity that is outwardly enriched by the political principles of
Socialism. The antagonism that has long separated Christians and Socialists has
got to be overcome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Harald Köpping<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">*All quotes from Bible apart
from one are taken from the New International Version.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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EUtopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01975789197181990124noreply@blogger.com0