Often, when things about the plight of a refugee, one thinks of a person who at the edge of angst decides to flee their country trying to find a safe haven to secure their life. More often than not they are in state of “in-between-ness”; they are emotionally attached to the life that they left behind, but they are living a life estranged from that which they left behind. However, the condition of being refugee has not often been something to be proud of. Who could be proud of having to abandon one’s life, as one knew it and start anew, somewhere else? However, for all the fear mongering and trash-talk that often precedes the discussion on or about refugees in the United States, it turns out that there is a certain profit to be gain from claiming oneself to be a refugee even if one has not been. There is an air of victimhood and perhaps of commitment towards one’s sense of justice and rightness, which can be exploited for political gains, even if one simply fled the country for merely simply trying to start a new life, without being necessarily persecuted. Over the weekend, I stumbled upon an article by Tom Lyons where he talks about the claim of Mario Rubio Republican Senator from Florida who claimed that his family arrived to the U.S. after Castro had taken over Cuba; however, an investigation from the Washington Post forced him to admit that his family arrived to Florida in 1956 four years before the Communist rise to power.

More than the obvious denounce, which has already been done by the Washington Post and Tom Lyons, it seems interesting to explore how there seem to be gains from the figure of the refugee that could be exploited from a political perspective. It is not a matter of naivete, eventually everything could become twisted and or vented and exploited for political purposes; however, it is curious that one of the parties that has the most conservative policies towards immigration has a senator and possible presidential contender, exploiting the story of having been a refugee.

I just saw this on the news tonight… what do you think?

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann submerged herself into a delicate area of immigration policy stating that she “would ‘not do anything’ for children of illegal immigrants..”

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/29/8541096-bachmann-says-she-would-not-do-anything-for-children-of-illegal-immigrants

Former Colombian rebel elected mayor of capital, Bogota

BBC NEWS

A former left-wing rebel has been elected mayor of the capital, Bogota, as Colombians vote in local elections.

Gustavo Petro, 51, a former guerrilla with the defunct M-19 movement, won 32% of the vote after running a “zero corruption” campaign.

His main opponent Enrique Penalosa, the favoured candidate of former President Alvaro Uribe, conceded after polling 25%.

During a violent campaign, 41 candidates were killed nationwide.

Mr Petro said his win showed that reconciliation was possible in Colombia, which is plagued by violence from left-wing guerrillas and right wing death squads. Thousands die each year in Colombia’s armed conflicts, which are fuelled by cash from the illegal narcotics trade.

“Bogota has chosen as its mayor a son of the peace process of 1989,” Mr Petro said in his acceptance speech. “Bogota is saying yes to reconciliation, yes to peace.”

He was given amnesty after serving two years in jail for his involvement in the M-19 group.

Five years ago, his denunciations as a senator of close ties between national and regional politicians and right-wing death squads spurred the so-called “parapolitics” scandal that has landed more than 60 politicians in prison for crimes ranging from criminal conspiracy to murder.

Last year, Mr Petro helped uncover a bid-rigging scandal in Bogota that has landed its previous elected mayor, Samuel Moreno, in jail facing corruption charges.

The voting in the capital was part of nationwide regional and municipal elections, with 32 governorships and more than 1,100 mayoral and municipal council post being contested.

Authorities and electoral watchdog groups reported relatively few voting irregularities.

One of the images that came back to me when I was reading the article of Ricardo Piglia was the role of musicians like Charly Garcia who also through art and metaphor managed to deliver a message of hope and a future of possibilities in the uncertain times of the Argentinian dictatorship. Particularly relevant to the theme at hand are songs like “Los Dinosauros” which refers as the dinosaurs as the hoary political structure that will for certain disappear when time comes. Part of the chorus says something along the lines that “the friends of your neighbourhood could disappear, the person that you love could disappear, but the dinosaurs will disappear.” In a sense the song tries to give hope to those who despair seeing that people are disappearing and nothing is changing for good. Those in power continued disappearing people, particularly the people around you; however, it is a fact that they “the dinosaurs” will disappear. Moreover, Charly Garcia is not the only one who used art to channel or express the fear, hope and uncertainty of those who felt overwhelmed by the oppressive State powers. There were also people like Juan Gelman, who although having lost a son and a pregnant daughter at the hands of Argentinian State forces, remained a faithful to the possibility of a world after the Junta.

Although the songs now seem more like historical documents of a few daring musicians who decided to take a stance on their political situations, there were also a few historical conditions that should be remembered when considering the mentioned songs and poems. The first one is that there was a strong censorship that decided what was to be heard in the radios and sung in public recitals, so the songs needed to deliver the message trying to use as much allegory and metaphors that the agents of the government were not able to see what was really being said, while managing to deliver the message to the listeners. Another factor that also contributed to the development of Argentinian music industry and the allegoric mechanism of delivering the message bypassing the censorship was the fact that around the war of the Malvinas Islands music and art in English was forbidden and that to a certain extent obliged people to explore the peculiarity of the circumstances that they lived as well as poetic mechanisms to bypass the governmental censorship.

Although I have focused mostly in music and a few poems mostly because it is the material with which I grew up, I simply wanted to point out that although the Mothers of the Plaza the Mayo are recognized as “the only visible oppositional presence during the dark years of the dictatorship” there were also people who although not so visible as the mothers, were also struggling to dissent from the powers of the Argentinian dictatorship, who perhaps had a greater range of influence.

This week's readings, while all obviously shared themes of abuse and violations committed in or relating to Argentina in the 1970s-80s, were also similar in their tone and mood. Specifically, there were all written in an incredibly dark and somber manner, which is only fitting for the subject matter discussed. I don't mean to point out the obvious but I think it is terribly heart breaking for the Argentinian people that their history is one filled with such horrible images and accounts of mass murders, torture, exile, war, and countless other inhumane experiences. As a Canadian I suppose I take our (relatively) peaceful history for granted and therefore can't imagine how generation after generation of Argentinians (and many other nations with violent histories) have been affected by the horrific abuses of their pasts. I think it's remarkable that people who have suffered such extreme atrocities at the hands of their own unjust and oppressive governments, have been able to continue on and find strength to keep fighting against what is wrong, after virtually everything has been taken away from them. While reading this week's collections therefore, I was shocked to learn about the inhumanities committed in Argentina, by one human being to another, but even more amazed by the courage and perseverance exemplified by those who suffered the most, to keep on living, thriving, and fighting to end abuse.

The Madres of the the Plaza de Mayo, perhaps a Latin American rights group most of us are familiar with, is a prime example of this remarkable Argentinian courage. These mothers, who refused to accept that their loved ones, unlawfully captured by the government and police, were gone forever and so they quite literally took matters into their own hands, marching to court and judges, pleading habeus corpus for those disappeared. When the police started the rumour that they were crazed, pathetic women, the Madres continued on and pulled more women into their demonstration. They even went to far as to capture international media coverage during the world cup, despite the presence of the dictatorial government and police force watching their every move. These women demanded answers and demanded the return of those taken from them. They stood up to the government even after members were detained and held in prison. In short, these remarkable women said a big eff you to the government, and demonstrated that they would not be intimidated into silence and would keep causing trouble until their loved ones were rightfully returned to them.

Never Again, the compilation of Argentinian prisoners' accounts of the torture they endured during detainment by the police was a truly horrifying read. The fact that there exist human beings capable of exerting so much pain on other individuals and actually get some sort of twisted pleasure out of it makes me want to lock my door and never leave my house again.  The testimonials of those people, and the thousands of untold stories of those who died under such torturous conditions, document some of the most despicable acts of mankind. And yet, I believe there is some purpose to reporting these horrible events. The people who recounted their traumas should be commended for reliving these experiences so that the people who committed such crimes can be caught and punished, and (optimistically) stop such crimes from ever occurring again. I have called this optimistic however, and probably naivee, because regardless of the number of survivors stories, such as these, that we read or hear, there will continue to be new stories in the future because bad people will continue to be moulded from society and live to commit horrible crimes.

With this in mind then, I sometimes do wonder about the importance or necessity of human rights. Inherently 'good' people (I use this term loosely to mean the average person that doesn't have a thirst for blood or violence) will be nice to other people, and respect other peoples' so called rights. But bad people, as has been made obvious by history (*cough* Hitler), will harm other people, regardless if there is a piece of paper restricting such actions because they infringe on a supposed human right. The very notion of a human right is such a sociological, intangible construct that it basically means nothing and holds little weight in the real world. It's all well and nice to sit around and talk about the need to declare the universal rights that every human being should enjoy, but the inability to enforce these rights makes them essentially useless and a waste of time. How did the UN Universal Declaration of Rights help the Madres protect their loved ones from the government? How did it enable the victims from "Never Again" to escape torture? How did human rights stop 30,000 Argentinians from being captured, tortured, and killed by their own government, the very body that is supposed to enforce such rights? The existence of "human rights" did nothing to protect the Argentinians and millions like them, who had the severe misfortune of being targeted by bad, violent people.

This week's readings, while all obviously shared themes of abuse and violations committed in or relating to Argentina in the 1970s-80s, were also similar in their tone and mood. Specifically, there were all written in an incredibly dark and somber manner, which is only fitting for the subject matter discussed. I don't mean to point out the obvious but I think it is terribly heart breaking for the Argentinian people that their history is one filled with such horrible images and accounts of mass murders, torture, exile, war, and countless other inhumane experiences. As a Canadian I suppose I take our (relatively) peaceful history for granted and therefore can't imagine how generation after generation of Argentinians (and many other nations with violent histories) have been affected by the horrific abuses of their pasts. I think it's remarkable that people who have suffered such extreme atrocities at the hands of their own unjust and oppressive governments, have been able to continue on and find strength to keep fighting against what is wrong, after virtually everything has been taken away from them. While reading this week's collections therefore, I was shocked to learn about the inhumanities committed in Argentina, by one human being to another, but even more amazed by the courage and perseverance exemplified by those who suffered the most, to keep on living, thriving, and fighting to end abuse.

The Madres of the the Plaza de Mayo, perhaps a Latin American rights group most of us are familiar with, is a prime example of this remarkable Argentinian courage. These mothers, who refused to accept that their loved ones, unlawfully captured by the government and police, were gone forever and so they quite literally took matters into their own hands, marching to court and judges, pleading habeus corpus for those disappeared. When the police started the rumour that they were crazed, pathetic women, the Madres continued on and pulled more women into their demonstration. They even went to far as to capture international media coverage during the world cup, despite the presence of the dictatorial government and police force watching their every move. These women demanded answers and demanded the return of those taken from them. They stood up to the government even after members were detained and held in prison. In short, these remarkable women said a big eff you to the government, and demonstrated that they would not be intimidated into silence and would keep causing trouble until their loved ones were rightfully returned to them.

Never Again, the compilation of Argentinian prisoners' accounts of the torture they endured during detainment by the police was a truly horrifying read. The fact that there exist human beings capable of exerting so much pain on other individuals and actually get some sort of twisted pleasure out of it makes me want to lock my door and never leave my house again.  The testimonials of those people, and the thousands of untold stories of those who died under such torturous conditions, document some of the most despicable acts of mankind. And yet, I believe there is some purpose to reporting these horrible events. The people who recounted their traumas should be commended for reliving these experiences so that the people who committed such crimes can be caught and punished, and (optimistically) stop such crimes from ever occurring again. I have called this optimistic however, and probably naivee, because regardless of the number of survivors stories, such as these, that we read or hear, there will continue to be new stories in the future because bad people will continue to be moulded from society and live to commit horrible crimes.

With this in mind then, I sometimes do wonder about the importance or necessity of human rights. Inherently 'good' people (I use this term loosely to mean the average person that doesn't have a thirst for blood or violence) will be nice to other people, and respect other peoples' so called rights. But bad people, as has been made obvious by history (*cough* Hitler), will harm other people, regardless if there is a piece of paper restricting such actions because they infringe on a supposed human right. The very notion of a human right is such a sociological, intangible construct that it basically means nothing and holds little weight in the real world. It's all well and nice to sit around and talk about the need to declare the universal rights that every human being should enjoy, but the inability to enforce these rights makes them essentially useless and a waste of time. How did the UN Universal Declaration of Rights help the Madres protect their loved ones from the government? How did it enable the victims from "Never Again" to escape torture? How did human rights stop 30,000 Argentinians from being captured, tortured, and killed by their own government, the very body that is supposed to enforce such rights? The existence of "human rights" did nothing to protect the Argentinians and millions like them, who had the severe misfortune of being targeted by bad, violent people.

* I can't leave a comment on the blog itself as I don't have that type of account - so hope this is okay instead!*

I really liked the connection and distinction that you pointed out between the Mothers and other people also seeking political change like Che Guevara. That's a really neat connection that I wouldn't have thought of but I definitely see the point you're making in that both are seeking change but in very different ways, and creating different powerful images for themselves. I like that a lot.  I also share your indignation at the precedence put upon sporting events and arenas (like the World Cup and the Olympics) over the citizens of the country who need their state's help. Sure, things like this can bring revenue to a country, but it's not at all worth the human rights injustices that occur as a result - like the sweeping away of homeless people as you mentioned.

* I can't leave a comment on the blog itself as I don't have that type of account - so hope this is okay instead!*

I really liked the connection and distinction that you pointed out between the Mothers and other people also seeking political change like Che Guevara. That's a really neat connection that I wouldn't have thought of but I definitely see the point you're making in that both are seeking change but in very different ways, and creating different powerful images for themselves. I like that a lot.  I also share your indignation at the precedence put upon sporting events and arenas (like the World Cup and the Olympics) over the citizens of the country who need their state's help. Sure, things like this can bring revenue to a country, but it's not at all worth the human rights injustices that occur as a result - like the sweeping away of homeless people as you mentioned.

A good look at the trickonomics of FTAs, going 15 years back (already?!?) to the signing of NAFTA and exposing some of the patterns of broken promises and real repercussions. Let's see how Colombia and Panama (or a better question perhaps is who) will benefit from this, and how the rights of laborers and the environment, to name a few, are affected.

Peace.

http://www.truth-out.org/new-free-trade-agreements-threaten-kill-jobs-and-labor-rights/1318363783

A good look at the trickonomics of FTAs, going 15 years back (already?!?) to the signing of NAFTA and exposing some of the patterns of broken promises and real repercussions. Let's see how Colombia and Panama (or a better question perhaps is who) will benefit from this, and how the rights of laborers and the environment, to name a few, are affected.

Peace.

http://www.truth-out.org/new-free-trade-agreements-threaten-kill-jobs-and-labor-rights/1318363783