Posts from — March 2008

In capitalism, owners together with about a fifth of the population who have highly empowered work decide what is produced, by what means, and with what distribution. Nearly four fifths of the population does largely rote labor, suffers inferior incomes, obeys orders, and endures boredom, all imposed from above. As John Lennon put it, “As soon as you’re born they make you feel small, by giving you no time instead of it all.”

Capitalism destroys solidarity, homogenizes variety, obliterates equity, and imposes harsh hierarchy. It is top heavy in power and opportunity. It is bottom heavy in pain and constraint. Indeed, Capitalism imposes on workers a degree of discipline beyond what any dictator ever dreamed of imposing politically. Who ever heard of citizens asking permission to go to the bathroom, a commonplace occurrence for workers in many corporations.

Capitalism’s ills are not due to antisocial people. Instead, capitalism’s institutions impose horrible behavior even on its most social citizens. In capitalism as a famous American baseball manager quipped “nice guys finish last.” More aggressively: “garbage rises.” Witness Washington’s White House.

Participatory economics is an alternative way to organize economic life.

It has equitable incomes, circumstances, opportunities, and responsibilities for all participants. Each participant in a participatory economy has a fair share of control over their own life and over all shared social outcomes. Participatory economics eliminates class division.

It produces solidarity. Even an antisocial individual in a participatory economy has no choice but to account for social well-being if he or she wishes to prosper.

It diversifies outcomes and generates equitable distribution that remunerates each participant for how long and how hard they work as well as for harsh conditions they may suffer at work.

It also conveys to each person a say in what is produced, what means are used, and how outputs are allocated, all in proportion to the degree he or she is affected by those decisions.

Participatory economics, in other words, has completely different values than capitalism and to further its different values participatory economics incorporates different institutions.

It has workers and consumers councils where workers and consumers employ diverse modes of discussion, debate, and democratic determination. In a participatory economic, there are no corporate owners and managers deciding outcomes from the top down.

It has balanced jobs in which each worker does a fair combination of empowering and rote labor, so that all participants have comparably empowering circumstances instead of 20% of the workforce monopolizing all the empowering tasks and 80% doing only subordinate labor. In a participatory economy there is still expertise. There is still coordination. Decisions still get made. But there is no minority monopolizing empowering information, activity, and access to decision making positions while a majority is made subservient by doing only deadening daily tasks with no decision making component.

In a participatory economy, each and every job, which means each and every person’s work, involves a mix calibrated so that each participant has essentially equally empowering conditions. A participatory economy has no owning class. It has no technocratic, managerial, or coordinator class. A participatory economy has only workers and consumers cooperatively creatively fulfilling their capacities consistently with each participant having a fair share of influence.

It has remuneration for effort and sacrifice, which translates to remuneration for the duration, intensity, and harshness of the work people do. It rejects remuneration for power, property, or even output. Instead of gargantuan disparities of income and wealth, a participatory economy has a just distribution of social product.

It also does away with markets which pit each actor against all others, destroy solidarity, impose class division, mis-price all public goods, ignore collective effects beyond direct buyers and sellers, violate ecological balance and sustainability, and have many other faults as well. In place of markets it utilizes a system of workers and consumers, through their self managing councils, cooperatively negotiating inputs and outputs for all firms and actors in accord with true and full social costs and benefits of economic activities.

In a short article it is impossible to make even a quick much less a compelling case for an entirely different economic system. I can only offer a brief list of participatory economics’ values and institutions. I know such brevity is vague and hard for unfamiliar readers to give substance to. But here we have no room for clarification, supporting argument, or detailed discussion. My apologies.

What I hope, however, is that readers who know from their own experience that capitalist economies routinely cause us to fleece each other, deny us having a say over our own lives or force us to dominate the lives of others, distribute massive outputs to those who do the most pleasurable or even who do no work at all and distribute meager outputs to those who do the least pleasurable and the overwhelming volume of work, will hope that participatory economics is a real alternative.

I can hope, in other words, that instead of quietly accepting rich people’s passivity-inducing mantra that “there is no alternative,” we will all seek something better, beyond capitalism, and that, moved by our aspirations we will carefully consider participatory economics on its merits. One place that you might begin, if you don’t accept that humanity is forever doomed to suffer gross inequality and hierarchy via capitalist ownership, corporations, and markets, is at the Participatory Economics website.

The following is a draft, perhaps a poem, making the political personal, inviting you, and all, to be part of the movement for a democratic society, addressing the question of exclusion, expressing a beginning of the vision.

***********************************************

We’re a movement of activists, forever young, students of life, for a democratic society, international, intergenerational, inter racial, interesting: students, seniors, survivors, seekers, strugglers, sisters, singers, speakers, scholars, sociologists, socialists, scientists, saints, savants, satirists, soldiers, sailors, slackers, scriveners, scribblers, smiths, semites, whoever you are, from wherever, for a democratic society,

all who would like to join, please do, respond to this invitation.

we are a union
an unarmed army embracing all humanity
to affirm and represent the rights of the common people, the oppressed, the multitude,
all who have been voiceless, and in the struggle to find our own voices.
challenging the old order and building the new

joining the global movements,

of popular democracy, liberation theology, peace education,
non-violence, direct action, civil disobedience, insistence,
for justice, where ever we are and everywhere,
for a transforming of patriarchal power to a true sharing of authority
in partnership and cooperation
between women and men
and all the genders and races and workers
a new social contract
a world labor contract

to affirm human responsibility

to turn around the impending climatic disaster of global warming
and the consequences of the oil and fossil fuel based industrialization of the past age,

and to do what we can to stop the bloody wars,
and putting down the guns
and making peace
and creating a culture of peace
and non-violence
for the children of the world,
that the next generations, to the seventh generation,
should not have to live through the wars and oppressions that we, and our fore-bearers have seen and suffered.

we, of course, serve to overturn the old order of power and war and greed,
and are completely subversive to fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, top down centralization of power
and most of what passes for government these days

we are inclusive, non exclusive,
there is room at the table for everyone with an open heart

agents and vanguardists and recruiters and opportunists enter at their own peril.
our task is to turn your heart
that you become an agent of the movement,
in whatever organization you serve,
to undermine hierarchy and totalitarian purpose
to transform itself and themselves
to serve instead
the grass roots, bottom up, horizontal, work democracy
insurgent movement and movements in every institution of the old order
joining the union for global partnership, the big we

we take on the nsa, cia fbi, rcp, iso, plp, dlc, ,
and any other initialed new-speak contraction of complex reality into simplistic ideology obedient to some old authority

our message is:
give up the old order, the old politics, the old wars
join the new order of the ages
our undertakings are favored.
democracy is what it is about
for everyone
even the minority of one

for justice
for respect
for freedom

for healing from the wars and traumas of past time which we have inherited, and our mis-leaders perpetuated.
and which we must do all what we can to stop now,

in iraq, afghanistan, columbia, darfur, all of them,
and the heart of the war, longest bleeding, in palestine and israel.

the entire war system must be transformed
no more war
economic conversion of the war economy is our common cause
we are workers in building a peace economy

our task is to work together in an artistic harmony
blending our strengths,
meeting our needs also in mutual aid
using the knowledges we have
teaching peace
doing
revolutionary evolutionary actions changing history integrating national groups

r e a c h i n g

for quality public education available for everyone
for quality public health available to everyone
for redirecting resources for ending hunger and poverty
for creating new work
for reclaiming the public commons from the privatizers and usurpers
for putting more minds to curing aids and alzheimers and malaria and all the other dread diseases
for restorative justice, rebalancing what is out of harmony
for cultural survival
for the abolition of nuclear weapons totally
for mother love and apple pie and better days to come
there are many principles of organization in this association
we are a center-less circle with its circumference everywhere
we are an underground army of nurturers, arising
we are a network of affinity groups
we are a chorus of caucuses
we are a solidarity deeper than differences
we are veterans of past struggles, intent to affirm our continuity
we are your best friend and your worst nightmare
we are keepers of the dream

we are intent on change, and changing ourselves as well

we are each of us, you, a center of power
each with unique capacities to reach out
to family and friends, lovers, partners, teachers, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances
compatriots from by-gone barricades and student days
all who know us.

we are encouragers of one another to mobilize our power

you are a center of power, send the call out,
put it in your own words, to all who know you, try again.

we are discovering what we can do together.

we combine many ideologies and analyses,

we are promoting human solidarity and effort for authentic relationship.

like students for a democratic society
we seek to create a sustained community of educational and political concern
maintaining a vision of democratic society where at all levels people have control of the decisions which affect them and the resources on which they are dependent, increasing democracy in all phases of our common life, promoting participation
we seek relevance through continual focus on realities and on the programs necessary to affect change at the most basic levels of economic, political and social organization.
our urgency is to put forth a radical, to the roots, democratic program whose methods embody the democratic vision
this is an initial statement of mds/movement for a democratic society

if you would like to join,
to acknowledge your membership
which is in your heart

please respond

alan haber

answer please, 2 questions:
the beginning of dues

what do you need?
what do you have to offer?

I was recently at a dinner with some friends in New York’s East Village. Two of them, Matt and Madeline, started explaining a concept from social movement theory, namely that before periods of great social upheaval, unrest, or organized social movements, there is often a period directly preceding it where the expectations of the public are raised. In other words, people begin to have a sense of entitlement, which then can’t be met by the system, and they make the connections and rebel against the system which made those false promises (i.e. raised expectations can lead to politicization and radicalization). The example they used was the Civil Rights Movement, and the period directly beforehand when blacks had helped fight fascism in the Second World War for a country that segregated them at home - a country they had to return to after the war. As you would rightly expect, they weren’t too happy. An increased sense of entitlement, and raised expectations for progress, were shattered by the system of racial apartheid at home.

More recently, I was reading Greg Wilpert’s book called “Changing Venezuela By Taking Power“, where he explained some of the factors that lead Venezuela to where it is today on a road to possible genuine liberation. He talked about, in more detail than I will include here (it’s definitely worth the read if you want an honest account of what’s going on with the Bolivarian Revolution; the point of view you won’t get in the corporate media), how the Venezuelans had their expectations raised around the systems of capitalism and representative democracy, both of which failed them miserably - as those systems will consistently do to the people at the bottom of the social ladder. The result? This allowed room for President Hugo Chavez, and members of the Venezuelan Left to organize a movement, and use governmental power to push for new systems: Participatory Democracy and Socialism for the 21st Century.

And then, as a final example, last weekend, when I was returning to Brooklyn with Kate and Pat, the subway train paused longer than usual in the subway at Borough Hall. The station manager came on the loudspeaker and announced that due to a problem with the trains we’d have to take bus. So we existed the station and walked, along with a hundred to two-hundred people, to the nearby bus stop.

When a train stops running in New York City, its customary for passengers to get a free transfer to the bus (a one-ride metrocard/subway ticket costs $2.00 normally - and if you don’t get a transfer, you have to pay another $2.00 for the bus) or another train. When hundreds of people get off a subway train though, they almost never give out physical/paper transfer tickets to those passengers. And since the MTA’s (subway authority) communication isn’t always the best, there is no way the bus driver would know that all of this is going on in the middle of the night.

So when there are 150 or 200 people all lined up to get on a train, in the middle of the night, in a mass of people (not in a line), you can imagine that some people will get upset when the bus driver asks some questions about the train being stopped. In other words, when people feel like they have been wronged and are entitled to compensation or justice, they are very willing to fight for that justice (even when “justice” is just a free transfer ticket).

As I was at the back of the crowd chatting with Pat, Kate, and Daniel (who we’d randomly bumped into at the bus stop), I couldn’t help but be amused by a thought that had entered my mind. Suppose there was a crowd of people, who didn’t get kicked off the train. Instead they were waiting like normal for the bus. Imagine that you then make an announcement, that you can all rip off the MTA by simply saying that the train had stopped, and you all were forced to get off. Well, while I was standing there watching dozens of people forcefully piling into a cramped bus, I couldn’t help but admit to myself that very few people would ever go along with such a plan. I thought immediately back to Matt and Madeline’s comments about social movement theory around people feeling entitlement. If you raise expectations to the point where people feel entitled to some service or social norm, they will fight like hell to make sure they have it - and will be furious if they don’t.

My mind switched to the big picture, in thinking about what that means for social movements. Since I study communications and human thought processes, I couldn’t help but think about what implications the Metrocard Transfer Thought Experiment had for the dominant stories that run through our society. If that phenomenon exists when people feel entitled to something, and often not when they don’t, what does that mean for GOP/Rightwing narratives like “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps”, and “Trickle Down Economics”, and the demonization of programs of social welfare (and the word “welfare” itself - as if human welfare is somehow bad). The implications kinda knocked the wind out of me. They must debilitate chances for social change. In short, those narratives must be destroyed. We need new, progressive narratives about what is right and wrong in society.

But realizing these things also should give us hope - we can change these them. We can build movements which empower people, and give them a sense of entitlement about what rightfully theirs.

With the last remnants of the New Deal on its deathbed and with a looming environmental crisis about to wreak havoc upon our world, our generation - raised in the age of information technology and expecting to have the same basic social safety net that previous generations had - will soon come to the conclusion (if we help them out a bit), that their reasoned disillusionment with change, will be minute compared to the consequences of not fighting back. As a movement we must seize the opportunity presented by our current political moment.

Our demands should be simple: “we want the world!”

If you ask the average person a series of questions about their political beliefs, most will answer some combination of answers which a member of the progressive movement might describe as “rightwing”, or “leftwing”; “libertarian”, or “authoritarian”. Most people, on average, will give answers on different issues that don’t necessarily line up with any particulate ideology. For example, someone might be for social security (a left policy which involves the national government in the U.S.), but against marriage equality (a rightwing belief).For the last 40 years, the GOP and conservative movement has mastered the art of building effective coalitions which drive wedge issues into these voters who hold political contradictions, causing them to vote Republican. For example, a key electoral strategy on the Right was to cause Catholic Democrats to flock from the party after conservatives used the (wedge) issue of women’s rights and the right to choose whether or not to have children in order to reach progressive Catholics on issues that they are more conservative on.

In a recent article in The Nation (”Who Would Jesus Vote For) about the splintering of the Evangelical voting bloc, which I recently blogged about, Bob Moser writes:

“Under-30 evangelicals like Shaw hold the keys to a new political kingdom. They are less likely to be weekly churchgoers, less likely to be biblical literalists and they believe that the government should do more to protect the environment. On the core culture-war issue of gay marriage, they increasingly stray from the fold, with fewer than half favoring a gay-marriage ban. While they remain overwhelmingly antiabortion, a large majority would like a civil cease-fire in the abortion wars. And they are all too vividly aware of the unflattering reputation given to the name “Christian” by many of their evangelical elders.”

Barack Obama uses this tactic of reaching conservative voters on issues that they are progressive on, quite often, especially when he talks about unity and how America is “not a collection of red states and blue states.” He strengthens his argument by not demonizing conservative voters. Recently he said that he has learned a lot from Ronald Reagan, a comment which many leftists attacked him for, but what he really meant was that he did for a conservative perspective, Obama is doing for a more liberal perspective. Its a strategy that should be closely studied by those on the Left. We can use it to our advantage and win millions of new people over to grassroots progressive struggle.

So you wanna change the world? Great! I’d love to chat with you if you want more information on starting out as a political activist and organizer. You can reach me at brian@walkingbutterfly.com, or call me at 845-649-2146 or add me on Facebook or Myspace. You can send me a message on AIM or Google Chat at one address: butterflywalking (at) gmail.com (its my AIM Screen name too). For more information about me or walkingbutterfly.com click here! Like Diary of a Walking Butterfly? Consider subscribing by e-mail!

Featured Article: Language Warriors: How Language Can Change Politics

That being said, becoming political active is a process that takes years of learning and growing - its best to enter social movements with that knowledge in mind. Building mass movements to take on the systems of exploitation, to stop rightwing policies, or to bring down repressive dictators doesn’t happen overnight. It takes the careful, patient organizing by lots of diverse people organized into political organizations.

Here are some links, books, and so on, that can help you get involved…

What some ideas about what might replace our current economic system? Visit the participatory economics website for more information on a democratically planned alternative to both market capitalism and centrally planned socialism. If you are feeling cynical, or you buy into Margaret Thatcher’s claim that “There Is No Alternative” or “TINA”, its definitely something to check out. What she really meant was “TINBA” - “There Is No Better Alternative”. Participatory economics is that better alternative. But don’t take my word for it, if you want an economy based on solidarity, diversity, liberty, equity, justice, democracy, and efficiency, check it out and judge for yourself!

Z Magazine and ZNet are great daily news sources for learning about how society’s dominant institutions currently work, and what people are doing to change them. Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism, a Memoir is a great narrative about Michael Albert’s life as a visionary and strategic organizer for social change. I’d definitely recommend people checking it out if you want an overall introduction to various concepts, ideas and stories about what it would take to change the world. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell , though written for business people, can also be applied to social movements and activism.

Don’t understand how American history got where it is today? Check out Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States! Its the definitive introduction to social movements in the United States.

Want to get right into it and join a group? Here are some:

What to join a youth organization? Are you interested in fighting global warming? Consider joining the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC). The Student Environmental Action Coalition or SEAC is a grassroots coalition of student and youth environmental groups, working together to protect our planet and our future. Through this united effort, thousands of youth have translated their concern into action by sharing resources, building coalitions, and challenging the limited mainstream definition of environmental issues.

I disagree with lots and lots of Obama’s proposed policies - especially his foreign policies. But his language is superb - something that radical democrats need to learn from and use if we are to build a truly transformative movement. Here’s Obama talking about race, religion, unity and contradictions in America. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a mainstream politician - let alone someone running for president - talk in this way. Certainly not someone who could be our next president. To win we must first learn how to communicate our values to all of America.

As the title suggests, here are some ways that events can fulfill Organizing functions. Events might be considered organizing if they:1. help to increase and solidify the commitment of new or preexisting members.2. whenever possible, recruit new members, and get the contact information of all the people (especially the new ones) who join in the events - later following up with each of them, individually if possible.3. are well messaged/framed, with language and concepts used that help to lay the foundation for the construction of a new dominant narrative throughout society - a narrative about justice, peace, equity, democracy, liberty, human dignity, diversity, sustainability, and solidarity.For example, the conservative theme of “small government”, can be exposed for what it is: the destruction of good forms of government (programs of social uplift), and the expansion of bad forms (more money for the defense industry, the nationalization of corporate debt, tax breaks for the rich). We can show that theres an alternative to that - a participatory democracy where people control their own lives and country through a system of elected delegates - as opposed to unaccountable “representatives” who represent corporate interests instead of the interests of hardworking Americans.4. elevate sympathetic voices which people can’t ignore, and indeed, can personally and collectively relate to. These voices must cut through dominant narratives that largely isolate and atomize us, while causing people to have feel solidarity with other human beings - feelings solidarity which can later be translated into solidaristic action and organizing.5. expand democratic control by the people over society. Whenever possible, activist events can be used to organize for democratic popular power by allowing people to both participate in the event, and/or take social power into their own hands. While this power must be directed in a productive direction, it is fundamental to winning a new world that people begin to have ever more practice at what it would take to run a society, and how desirable that would be. Democracy needs to be made viral and contagious.We could list more, but the above are usually pretty crucial. I will add more as I think of them - or others suggest them to me.

Just like will.i.am’s first video for Obama, this one is super powerful.

If progressives want to build a mass movement of millions of people, we need to be this inspiring on a regular basis. That means vision and talking about hope and change - instead of complaining, criticizing, and talking about bad things constantly. In the current issue of Rolling Stone, in which the magazine endorsed Barack Obama, Jann S. Wenner, who wrote the endorsement, said that GOP strategists had refused to campaign against him calling him a “Walking Hope Machine.” Obama’s portrait was on the front cover which carried the words: “Barack Obama: A New Hope”. There were at least two articles in the issue - the endorsement entitled “A New Hope”, and a longer piece about Obama’s campaign called “The Machinery of Hope.” Th fact that the Left can’t yet do this on a regular basis, is a pretty good sign of our weakness. We should learn from Obama’s language and the tone of his campaign and supporters and then build a real mass movement which can implement lasting institutional change in America - and beyond.

Anway, here’s the video:

Check out this great post by my good friend Aric: “Election 2008: Why not just ignore it?” about seizing the opportunity presented to us by our current political moment and the political fault lines that mark it.

And here’s a video by Robert Kennedy that he recently posted on his blog. RFK challenging the nature of the GDP. Extraordinary inspiring.

“Some people see things as they are and ask ‘Why? I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’” - Robert Kennedy

There are no words to describe this travesty. I’ll try to post more when I find it:

Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Gay Iranian Refugee, EveryOne Group: “United Kingdom is a Danger for all Refugees”, Report will be presented in Europe.
The UK Home Office: ” Gay People can return to Iran, if they’re ‘Discreet’ ”

In an article published on Friday March 7th 2008, in the The Independent, Simon Hughes, leader of the Liberal Democrats and the party’s Shadow Leader in the House of Commons, stated: “The Home Office claims that a gay person can return to Iran and avoid persecution by being “discreet”. All advice suggests that in Iran, to be discreet means that you would have to deny your identity. The punishment for giving in to personal feelings might well be nothing less than torture or death”.

The same theory had was pointed out by the members of the NNRF (Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum) years ago: “The Home Office claims that if a gay person is less obvious about being gay or lesbian they won’t attract the attention of their persecutors,” writes Richard McCance on the refugees’ association’s website.

The EveryOne Group, that, since its launch, has promoted, along with the Non-Violent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty, and the Nessuno Tocchi Caino and Certi Diritti associations, a campaign in support of its member Seyed Mehdi Kazemi, is going to present a written deposition to the European Union objecting to the UK Home Office’s behaviour towards refugees claiming asylum.

“Mehdi absolutely has to stay in the Netherlands. It has been shown that the United Kingdom operates an out-and-out persecutory policy towards refugees, especially homosexuals” affirm the EveryOne Group’s leaders Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau. “The Home Office’s statements are serious, and contrary to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is to be hoped that European Authorities urgently intervene in this situation”.

“In 2004, a 29-year-old Zimbabwean, Thando Dube, was at death’s door, following a 33-day hunger strike in a UK detention camp. Her crime? Thando was a lesbian who fled to Britain to escape the well-known persecution of LGBT people in Zimbabwe. “Her asylum claim was refused,” it’s written in the EveryOne Group’s report. “In September 2003, Israfil Shiri, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, died after pouring petrol over himself and setting himself on fire in the offices of Refugee Action in Manchester, after his asylum claim was refused (in the lower and appeal court) and his deportation to Iran, where he would-have-been hanged, had been arranged. In April 2005, 26-year-old Hussein Nasseri shot himself two weeks after his asylum claim was turned down by the Home Office, refusing in this way to let himself be killed by Iranian executioners”.

However, according to the EveryOne Group not only homosexuals suffered from the British Government’s indifference: Burhan Namig, born in 1980, was deported on September 5th 2006 from the United Kingdom - where his asylum claim had been refused because “not at sea” - to Kurdistan, despite falling into a deep depression and attempting suicide. On arrival in Kurdistan, Burhan had a heart attack, as a result of the inhuman treatment received in a British detention centre. In February 2007, at least two Iraqi Kurds were deported in secret from United Kingdom to the North of Iraq on a military plane carrying medicines and other humanitarian supplies, this despite the ongoing violence in Iraq, after American military actions, and despite the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq being subject to continuous terrorist attacks and serious human rights abuses. “We take a robust approach to people who are here illegally” a Home Office spokesperson told IRR (Independent Race and Refugee News Network) last year.

The latest case is that of Ama Sumani, a 39-year-old Ghanaian woman, studying in the UK, who was diagnosed with a malignant tumour that couldn’t be treated in Ghanaian hospitals. Her asylum claim was refused by the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and the woman was removed, against her will, on January 9th 2008, from University Hospital, Cardiff, in a wheelchair, and repatriated. According to the Home Office, this was all carried out with “politeness and dignity”.

“All this demonstrates how the United Kingdom’s and its Home Office’s behaviour represent a danger for all refugees, all the more so for those such as Mehdi Kazemi or the Iranian lesbian Pegah Emambakshs, who face capital punishment because of their homosexuality” conclude Malini, Pegoraro and Picciau. “We ask the Dutch Authorities to immediately grant Mehdi refugee status, to avoid another life being destroyed because of the demonstrable and incontrovertible attitude of the UK to violating refugees’ rights. Finally, we ask the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to look out for the rights of refugees currently in the United Kingdom, who come from nations where they risk persecution, in order to prevent any abuse, violation and/or unjust deportation”.

Il Regno Unito è un pericolo per i rifugiati.
COMUNICATO STAMPA
10 marzo 2008
Rifugiato gay iraniano, Gruppo EveryOne: “Il Regno Unito è un pericolo per i rifugiati”. Un rapporto di denuncia sarà presentato in Europa.
L’Home Office UK: “Un gay in Iran può tornare, basta che sia ‘discreto’”

In un articolo apparso venerdì 7 marzo sul quotidiano “The Independent”, Simon Hughes, presidente dei Liberal Democratici e braccio destro del leader della Camera dei Comuni, ha affermato: “L’Home Office sostiene che una persona omosessuale può tornare in Iran ed evitare la persecuzione rimanendo ‘discreta’. Peccato che in Iran essere discreti significhi rinnegare la propria identità. La punizione per chi non riesca a rinnegare se stesso non è nient’altro che la tortura o la morte”.

La stessa tesi era stata già denunciata dai membri del NNRF (Nottingham and Notts Refugee Forum) anni or sono: “L’Home Office dichiara che se una persona omosessuale sarà meno visibile nell’essere gay o lesbica non attirerà l’attenzione dei persecutori” scrive Richard McCance nel sito web dell’associazione di rifugiati.

Il Gruppo EveryOne, che dall’inizio ha promosso, con la collaborazione del Partito Radicale Transnazionale, Nonviolento e Transpartito e delle associazioni Nessuno Tocchi Caino e Certi Diritti, la campagna per la vita del suo membro Seyed Mehdi Kazemi, depositerà in settimana in Unione Europea un rapporto di denuncia del comportamento dell’Home Office del Regno Unito nei confronti dei rifugiati richiedenti asilo.

“Mehdi deve assolutamente rimanere in Olanda. E’ provato che il Regno Unito porta avanti una vera e propria politica persecutoria nei confronti dei rifugiati, specie se omosessuali” dichiarano i leader del Gruppo EveryOne Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro e Dario Picciau. “Le affermazioni dell’Home Office sono gravissime, e contrastano con la Dichiarazione Universale dei Diritti Umani. E’ auspicabile un urgente intervento degli organismi europei al riguardo.”

“Nel 2004 una ventinovenne dello Zimbabwe, Thando Dube, stava per morire dopo 33 giorni di sciopero della fame in un centro di detenzione del Regno Unito. La sua colpa? Essere lesbica, cosa che l’aveva indotta a fuggire nel Regno Unito con la speranza di evitare la persecuzione in Patria. Anche a lei l’asilo è stato rifiutato” si legge all’interno del rapporto del Gruppo EveryOne. “Nel settembre del 2003 il 29enne omosessuale Israfil Shiri si è dato fuoco negli uffici dell’immigrazione di Manchester, dopo che gli era stato negato l’asilo come rifugiato omosessuale (sia in primo grado che in appello) ed era stata fissata la deportazione in Iran, dove lo attendeva l’impiccagione. L’anno dopo, nell’aprile 2005, il 26enne gay Hussein Nasseri si è sparato due settimane dopo che l’asilo gli era stato rifiutato dall’Home Office, rifiutandosi così di cadere nelle mani dei boia iraniani”.

Ma secondo il Gruppo EveryOne non sono solo gli omosessuali a fare le spese dell’indifferenza del Governo Britannico: Burhan Namig, classe 1980, è stato deportato il 5 setttembre 2006 dal Regno Unito – dove gli era stato negato l’asilo perché “non a rischio” – verso il Kurdistan, nonostante versasse in grave crisi depressiva e avesse minacciato il suicidio. Arrivato in Kurdistan, Burhan ha avuto un attacco di cuore, conseguente al trattamento disumano ricevuto in un centro di detenzione britannico. Nel febbraio 2007, almeno due curdi iracheni sono stati deportati dal Regno Unito al nord dell’Iraq di nascosto, su un aereo militare contenente medicine e altri aiuti umanitari. Questo nonostante l’escalation di violenza in corso Iraq, in seguito all’intervento americano, e nonostante la regione curda del nord del Paese sia soggetta a continui attacchi terroristici così come a pesanti abusi dei diritti umani. “Teniamo una linea dura con le persone che sono presenti illegalmente sul nostro territorio” ha detto l’anno scorso un funzionario dell’Home Office UK in risposta ad alcune domande dell’IRR (Indepedent Race and Refugee News Network).

Ultimo il recente caso di Ama Sumani, 39enne ghanese trasferitasi per motivi di studio nel Regno Unito, dove le era stato diagnosticato un mieloma maligno per cui necessitava di continue cure ospedaliere non sostenibili nel suo Paese d’origine. L’asilo le è stato rifiutato dall’Home Office Secretary Jacqui Smith e la donna è stata prelevata di forza, il 9 gennaio 2008, dall’ospedale universitario di Cardiff, in sedia a rotelle, e rimpatriata in Ghana. Secondo l’Home Office, ciò è avvenuto “con cortesia e dignità”.

“Tutto questo dimostra quanto il Regno Unito e il comportamento del suo Home Office siano pericolosi nei confronti di tutti i rifugiati, a maggior ragione per coloro che, come Mehdi Kazemi o la lesbica iraniana Pegah Emambakhsh, sono attesi in Patria dalle peggiori torture e dalla pena capitale per la propria omosessualità” concludono Malini, Pegoraro e Picciau. “Chiediamo all’Olanda di concedere a Mehdi l’immediato status di rifugiato, al fine di evitare che un’altra vita si spezzi a causa della documentata e pervicace attitudine a violare i diritti dei profughi che è ormai caratteristica di un Paese europeo come il Regno Unito. Chiediamo infine che l’Alto Commissariato ONU per i Rifugiati vigili sui diritti dei profughi che si trovano attualmente sul territorio del Regno Unito e provengono da nazioni in cui rischiano di essere perseguitati, affinché si interrompa la catena di violazioni e di inique deportazioni”.

The town of Brattleboro, Vermont votes in favor of issuing arrests warrants for President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Amy Goodman reports:

“In Brattleboro, [Vermont,] the townspeople decided to arrest President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, should they visit. (This may be a moot point, as Vermont is the one state out of 50 that George W. Bush has not visited while president.) The question before the people of Brattleboro read: “Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities, and shall it be the law of the town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?”

The question passed, after a spirited discussion, by a vote of 2,012 for, 1,795 against.”