Red Light Politics
Welcome to my short form Tumblr blog. My name is Flavia Tamara Dzodan, I am a business developer, writer, public speaker, ideas instigator, content creator, media facilitator and trend watcher living in Amsterdam.
This Tumblr is about the spaces and intersections between politics, culture, race and gender matters with some humor and pop culture thrown in the mix.
My long reads blog is Red Light Politics.
I also blog at Tiger Beatdown.
If you would like to know more about me, visit this page .
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Noted Elsewhere
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“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”— Audre Lorde in Sister Outsider.
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I’d be very upset if I worked at Fage USA and had to drive every (Monday) morning to:
1 Opportunity Drive.I suppose that neighbourhood has...
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“Prison relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and,...”
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When the Lesser Of Two Evils Isn't Enough
by Mia McKenzie
Yesterday, I wrote a post called Michelle Obama...
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Try not to forget why they came to the United States of America, and though the specific circumstances may differ, you’ll find that hundreds of...
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Taken with Instagram
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Haarlem, Netherlands (by Epicantus)
Tag Results
195 posts tagged Europe
“My husband has expressedly forbidden me from going to that area at all times… that should tell you something.”
DutchNews.nl - Police, locals deny claim part of The Hague is a ‘Sharia triangle’
This made me laugh out loud, cackling like a hyena. The quote is taken from a story about “the Muslim SCARE!” and how their “backwards” ways are “taking over good neighborhoods”, etc. You know, the usual racist, anti Muslim cries of Eurobigots. What makes the comment hilarious is that the woman in question is participating in a thread where they discuss (I use the word loosely, considering these are the grunts of racists) how “unenlightened” Islam is and how Muslim women are “oppressed”, yadda yadda… the commenter, of course, is NOT oppressed. Her husband just “forbids” her from doing stuff for her own good.
I wonder how these people live with the cognitive dissonance created by their bigotry.
“The Italian government has ordered an investigation into slurs on rightwing websites against the country’s first black minister, a case that has put Italy’s racial problems back under the spotlight.”
Italy to investigate racist remarks against first black minister | World news | guardian.co.uk
You know, Europe, “the continent of human rights” and similar assorted empty rhetoric, once again showing its bare ass. More from the article:
Cecile Kyenge, an eye doctor and Congo-born Italian citizen, was named integration minister in the new government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta on Saturday. She is one of seven women in the government.
Since then, she has been the subject of taunts not only on neo-fascist websites but the butt of race-tinged remarks by a politician of the Northern League, which has been allied in the past with former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Equal opportunities minister Josefa Idem ordered an investigation by the National Anti-Discrimination Office into websites that called Kyenge a “Congolese monkey”, “Zulu”, “the black anti-Italian”, and other slurs.
This isn’t just some internet thugs leaving the usual offensive racist remarks we’ve all seen pretty much everywhere. Northern League European parliamentarian Mario Borghezio made references to a “bonga bonga government” because of Kyenge’s heritage.
“Primary schools are structurally refusing to accept children with an ethnic minority background because of fears they may drive down test scores, experts from multicultural institute Forum say in Friday’s Trouw.”
DutchNews.nl - Primary schools reject minority pupils over test score fears: Trouw
More than once I’ve been told by Dutch people that “I must have made up” the concepts of institutional and institutionalized racism. They claim such a thing does not exist in The Netherlands (something to do with “everyone being equal under the law” yadda yadda, etc). This, I’m afraid, explains the ideas much better than I could with mere words of my own.
Frontex signs cooperation with Azerbaijan; political dissidents better forget about rights
I suppose by now anyone who has read anything I write knows about the lethal history of the European Border control agency Frontex. Today, this announcement was made: Frontex, Azerbaijani border service sign working arrangement. From the press release:
The Working Arrangement’s chief components include the development of activities in the field of information exchange and risk analyses, training and research-and-development related to border management as well as the elaboration and coordination of joint operational measures and pilot projects on border control. Sharing of experience is also envisaged with a view to developing efficient border-control procedures, enhanced technical capabilities and exchange of best practices.
Now, here’s the context not included in this press release:
On the situation of Azeri women displaced from their homeland due to a two decade long conflict with Armenia, Mehrangiz Najafizadeh writes:
Azeri women IDPs/refugees are the most vulnerable of all Azeri women. In this context of crowded living conditions, giving birth to children in uncertain settings, inadequate medical care and nutrition, and unemployment, women’s roles are precarious as Azeri women IDPs/refugees have had minimal control over their social and physical environment during these extended years of continuing uncertainty and “temporary” displacement that, in effect, have become a state of permanence. Azeri IDP/refugee women continue to experience a prolonged state of “temporary” displacement that now is approaching two decades in length. Throughout this period, their lives have been filled with uncertainty. When will the dispute with Armenia be resolved? When will they be allowed to return to their homelands in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Authorities Targeting Youth Activists:
The Azerbaijani authorities have a record of pressing bogus charges, including for drug possession, to intimidate and silence investigative journalists.
An Azerbaijan court on February 27, 2013, sentenced Bakhtiyar Mammadov, a human rights lawyer to eight years in prison on the basis of a prosecution and conviction that appear politically motivated. […] Mammadov represented several residents who were forcibly evicted from their homes in the capital, Baku, which were demolished in early 2012 as the government was building a performance hall for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. Mammadov’s clients had challenged the government compensation package, and Mammadov alleged corruption by a high-level official involved in the compensation funds.
Government Detains Outspoken Critics
The arrest of two prominent government critics in Azerbaijan on broad charges of organizing mass disorder in Ismayilli raises concern they are facing political retribution. In January, mass protests in the town led to clashes with police. On February 4, 2013, Baku’s Nasimi District Court remanded the two men – Ilgar Mammadov, a political analyst and chair of the opposition group “REAL,” and Tofig Yagublu, deputy chair of the opposition political party Musavat and a journalist with opposition daily Yeni Musavat – to two months’ pretrial custody. A court also remanded Ismayilli residents Mirkazim Abdullayev and Elshen Ismayilli to two months’ pretrial custody on the same charges.
Now Frontex is not only cooperating but sharing strategies of border control with a government that has a long, recorded history of torturing and imprisoning anyone who expresses dissent. The only reason our border control agency is engaging this government as equal peers is to prevent these dissidents from even trying to reach the European Union to escape persecution. Better dead in their homeland than immigrating into Fortress Europe goes the twisted and cruel logic. On the one hand, the EU will continue to “export” this rhetoric of championing human rights, often utilizing them as an excuse for neo-colonial interventions; on the other, when it is convenient to curb immigration, they will sign shady cooperation agreements with States that are abusing these very same human rights the EU loves to tout as a “model” of “freedom and democracy”. In the meantime, the safety of thousands is left between a local government that views disagreement as grounds for imprisonment and a European Union administration that sees certain human lives as disposable, especially if they intend to seek refuge from unbearable living conditions.
“There is a possibility that Spanish dogs and cats have been used in the production of meatballs and the food safety body NVWA is investigating links with a meat trader in Amsterdam, the Telegraaf reports on Thursday. According to reports from a Spanish dogs’ home owner, a company has been collecting dead dogs and cats from people’s homes and the bodies have been disappearing without trace, says RTL news.”
DutchNews.nl - Spanish pets could be in meatballs
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a pretty detailed post recounting the safety issues around food in Europe so this new allegation does not shock me in the least. Of course it disgusts me but at this stage, I have zero confidence in corporate food production and distribution.
Of course, once again, the poor will be the most affected in this corruption as the tainted meat is always used to manufactured the cheapest foodstuffs.
“What we are witnessing is raw economic warfare by the rich against the poor. So the age-old question comes knocking: why does the decent majority allow itself to be governed by a brutal, antisocial minority? Part of the reason is that the minority controls the story. As John Harris explained in the Guardian, large numbers (including many who depend on it) have been persuaded that most recipients of social security are feckless, profligate fraudsters. Despite everything that has happened over the last two years, Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere and the other media barons still seem to be running the country. Their relentless propaganda, using exceptional and shocking cases to characterise an entire social class, remains highly effective. Divide and rule is as potent as it has ever been.”
This is a great read and, while it focuses on budget cuts currently afflicting the UK, the ideas discussed by Monbiot can be pretty much applied across the Western world, swept by neo-liberal policies of war against the poor.
“The issue, however, isn’t about “enjoying” horse meat or merely about being fed a type of meat without one’s knowledge. This is also about food sovereignty and our right to decide for ourselves and our families what we consume. This is, undisputedly, a feminist issue.”
Tiger Beatdown › Horse meat, gender and food sovereignty
I wrote a summary of the food production scandal sweeping Europe and how it disproportionately affects women.
“I’m outraged by the normalcy that seemed to have spread to everyone like contagion. I am scandalised by the silence of Europe that has just received the Nobel Peace Prize and yet is staying silent in the face of a massacre that has the numbers of a true war. I’m becoming more convinced that European policy on immigration considers this offering of human lives to be a way to restrict the flows of people, or maybe a deterrent. But, if for these people, the voyage on the boats is still the only possibility of hope, I believe that their death at sea must be a reason for Europe to feel shamed and dishonoured.”
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Herman van Campenhout, CEO of Telegraaf Media Groep, is leading nothing but an immoral and racist corporation that puts the lives of Black people and all minorities in this country in danger. The unethical standards employed by De Telegraaf Media Groep’s properties in order to “invent” news endanger people’s lives, disturb them in their homes and uses children to further push vile ideologies. This media company is not reporting news. They are making up situations that they later on pass as “news” in spite of the fact that the people involved did not wish to lend themselves to their blatant invasion of privacy.
This media corporation shows an utter contempt for the safety and well being of Black people and minorities in The Netherlands, going as far as filming children in a sad, racist spectacle, effectively profiting from the exploitation of Black people for corporate gains. No matter whose lives are stake or who gets to pay the price for it, all that matters for this corporation is that they increase their profits and incite their audience. News? The only news in this performance is that they have no care or interest in anyone’s humanity, after all, the CEO needs to justify his bonuses.
”Dutch media business model: racist harassment of Black people for profit | Space Invaders
My latest at Space Invaders on the way media corporations in The Netherlands incite racism and violence against People of Color to increase their profits.
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In a security message, the embassy said the State Department’s travel section had been “updated to inform U.S. citizens of a rise in unprovoked harassment and violent attacks against persons who, because of their complexion, are perceived to be foreign migrants. U.S. citizens most at risk are those of African, Asian, Hispanic, or Middle Eastern descent in Athens and other major cities.”
The travel advice on Greece also said the embassy “has confirmed reports of U.S. African-American citizens detained by police authorities conducting sweeps for illegal immigrants in Athens.”
”European values
Cue in outrage from Europeans that simply “cannot believe this is happening!”, etc. (even though shit like this happens every day across all of the EU). Insert reference about Greece being “the cradle of civilization” and the “birthplace of philosophy”, etc… via Police silent in Greece on migrant’s jail ordeal - The Irish Times
As reported in the The Irish Times on Tuesday, earlier this month, Walid Taleb (29) was abducted and tortured by the baker, for whom he worked, in an 18-hour ordeal in a stable on the Greek island of Salamina. Mr Taleb, chained during the attack, said the baker, his son and two accomplices threatened to kill him and bury him in the outhouse.
Mr Taleb, who is an undocumented migrant from Egypt, managed to escape when his tormentors left to open the bakery the following morning.
He was then taken to hospital for treatment but medics said there was no need to keep him in. Police then subsequently kept him in a cell with criminal suspects at Salamina police station for three nights, before taking him to Athens central aliens bureau, where preparations were made to deport him to Egypt.
First tortured and beaten by racists, then jailed and now deported. This is the kind of “justice” undocumented persons can expect in the European Union.
“[European Union] Home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said it should be picked up by 27 children, one from each EU country.”
Pride, confusion and sour grapes after EU wins Nobel - EWR
Can you imagine the picture of these 27 White children picking the Prize? Because you don’t really think one of these European countries will send a child of Color to represent them, do you?
Two news items from the Nobel Peace Prize winner land
A fence along the Greek-Turkish border, designed to prevent illegal immigration through the northern region of Evros, will be up and fully operational by the end of the month, authorities have told Kathimerini.
More than half of the planned 12.5-kilometer fence has already been constructed and the remainder will be in place before November, according to an official at the border crossing, which already has seen a sharp drop in illegal arrivals due to a joint crackdown by Greek police and officers of the European Union’s border monitoring agency Frontex.
and ‘Difficult’ asylum seekers put in Swedish prison
“Desperate” asylum seekers awaiting deportation from Sweden have been placed in a prison after the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) deemed them too hard to handle.
Both items are of particular interest to those Europeans that love to point out how “fascist” the US is in regards to treatment of immigrants (especially involving the US border fence) or those who are keen on pointing to the treatment of prisoners without trial, etc.
There are plain human rights violations and then there are racist Nobel Peace Prize winning human rights violations.
“To be clear, Alleen Maar Nette Mensen is an 89 minute assault and degradation of Afro Surinamese and Dutch Afro Caribbean women and men, the Bijlmer (the multicultural heart of Amsterdam) and their cultures. The film is bursting at the seams with racist and sexist spectacles. Fictionalized spectacle in and of itself is not at issue here, it’s the manner in which the spectacle is used to uncritically reproduce some of the most damaging historical stereotypes of men and women of color.”
A film review by Quinsy Gario of the new Dutch film Alleen Maar Nette Mensen (Only decent people) which opened in The Netherlands yesterday.
My latest about reports of undocumented migration into the EU. From the piece:
For added emotional effect and in case anyone was under the impression that these are human beings moving across borders, the Wall Street Journal quotes Austrian Home Affairs Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner who described the Greek-Turkish border “as open as a barn door”. You know, a barn where untamed animals might escape from and the not so subtle implication that anyone leaving outside EU borders is some kind of beast; I suppose any association to Orwell’s Animal Farm was unintended for Minister Mikl-Leitner.
