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French Diversity Raises an Eyebrow at Nicolas Sarkozy’s ‘Our Ancestors Are the Gauls’ Declaration · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

Asterix and Obelix, the Gauls (Aimer Béthune – public domain)
Nicolas Sarkozy has launched his 2017 French presidential campaign, and it already promises plenty of surprising statements.
As Sarkozy chases after votes from the right wing of his party, The Republicans, a recent comment is raising eyebrows: “Once you become French, your ancestors are the Gauls,” Sarkozy said early last week in a speech.
Setting aside the genealogical wizardry of this statement, the sixth president of France's fifth Republic appears to be trying to exploit widening rifts in the country by using this phrase about “our ancestors,” which has special historical significance.
The phrase first appeared in the history textbooks of the Third Republic, just after 1870, at the urging of historian Ernest Lavisse. Here's his explanation:
Il y a dans le passé le plus lointain une poésie qu'il faut verser dans les jeunes âmes pour y fortifier le sentiment patriotique. Faisons-leur aimer nos ancêtres les Gaulois et les forêts des druides, Charles Martel à Poitiers, Roland à Roncevaux, Godefroi de Bouillon à Jérusalem, Jeanne d'Arc, Bayard, tous nos héros du passé, même enveloppés de légendes car c'est un malheur que nos légendes s'oublient
In our earliest history, there is a poetry that we must instill in the souls of our young people in order to strengthen their patriotic sentiment. We must teach them to love our ancestors the Gauls and the forests of the druids, Charles Martel at Poitiers, Roland at Roncevaux, Godefroi de Bouillon in Jerusalem, Jeanne d'Arc, Bayard, all our past heroes, even when their stories are veiled in myth, because it would be a tragedy for our myths to be forgotten.
But the problem is that this assertion, promulgated in French history books right up to the 1980s, is inaccurate. As Suzanne Citron, author of the book “Le Mythe national: l'histoire de France revisitée,” explains:
Cette lecture du passé français à travers la grille d’une Gaule qui préfigurerait la ‘nation’ est obsolète et non sans effets pervers. D’une part elle conditionne spatialement le passé autour du seul Hexagone, excluant de ce passé tout ce qui géographiquement lui est extérieur, comme les Antilles ou même la Corse.
Elle confère à la durée de la présence sur le sol hexagonal présumé ‘gaulois’ une vertu quasi-magique au nom d’une antériorité généalogique qui serait synonyme de supériorité. D’autre part, et c’est le plus grave, l’idée d’une souche gauloise ethnicise fantasmatiquement la ‘véritable’ nation et nie la diversité raciale et culturelle qui a constamment accompagné la création historique de la France.
Understanding France's past from a perspective that regards Gaul as the precursor to “our nation” is obsolete and quite harmful. Firstly, it restricts our history within the limits of the French mainland, excluding everywhere that lies geographically outside it, like the French West Indies and even Corsica. It accords an almost magical property to a long-standing presence on the supposedly “Gallic” mainland, promoting the idea of such genealogical antecedents as synonymous with superiority. In addition, and this is more serious, the idea of Gallic origins bestows a fictitious ethnicity on the “true” nation and rejects the racial and cultural diversity that has always been part of France's history.
Celtic Gaul, as described by Caesar. Public domain.
Mathilde Larrere, a historian specializing in the history of revolution and citizenship, notes that the phrase was already out of date during the colonial period:
5)Un mantra enseigné dans les écoles de la IIIe répu, puis dans les colonies ce qui ne manquait pas de sel… pic.twitter.com/DOBTOVm2Fg
— mathilde larrere (@LarrereMathilde) September 20, 2016
A mantra taught in schools in the Third Republic and then in the colonies, which is somewhat ironic.
Sarkozy has reacted to the growing controversy by arguing:
Ça veut dire qu'il y a un roman national, que ce roman national ce n'est pas forcément la vérité historique dans son détail mais c'est un roman national peuplé de héros qui ont fait la France, et quand on est fils d'un hongrois ou fils d'un algérien et que vous arrivez en France, on ne vous apprend pas l'histoire de la Hongrie ou de l'Algérie, on vous apprend l'histoire de France. Le nivellement de la pensée unique sur le droit à la différence ça suffit.
What I mean is that there's a national narrative, not necessarily historically true in all its detail, but a national narrative peopled with heroes who made France what it is, and when you're the child of an Algerian or a Hungarian arriving in France, you aren't taught the history of Hungary or Algeria, you're taught the history of France. Enough of the dumbed-down, one-track thinking that says everyone has a right to be different.
Sarkozy apparently believes that accepting a common Gallic history is a basic requirement for assimilation into the French nation. How then is Sarkozy's statement perceived by those French who can be fairly confident that their ancestors are not Gauls?
“I'm not sure they'll believe it for long!” (Cartoon from Aimer Béthune—public domain)
History professor Thomas Snégaroff quotes the Martinique poet Aimé Césaire on the subject of “our ancestors the Gauls”:
Quand vous lisez à 6 ans que vos ancêtres étaient des Gaulois, qu'ils étaient blonds aux yeux bleus…Et l'instituteur et nous mêmes nous rigolions. Nous étions avant tout des nègres et créolophones.
When you're six years old and you read that your ancestors were Gauls, with fair hair and blue eyes… it wasn't only us who giggled, it was the teacher, too. First and foremost, we were black and we spoke Creole.
Meanwhile Josette Borel-Lincertin, the president of Guadeloupe's Departmental Council, deplores such a “narrow view of France”:
La République que nous défendons c'est précisément celle qui parvient à célébrer l'unité dans la diversité et certainement pas celle qui imposerait une vision étriquée de la France, de son identité et de son histoire. Je regrette cette escalade verbale de candidats qui, dans leur course effrénée derrière les électeurs du Front national, arrivent à en adopter les thèses plus éculées, les plus rétrogrades et les plus ineptes du point de vue historique.
[I regret] this verbal escalation from the presidential candidates who, in their headlong pursuit of National Front voters, have adopted their most threadbare, retrograde and historically absurd theories. […] The Republic that we support is quite clearly one that successfully celebrates unity in diversity and certainly not one that seeks to impose a narrow view of France, of French identity, and history.
Jean-Christophe Lagarde, the president of the Union of Democrats and Independents, also points to the French who came from the old colonies:
dont les parents et les grands-parents se sont battus pour que nous soyons aujourd'hui un pays libre.  C’est une fiction scientifique, le peuple gaulois n’existait pas. C’est la composition de plein de peuples. La définition du citoyen français c’est de partager les valeurs de la France de liberté, d’égalité, de fraternité et de laïcité.
[These people] whose parents and grandparents fought for us to be a free country. […] It's make-believe; the Gauls didn't exist. They were an amalgamation of many different tribes. […] The definition of a French citizen is someone who shares the values of France: liberty, equality, fraternity, and the secular state.
And finally, speaking at a conference on slavery, Myriam Cottias, who heads the first French international centre for research on slavery, explains why the phrase carries such veiled meaning in the French West Indies:
(..) a choisi pour cette conférence le titre Nos ancêtres les Gaulois… La France et l’esclavage aujourd’hui. Pour les Antillais, cela fait sens. Je ne sais si tel est le cas au-delà des Antilles, mais la formule soulève une question très importante : la possibilité de resituer, dans un parcours historique, la relation des Antilles avec l’Hexagone pour essayer de penser une relation qui ne serait pas prise dans la relation coloniale. La traduction concrète [de nos ancêtres les Gaulois] est la suivante : les anciens esclaves deviennent des Français à part entière.  Voilà pourquoi « nos ancêtres les Gaulois », le mythe fondateur français, sera enseigné dans les colonies. Les Antilles sont devenues françaises et se sont structurées localement sur la base de l’oubli de l’esclavage. Il ne peut être qu’un mot d’ordre politique car c’est un oubli impossible, surtout lorsque les structures de travail demeurent les mêmes, que la hiérarchie raciale héritée de l’esclavage demeure la même. Ce qui n’avait pas été prévu, à mon sens, c’est que le discours universaliste, égalitariste de la République allait produire un tel oubli.
The title chosen for this conference is “Our ancestors the Gauls… France and slavery today.” For people from the French West Indies, that resonates. I don't know if it's the case outside the French West Indies, but the phrase highlights an important issue: whether, on our path through history, we can restore a relationship between the French West Indies and the French mainland, […] one that isn't shackled by the colonial connection. […] Liberty, equality, fraternity? What this actually means is that one-time slaves became, in terms of their legal rights, fully French. […] That's why the founding French myth of ‘our ancestors the Gauls’ was taught in the colonies. The French West Indies became French and were structured on the basis that slavery was forgotten. […] That can only be a political formula, because it's impossible to forget, especially when employment structures haven't changed […] and when the racial hierarchy bequeathed by slavery remains the same. […] What was not foreseen, in my view, was that it would be the Republic's universalist, egalitarian discourse that would be responsible for slavery being forgotten.

author: Rakotomalala


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In Defense of My Right to Abortion in Macedonia · Global Voices
Ana Miškovska Kajevska

Pregnancy Test. PHOTO: Johannes Jander (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Before June 2013, Macedonia had a rather liberal abortion law. Women could undergo the surgical intervention without being subjected to a mandatory waiting period and counselling.
Since the June 2013 imposition of a more restrictive abortion law, however, abortion in Macedonia has become not only bureaucratized, but also a complicated and drawn-out procedure exacerbated by the already unfavorable climate regarding the termination of pregnancy.
Despite the existence of constitutionally guaranteed secularism and freedom of choice regarding childbirth, the mainstream political and media discourse in Macedonia is saturated with anti-choice religious references, including in state-sponsored public campaigns against abortion.
Today in Macedonia there is no comprehensive sex education and affordable high-quality (emergency) contraceptives are not widely available, nor is medical abortion officially sanctioned. In addition, the disintegrating public healthcare system is understaffed, outdated and often not easily accessible–especially for those who live in rural and smaller urban settlements.
That is the context in which I speak out in defense of my right, and the right of all women, to safe, legal, quickly obtainable and affordable abortions.
In a patriarchal society like Macedonia’s, it is already much harder for a woman to attain professional success. A woman will have to work much harder than her male colleagues in order to be seen as equal to them in competence, then she will eventually hit the glass ceiling. Furthermore, her value as a human being will be judged to a large extent by her physical appearance, and society will expect her—not her partner—to take responsibility for care of the household, children and elderly relatives.
It is she who will have to be on stand-by 24/7 to assist with school assignments, and accompany children to extracurricular activities, doctor’s visits, not to mention assume responsibility for home care in case of illness. If, that is, she was lucky enough not to be fired, or fail to have a contract extended, after announcing her pregnancy.
Single mothers and women who cannot easily take leaves of absence from their jobs are additionally strained. Not to mention the women raising children with special needs.
These requirements create a heavy burden for a woman even when her pregnancy is planned and happily anticipated. They become, however, that much harder to bear in the case of unwanted pregnancy, especially when the child is conceived out of wedlock – a situation a conservative society has a trouble accepting as normal in spite of its frequency.
Pregnancy and parenting change women’s lives much more profoundly than men’s, both in terms of substantial biological alterations and modifications of daily routines and long-term career and personal development. Yet the Macedonian state does not provide a legal and institutional framework—such as provisions for men’s parental leave and leave of absence in case of emergencies–which would facilitate the equal participation in parenting duties, domestic chores and eldercare by men.
Consequently, if the state—and men—are unwilling to assume responsibility, they should at the very least not seek to hinder women’s choice regarding childbirth. In other words, those expected to assume responsibility for something should be fully entitled to decide whether they want to take on that duty, without any state-sanctioned obstructions based on religion, culture or any other more or less institutionalized ideology.
In the context above, the decision to subject one’s body to a hormonal and/or surgical intervention instead of giving birth to a child for whom a safe, nurturing and loving environment cannot be guaranteed, is not an immature denial of responsibility. Quite the contrary: it is the ultimate act of assumption of responsibility both for oneself and the world one lives in and leaves behind.
The right to abortion extends, however, beyond the choice of whether to give birth. It enables women to be the boss of their own body instead of allowing any political, religious and/or family authorities to hold it hostage. Women’s freedom to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights is also a freedom to fully enjoy all facets and forms of one’s sexuality, and to engage in intercourse purely for the sake of sexual gratification.
Broad access to contraceptives and abortion means broad access to pleasure, creativity and profound interpersonal connection outside the confines of the conservative dogmas.
To advocate for such access is to fight for women’s—and men’s—right to exist as caring, responsible and sexual, but, above all, happy and fulfilled, human beings.
Ana Miškovska Kajevska, PhD is an activist and gender expert.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Ana Miškovska Kajevska


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In Tanzania, Expressing Political Opinions on Social Media is Becoming Increasingly Dangerous · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

A sign for an Internet cafe in Tanzania. Tanzania is one of the top 10 countries with most Internet users in Africa. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user Aslak Raanes.
Five Tanzanian citizens, Dennis Temu, Suleiman Nassoro, Shakira Makame, Juma Mtatuu, Dennis Mtegwa, appeared before a Tanzanian court September 14 charged with insulting President John Magufuli on social media. The five denied the charges.
It is alleged that the five shared offensive content targeting the president and the police between August 24 and 30 this year, in violation of Section 118 (a) of the Electronic and Postal Communications Act No. 3 of 2010.
The section imposes a criminal penalty on any person who:
I don’t know what is going on in JPM’s [Tanzania's President John Pombe Magufuli] head… He doesn’t even know how to say sorry. We are at this stage because of one person who believes that what he thinks is always right…he needs to understand that politics isn’t about resentment and the Opposition isn’t an enemy…he should learn to compete with the Opposition on the basis of debate, not force.
In another recent case, Dr. Oscar Magava, a lecturer at the Mkwawa University College of Education in Iringa region, was arrested for allegedly insulting the president.
Regional Police Commander Dr. Julius Jengi Gava said on September 15 they received reports that the lecturer used social networks to the abuse the president. He did not specify which social network he used and what exactly Magava said about the president.
Since President John Magufuli won the presidential election in October 2015, 14 people have already being arrested and charged for insulting the president on social media. Thus far only one citizen, Isaac Abakuki Emily, has been found guilty of these charges. He was convicted in June 2016 of insulting Tanzanian President John Magufuli on his Facebook page by the Arusha Resident Magistrate’s Court.
Tanzanian citizen Leonard Mulokozi was charged on June 22 under Tanzania's Electronic and Postal Communications Act over a WhatsApp message that authorities say is “abusive” to Tanzanias president, John Magufuli.
In October 2015, two Tanzanians became the first victims of the new law. Benedict Angelo Ngonyani, a 24-year-old student at Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology, was charged for publishing materials which are “false or not verified by relevant authorities.” It is alleged that he posted a Facebook post claiming that Tanzania's Chief of Defence Forces, General Davis Mwamunyange, had been hospitalized after eating poisoned food.
In November 2015, four Tanzanians — Leila Sinare, Godfrey Soka, Deo Soka and Monica Gaspary Soka — were charged under Section 16 of Cybercrime Act for publishing false, election-related information on WhatsApp. Public prosecutors alleged that the accused published audio information on a WhatsApp group called the “Soka Group”, that was intended to mislead the public during the October 2015 Tanzanian general elections, which were plagued by accusations of vote-rigging.
Most of these citizens have been charged under the controversial relatively new Cybercrime Act. Authorities frame the Cybercrime Act as an important tool for fighting child pornography, cyberbullying, online impersonation, racist and xenophobic content online, unsolicited messages (i.e. spam), illegal interception of communications, and publication of false information.
The controversial law was signed into law by the former President Jakaya Kikwete in May 2015, despite criticism from opposition politicians, social media practitioners, and human rights activists.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Netizen Report: Swiss Citizens Say Yes to Surveillance · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Swiss activists gather to deliver votes for referendum on surveillance law. Photo by JUSO Schweiz via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
In a public referendum held September 25, a majority of Swiss voters supported a new lawthat would grant the Swiss intelligence agency (Service de Renseignement de la Confederation, or SRC) powers to spy on telecommunications, infect citizens’ digital communications devices with surveillance malware, and place microphones and video cameras in private locations.
The law expands the surveillance capacities of the Swiss government, but still requires intelligence officials to obtain approval from a federal court, the defense ministry and a cabinet in order to being monitoring a citizen. This procedure is intended to distribute checks on power and thereby make the law less susceptible to abuse, at least in theory. In urgent cases, however, these approvals can be obtained retroactively. Citizens who are targets will also be informed within a month of the methods and duration of the surveillance, though there are exceptions if notifying the suspect is against the public interest, would affect legal proceedings, or could put people in danger.
The law won citizens’ approval by 65.5%, with 43% of eligible voters participating. The bill was initially approved by parliament in 2015, but critics of the bill collected signatures to force the referendum.
AFP reported that Swiss defense minister Guy Parmelin sees the law’s approval as a metaphorical “leaving [of] the basement and coming up to the ground floor” of international security service standards
Social Democrat parliamentarian Jean Christophe Schwaab, a leading opponent of the bill, expressed concern that the current government would circumvent judicial and defense approval processes. He also said that he is concerned that it could give way to a slippery slope effect for surveillance practices in the coming years, noting that it is very difficult to reject an urgent request from the intelligence service “in the current climate of general paranoia.”
The law is also raising concern among Swiss-based technology companies including ProtonMail, a popular encrypted email service provider known for its relative user-friendliness. ProtonMail founder Andy Yen expressed disappointment about the referendum results in an interview with TechCrunch, but he asserted that the law would have “no impact on ProtonMail,” due to the fact that the company does not collect or store users’ email encryption keys (which are imperative to decrypting and reading the content of an email message) or personally identifiable information.
Mexican news outlet Reforma recently confirmed that Mexico's attorney general acquired surveillance software from the Israeli company NSO Group in 2014 and 2015 for a sum of 15 million dollars. This only adds to a growing list of major purchases that Mexican government agencies have made from leading surveillance software companies over the last four years. Leaked documents and technical investigations also have revealed that authorities have used Gamma’s Finfisher software, Hacking Team’s Remote Control System, and so-called IMSI catchers made by Finnish technology company Exfo Oy.
Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar was shot dead on September 25 outside a courtroom in Amman, where he was scheduled to stand trial over a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam that he posted on Facebook. Hattar was charged with “inciting sectarian strife and insulting Islam,” according to the Guardian. The cartoon depicted a bearded man, presumably an ISIS militant, lying in bed next to two women, asking God to bring him a drink. Though the gunman was arrested, Hattar’s family has called on the government to hold those accountable who incited violence against Hattar on social media. In the meantime, Jordanian authorities have issued a ban on media coverage of Hattar’s case and assassination.
Six Sudanese activists affiliated with the Khartoum Center for Training and Human Development are currently on trial for undermining the constitutional system, waging war against the state, espionage, and terrorism. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison, or death. As evidence of their supposed “immorality”, Sudanese prosecutors have resorted to showing private photos and videos culled from the defendants’ confiscated laptops. Among others, the photo tweeted below was presented as evidence of the activists having “pornography” on their computers.
pornographic photo used as evidence against @midhatafifi on 4/9 trial featuring me & my husband #Sudan @TRACKsudan pic.twitter.com/7C2Pp92g5Y
— sudanesedream (@Sudanesedream) September 18, 2016
The UAE has dropped charges against Scott Richards, a British-Australian national living and working in Dubai, for sharing on Facebook a link to a charity raising funds for refugees in Afghanistan. Under UAE law, it is illegal to promote charities that are not registered with state authorities. Raising money for charities without obtaining the written approval of the authorities is also prohibited. Violators can face up to one year in jail and a fine.
Women in a cross-section of developing countries are 50% less likely to use the Internet than men, according to the World Wide Web Foundation. The Foundation produced report cards assessing the progress on closing the gender gap in 10 countries, including Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mozambique, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Uganda. The report finds that while India and the Philippines have almost closed the gap in urban areas, there is a long way to go — and even obtaining gender-disaggregated data on Internet access is still difficult, making it hard to measure progress where it occurs. According to the report, factors that prevent women from going online include affordability, knowing how to use the Internet, and online violence.
Afef Abrougui, Renata Avila, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Pauline Ratze and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Pakistani Actors in Bollywood Become Targets of Hate as the India-Pakistan Tussle Escalates · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

‘Beating of Retreat’ Ceremony at International Border at Wagha. Image from Flickr by user Koshy Koshy. CC BY 2.0
That India and Pakistan share a tumultuous political and military relationship is no hidden fact globally. But after the September 18 Uri attack by four heavily armed militants that killed 18 soldiers in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, hostilities between the South Asian neighbours have grown tense, with a diplomatic stand-off and border incursions.
The assault has been called ‘the deadliest attack on security forces in Kashmir‘ in two decades. India has retaliated with a ‘surgical strike‘ across the Line of Control — the line that separates India- and Pakistan-controlled parts of Kashmir and Jammu — on September 29.
One of the major casualties of this divisive battle between India and Pakistan is the art industry, precisely the film industry — Bollywood. Indians on social media have taken potshots at Pakistani superstars working in Bollywood like Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan, Mowra Hocane and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, while India's right-wing political outfit Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) threatened the actors to leave India or face dire consequences.
To add to it, Pakistani distributors have boycotted Bollywood film ‘MS Dhoni: An untold story’, which is based on Indian cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni‘s life.
Pakistani actor Fawad Khan leaves India after MNS threat. MNS gave 48 hours deadline to Pak artists
— IndiaTodayFLASH (@IndiaTodayFLASH) September 27, 2016
MNS members demonstrated in front of Bollywood producer Karan Johar's office and asked him to edit scenes involving Fawad Khan from his upcoming venture ‘Ae Dil Hain Mushkil’ (The heart is difficult) or face protests. Even the upcoming film ‘Raees’, which stars Indian actor and Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and also features Pakistani actor Mahira Khan as the female lead, is being targeted by the political outfit.
Twitter users attacked Fawad Khan and Pakistani artists for seeking employment in India:
It's also high time V realise that artistes r not above d nation and those artists who don't identify with our pain shld nt b entertained.
— Ashoke Pandit (@ashokepandit) September 28, 2016
It is also high time we realise that artistes are not above the nation and those artists who do not identify with our pain should not be entertained.
Pak will be least bothered if few artists dont get work in India. himmat hai toh stop import export @NamoRajArmy @juneymb @subhashchandra
— Dora (@BibiPakhii) September 24, 2016
Pakistan will be least bothered if a few artists do not get work in India. If you have the guts, stop import-export.
Subhash Chandra, chairman of Essel Group and Zee Media, tweeted that Zee's Zindagi channel would stop airing popular Pakistani soaps:
unfortunate stance of Mia Sharif at UN. Zee is considering stopping Zindgi programs from Pak,as well artists from there should leave
— Dr. Subhash Chandra (@subhashchandra) September 24, 2016
Will not shut down Zindgi channel but revamp programming without Serials from Pakistan, we will have Indian subjects on Muslim community
— Dr. Subhash Chandra (@subhashchandra) September 24, 2016
On the website Bollywood Journalist, reporter Soumyadipta Banerjee wrote a highly circulated letter to Fawad Khan titled ‘Dear Fawad Khan. It’s time. Go back to Pakistan’ arguing that because Pakistan marginalises Indian art, it isn't fair for the Pakistani actor continues to enjoy such success in India's Bollywood:
I don’t know about others, I used to be very vocal about the fact that culture knows no boundaries and that there should be free exchange of artistes between India and Pakistan. Me and few of my friends supported and patronised the fact that India and Pakistan should collaborate for projects, specially when it comes to cinema. We recognise that cinema is one of the strongest forms of dialogue that can go a long way in forming public opinion across borders which will facilitate the peace process between the neighbours.
Not anymore.
Dear Fawad, whatever we have mentioned earlier is being done by us. India. Your country is doing just the opposite. We talk about dialogues but this is just becoming a monologue of peace from India.
We give you so much love and money, but your country continues to ban our cinema and our artistes.
Banerjee's letter received many responses, including this one from Pakistani doctor Asif Nawaz at the Tribune Blog, who argued it was actually India that was sidelining Pakistani films:
India didn’t make Fawad Khan a superstar, it roped him in because he was one already, and marketed the product where the demand was brewing already. Mahira Khan is another sweetheart of Pakistan. These are the highest paid celebrities in Pakistan, and the latter’s film in India hasn’t even released yet. The last point was just for your notice in case you try to claim Mahira Khan’s stardom in the future too.
It’s grossly ignorant on your part to claim that while your country opens its doors ever so warmly to our country, we shut them in your face just as relentlessly. Can you please tell me how many Pakistani films have graced the screens of your country lately? While we have seen almost every Indian film playing in our country, if one of our films is lucky enough to be given the green signal by your country, it lands in trouble.
The fact is Pakistan is the third highest overseas market for Bollywood, and cross-border talent exchange between the two countries has been fostering positive cultural exchange for decades.
And Namita Handa from India defended Fawad Khan on Quint:
Fawad, you don’t lack courage. You don’t lack conviction. You definitely don’t lack guts, you are one actor, who at an early stage of his career took up a challenging role in Kapoor and Sons and has been applauded for it. You see what you’ve earned here is only because of your hard work and capabilities. We’ve showered love on you because you deserve it (and also because of your dreamy eyes) not because you are from Pakistan.
Rajyasree Sen wrote on Scoopwhoop news site that the arts should be above the problems between India and Pakistan:
According to me, culture and art and sport should be without boundaries and borders. These are the two areas which bring people together and encourage understanding of other cultures. It is why the Refugee contingent at the Rio Olympics, were such an inspiring sight. Because they became the face of the fact that war-torn countries are made up of humans, some extremely talented, who are the collateral damage of their governments and international relations and wars.
While on Facebook, Samyak Chakrabarty from Mumbai argued that banning actors from Pakistan might send an effective message:
Banning actors from Pakistan is not a solution to anything. But it will send a strong message across the border that India and it's various institutions will no longer operate under any pretence of peace and dialogue. It is time to unleash the necessary evil. We must support the Indian government and army unconditionally in these testing times. Those in the media arguing about humanity and universal brotherhood must first spend a few nights at the [Line of Control] before offering utopian tips of how to solve the Indo Pak situation.
Momina Mustehsan on Twitter called for peace:
“Ask those about wars who have attended funerals of loved ones”.
War is never the solution. We all want #peace. #IndiaPakistan
— Momina Mustehsan (@MominaMustehsan) 29 de septiembre de 2016
And Bollywood news website Spotboye weighed in on the argument with a video satirising the hate against Fawad Khan:
I choose to blame you. Yeah, because you're perfect. I have no other option. I mean, I can't go against the motion of hate. It's trending on social media, and this is my chance to show that I'm a nationalist, I love my country, I'm a patriot. […] Because if I can manage to stop you from entertaining me and working in my films, my country will be safe and peaceful.
A Change.org petition is asking people to demand that India and Pakistan resolve their issues peacefully rather than contributing to the calls for war.
Unfortunately, unless sanity prevails across both sides of the border and people realise that art is beyond jingoistic nationalism, it seems that artists and art will suffer.

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


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Russian Politician Wants Journalists Prosecuted for Sharing Footage of His Ricky Martin Dance · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Orlov city councilman Konstantin Fedotov gets down and funky. Video: YouTube
A city councilman in Orlov has filed a police report against local journalists for sharing video footage of him dancing to Ricky Martin’s “Livin la Vida Loca,” the news website TJournal reports.
Konstantin Fedotov, a member of the country’s ruling political party, United Russia, is asking state prosecutors to go after the Orlov News and Oryolgrad media outlets, which reported on an office party recently attended by Fedotov. The city councilman says the footage constitutes a violation of his privacy. Judging by the video, it seems possible that Fedotov was also quite drunk at the party.
The Oryolgrad news agency has already responded to Fedotov’s police appeal, saying it isn’t responsible for releasing the dance footage on YouTube. The agency also insists that there’s nothing inherently defamatory about the video:
На спорном видео все присутствующие были бодры, веселы и улыбались в кадре. В том числе и сам заявитель К.И. Федотов. Он явно был в приподнятом настроении. Редакция и не могла предположить, что «распространение данного видеоматериала произведено вопреки воле» этих счастливых лиц.
Композиция, под которую танцевал депутат и директор К.И. Федотов — «Livin la Vida Loca» за исполнением Рикки Мартина, — не является запрещенной на территории РФ. Призывов и иных жестов, разжигающих межнациональную или классовую рознь, К.И. Федотов не демонстрировал.
In the controversial video, everyone present [at the party] is cheerful, happy, and smiling on screen — including Mr. Konstantin Fedotov. He is very clearly in a good mood. Our editorial office could hardly conclude that the “dissemination of this video material was carried out against the will” of these happy characters.
The song Mr. Fedotov is dancing to — Livin la Vida Loca performed by Ricky Martin — is not banned in the Russian Federation. Mr. Fedotov hasn’t demonstrated any calls or other efforts to incite ethnic or class tension.
The video was filmed during a party at a local municipal unitary enterprise, where Fedotov is also the director. It was uploaded to YouTube on September 12.
Before turning to local police, Fedotov tried to convince federal censors to stop Internet users from disseminating the YouTube video. He failed in this earlier effort.
This isn’t the first time a Russian politician has been stung by a dance video filmed at a party. In April 2011, a video of then President Dmitry Medvedev leaked online, showing the commander in chief swinging his arms and strutting about somewhat effeminately to the song “American Boy” by the Russian pop group “Kombinatsia.”
The candid footage helped undermine Medvedev’s public image (not a difficult feat), and his time as president ended within a year.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Thais in a Crowded Community Are Playing in the ‘World’s First’ Non-Rectangular Football Field · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A non-rectangular football field in Khlong Toei, Bangkok. Source: YouTube
A non-rectangular football field? Well, if there’s no available space, why not?
A Thai property developer conceptualized the ‘unusual’ football field project as a solution to the lack of sports facilities in a densely populated community in central Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
The AP Thailand company developed a non-rectangular football field in Khlong Toei, a working-class district near a port facility. This is reportedly the world’s first non-rectangular football field.
The company hopes that through the playing of football, which is a popular game in the country, residents of Khlong Toei will form a stronger bond. It also aims to inspire Thais to rethink and develop the unused spaces in their communities:
This unusual football field has proven that designing outside boundaries can help foster creativity used to develop these useful spaces.
We hope that other communities will adapt this idea to change their own irregular space into an area for organizing various activities, under the concept that “Any abnormal space can achieve the highest benefit.”
An unusual football field in Bangkok. Source: YouTube
Today, kids of Khlong Toei do not need to go far in order to play football. By providing an opportunity for the youth to interact through sports and by converting an idle space into a valuable community property, this project can serve as a model for other initiatives that seek to revive and improve the quality of living in populated urban centers.
Learn more about the project through this video developed by CJ Worx, a digital agency film.

author: Mong Palatino


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At the Bogotá Music Market, Young Musicians Talk About the Prospects for Peace · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

The electropical hip-hop band Systema Solar takes the stage at the Bogota Music Market. Credit: Betto Arcos
This article by Betto Arcos originally appeared on PRI.org on September 29, 2016. It is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
On October 2, Colombians will vote on whether to ratify the peace agreement negotiated between the government and the FARC guerrillas to end 50 years of war. At the annual Bogotá Music Market festival, also known as BOmm, many young musicians talked about the prospects for peace in Colombia.
The annual gathering was held during an emotional period for Colombia. The peace agreement and the vote were on everyone's mind.
Daniel Restrepo leads a jazz band called Fatso. He's in the “yes” camp and says, “This is a very tense time. Not even war-wise, but it became a tense social time. People going towards the ‘yes,’ people going towards the ‘no.’ I'm more towards the if there's any possibility of no one getting killed anymore, then I go towards the ‘yes.’ I'm not sure if it's going to work, I have my doubts sometimes. It's been a long war, so there's a whole bunch of people who have been in it since they're kids, so it's very difficult. But I think if there's any chance of starting that peace process, it's very important. This time is awesome. I hope everything goes well.”
Colombian singer Maria Mulata performs at the 2016 Bogota Music Market. Credit: Betto Arcos
Singer Maria Mulata is on the “yes” side too. When she was six, she wrote her first song, “Quiero Paz,” meaning, “I want peace.”
“It was a children's song with the words, ‘I want peace in the world, you and I. Let's play, but let's not play evil.’ It was one of the songs on my first album that I recorded with my brother. And it's because we've never known peace,” she says.
At a concert called A Drink for Peace, hundreds of young people danced to the music of Canalón de Timbiquí, a traditional Afro-Colombian ensemble from along the country's Pacific coast. Singer Nidia Góngora says her region has suffered a great deal. But a peace agreement is only the start of what needs to happen.
“Colombia is a country with a vast inequality, and as long as there's hunger, and lack of education and health care for the poor, the real the conflict will not end,” she says.
Canalón de Timbiquí is a traditional Afro-Colombian ensemble from Colombia's Pacific coast. Credit: Betto Arcos
Stuart Bailie knows something about what it's like after a peace agreement takes effect. He's a co-founder of the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast. And he was in Bogotá giving a talk about the role of music during and after the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Bailie says music was essential for young people like him during the '70s and '80s when things were at their worst.
“We had a very lively punk scene, which was very rebellious, and it more or less told people to ignore the two traditions and ‘find your own alternative Ulster,’ to use a phrase from the band Stiff Little Fingers. So music kind of liberated my generation, it liberated our minds.”
Bailie says in Colombia now, he can feel a cautious optimism. No one is throwing a hat in the air just yet, he says, but people sense that things can and will change for the better.
“I met probably 20, 30 individuals who are all working in their own way for the future of Colombia through music, and that was very exciting, and that was very good for my heart. I can't pretend to understand the absolute context of everything that goes on in here. But I just know, my phrase is that ‘music never lets you down’, music is always there, and it is an incredible catalytic force”.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Colombians Clash Online, Hoping to End the Country’s Armed Conflict · Global Voices
Andrés Lombana-Bermudez

“We're the peace generation.” Photo: Agencia Prensa Rural (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
After more than five decades of armed conflict between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a peace settlement and the transition to post-conflict scenario is finally at hand, if voters want it.
For the past four years, state officials and guerrilla leaders have negotiated in La Havana, Cuba, finally signing an agreement (Final Agreement on the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace) on Monday, September 26, in Cartagena de Indias. The agreement is up for a plebiscite this Sunday, October 2.
In the meantime, Colombia's public discourse seems to have shifted, with topics like “forgiveness,” “tolerance,” diverse political participation, reparation for victims, reconciliation, and land redistribution gaining new currency in both the mainstream and independent media.
Over the past four years, Colombian Internet users have discussed ending the war, building peace, and creating a more tolerant and participatory democracy. Activists, state officials, even guerrillas, and others have been busy writing about, reacting to, and sharing online content about the peace negotiations, the prospects for reconciliation, reparations for war victims, and more.
Colombia's community of Internet users isn't unanimous about the proposed settlement with FARC, however, and a vocal part of society says the agreement asks too much compromise. The war should continue, these critics argue, arguing that fears about the deal are legitimate.
This Sunday, Colombia's voters will ratify or reject the peace deal. The question on the ballot reads simply, “Do you support the final agreement to end the conflict and build a stable and lasting peace?” According to a recent national opinion poll, released on September 16, slightly more than half of the country — 55.3 percent — says it will vote “Yes,” while 38.3 percent says it will vote “No.”
So far, supporters of the peace agreement have demonstrated particular civic imagination in their online activity, focusing their campaign on visualizing a different future for Colombia — one that takes place in a post-conflict scenario.
The peace agreement itself is an unruly 300 pages, meaning that few voters will actually have read the document they are voting on. The document's supporters and opponents, meanwhile, have focused their outreach efforts on six main points: (1) land reform and rural development, (2) political participation for ex-rebels, (3) ending the fighting, (4) combating drug trafficking, (5) transnational justice and reparations for victims of the conflict, and (6) disarmament and the implementation and monitoring of the accord.
This work to educate voters by disaggregating the peace deal into its component parts has become known as the “pedagogy of peace.”
Colombian Internet users have experimented with a variety of online tools to spread information about the referendum. Below is a list of some of the most prominent efforts:
The opposition to the Colombian government and the peace agreement has also leveraged new media tools to organize itself and spread its messages. Using Twitter hashtags like #TodosAVotarNo, #YoVotoNO and #VotaNoEnElPlebiscito citizens have also been able to share their reasons against the peace agreement and circulate images, videos and texts.  Opponents have gathered around Facebook pages and groups like Al plebiscito VOTO NO (To de plebiscite Vote NO),  VotaNo Colombia (VoteNo colombia), and No al Plebiscito (No to the Plebsicite), and engaged in conversations against the peace process and deal. However, citizens against the peace deal have not created new websites that allow a more participatory and decentralized activity. VotoNo, for instance, is a new website where citizens can find videos, infographics, and visual kits about why to vote No at the referendum, but does not offer any space for feedback and conversations.
The wide range of new-media initiatives shows that a great number of Colombians are engaging with new forms of participation and discussion, using the networked communication environment for civic purposes. What effect this will have on this weekend's vote remains to be seen, but the repercussions promise to be historic.

author: Andrés Lombana-Bermudez


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Morocco Is Hollywood’s ‘Door to the Desert,’ But It’s Also Much More · Global Voices
Soukaina Aouzou

Atlas Studio in Ouarzazate. Taken by Andrzej Wójtowicz on May 2, 2013. Source: Flickr.
Morocco has always been one of the most popular filming sites in the world, where many international filmmakers have shot some of their hit movies. The city of Ouarzazate, meaning “without noise” in Amazigh (Berber), has been particularly successful in attracting filmmakers.
Movies filmed in Ouarzazate include “Prince of Persia,” directed by Mike Newell, “The Way Back” by Peter Weir, “Mission Impossible” by Brian De Palma, “Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra” by Alain Chabat, “Babel” by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and “Gladiator” by Ridley Scott. This has lead to Ouarzazate gaining a reputation as “the Hollywood of Morocco.”
The most attractive spot in Ouarzazate is Atlas Studio. One of the largest movie studios in the world at 20 hectares of desert land, it was created in 1983. The entrance is surrounded by pharaohs several meters high, wearing gold headdresses (which featured as accessories in several films).
Travel blogger Hjalmar Gerbig uploaded his recent trip to Ouarzazate on YouTube.
But Ouarzazate's appeal goes far beyond its beautiful landscapes. Another benefit to outsiders is the low cost of doing business in the city. Producers can find trained local technical crews who are fluent many languages, such as English, Berber, Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese. And since the cost of living is less in Morocco, production expenses amount to only half the budget for a major film made in the US or Europe.
As the Studio's website explains :
Considered as the “Moroccan Hollywood”, Ouarzazate offers to productions striking outdoor setting such as oases, Kasbahs, valleys, mountains and dunes.
Ouarzazate has an international airport, efficient health infrastructures, hotels of various categories, and movie studios with international standards with sets of various types : Roman, Egyptian, etc…
Due to the various shootings hosted in Ouarzazate, a skilled and cost effective work force of technicians was developed along with a multiethnic population as extras, local service provider companies, the various transport and catering suppliers, and technicians are constantly present in Ouarzazate.
The town even has a film museum, and there are vestiges of more shoots, sequences from films shot there like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Kundun” and old sets from other films. The Tibetan house featured in “Kundun” can be visited with its golden interiors and Buddhist statues. The slave boat from ”Ben Hur” is also there, with its ropes, wooden benches, and wooden ceiling.
Old Egyptian set in Atlas Studio in Ouarzazate. Taken by Andrzej Wójtowicz on May 2, 2013. Source: Flickr.
This is what travel blogger Aizzing said after visiting Ouarzazate and its film studio:
It was an incredible experience overall. It's not everyday you get the chance to relive moments from your favorite television series. To see in actual the place where Emilia Clarke and Peter Dinklage filmed and being in one of your dream destinations all at the same time was actually surreal and mesmerizing. It's crazy and it's awesome! I don't recommend it to those with weak knees and joint problems, but if you are big fans of Gladiator and Game of Thrones who enjoy discovering historical sites, then Ait Benhaddou in Ouarzazate would be up your alley for sure.
But aside from being a haven for directors and filmmakers from all over the world, filmmakers and activists in Morocco have long questioned the portrayal of Morocco and the wider Arab world in Hollywood movies. As one journalist at the Guardian recently put it, “some are disappointed to see their country portrayed so often as a war zone, and others say US films monopolize local talent.”
Karim Aitouma, the producer of a new documentary on the extras often employed in Ouarzazate, was quoted in the Guardian as saying that extras even grow “professional beards” to appeal to a Western audience:
When they know a Hollywood film is coming, they grow beards. It’s a very important criteria for the castings – for the historical films but also because they’ll play in terrorist films. They all have beards all the time, not because they want it but because they’re waiting for casting.
Moroccan filmmaker Othmane Naciri thinks that Hollywood filmmakers know little about his country, as he explained in an interview with PRI:
OK, Morocco, where is it? North Africa? Sand, desert? OK, that’s perfect. It’s cheaper for us to shoot there than the Arizona desert and it’s safer to shoot there than the real Iraq so that’s the best compromise.
He adds:
The Moroccan people are cast as typical Arab profile: terrorist, bad guys, according to the American point of view. You know, we are not so far from the Western point of view of the 50s — with the good, the bad and the ugly!
Journalist Mohamed Koné has covered the issue and concludes that Moroccan filmmakers themselves are challenging the narrative, already scoring some successes.
Les cinéastes marocains tentent de défier le cliché terroriste en exportant leur propre image du pays, et de ses gens. […] Une première reconnaissance déjà, des films marocains ont récemment intégré le festival de Cannes.
Moroccan filmmakers are trying to challenge the terrorist cliché by exporting their own vision of their country and its people. [We can already see] a first acknowledgment: Moroccan movies recently made it to the Festival de Cannes.

author: Soukaina Aouzou


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50 Years Later, Protesters in Texas Reenact a Farmworker Strike That Is Scarcely Mentioned in History Books · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

On September 9, 2016, Graciela Trevino marched in Edinburg, Texas to celebrate a 1966 farm worker strike. She also participated 50 years ago, when she walked from Rio Grande City to Austin, Texas to demand fair wages. Credit: Courtesy of the City of Edinburg
This article by Reynaldo Leanos Jr. originally appeared on PRI.org on September 26, 2016. It is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
In the summer of 1966, hundreds of farm workers in Texas marched from Rio Grande City to Austin — almost 500 miles over 90 days — to demand change.
They weren’t asking for anything fancy. They wanted better wages, restrooms and uncontaminated water for the people cultivating and picking melons and other crops.
Now 50 years later, more than 100 people — some who were at the original strike in Starr County — are are marching again. Earlier in September, they re-enacted the event that has come to be known as the “melon strike.” It’s a pivotal event in Texas history that has barely made it into the history books.
Still, this year’s melon strike protesters remembered what happened. They chanted as they marched: “Si se puede! Si se puede! Que viva las huelguistas!” “Yes we can! Long live the strike!”
Daria Vera, 70, was among them. Vera started working in the fields in the Rio Grande Valley when she was 8.
Eugene Nelson of the National Farm Workers’ Association, now known as the United Farm Workers, helped organize the strike of 1966. Around that time, farmworkers in California were also asking for better working conditions. American labor leaders and civil rights activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta were in the midst of boycotting the grape industry.
Vera and others protested and struck against several major growers in Starr County in 1966 too. She says the working conditions she endured were terrible.
Daria Vera marched in Texas in 1966 for better working conditions. She wants people to remember that, at the time, people would say that Mexican Americans were lazy and didn’t want to work. They were fighting that stigma, too. Credit: Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University
“The plane would pass by and drop pesticides and it would land in the canal. And that’s where they would go get water for us to drink,” she says.
Back then, they made about 40 cents a day. They wanted $1.25. The strike ended a year later, but no statewide minimum wage of $1.25 was passed.
Maritza De La Trinidad is an associate professor of Mexican American studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She says often Mexican American history isn’t well preserved. And the melon strike is no exception.
“There’s a lack of documentation and written records,” says De La Trinidad. “People don’t leave their own stories, people don’t leave letters, or diaries, or other types of autobiographies or personal stories.”
She has reviewed many US history textbooks from publishers who want her and others to use their publications in classrooms. She says that many of them aren’t very inclusive.
“There’s very little Mexican American content and the contributions that Mexican origin people have made to the making of America, especially the Southwest,” she says.
De La Trinidad says some textbooks are better than others, but the overall lack of Mexican American history causes younger generations to grow up without learning about their heritage.
This semester, one of her own college-level classes is focusing on fixing the problem. They are collecting oral histories of the participants from the 1966 strike, from people like Vera. De La Trinidad says the original protesters are eager to share their stories.
“They want this history preserved and they want not only people in the Rio Grande Valley to know about it, but they want this history documented in scholarship,” she says.
De La Trinidad is looking forward to the potential of the upcoming project.
“I would like to definitely see articles on various aspects of the strikes and possibly a book,” she says. “There are plenty of stories and plenty of information we can gather, but it will be a long process.”
Arnulfo Daniel Segovia grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and is now a graduate student at the University of Texas campus there. He will also help document the stories of the melon strike. He says he never heard of this historic event growing up.
“That just makes it more pressing that we get this material down and we get it now and we start laying the groundwork for future generations,” says Segovia.
Vera wants people to remember when farm workers began a fight for their rights because, at the time, people would say Mexican Americans were lazy and didn’t want to work. She knew that wasn’t true — and she wanted a livable wage.
Some of the original strikers and marchers from the Rio Grande Valley gather on stage before addressing the audience about some of their experiences during 1966. Credit: Reynaldo Leanos Jr./PRI
“I would say, ‘you can kill us, hurt us, or do whatever you want, but I’ll continue fighting for my rights,’” says Vera.
After the strike began, Vera, 14 men and a woman from California locked hands together and blocked the international bridge in Roma, Texas, to stop the growers from bringing in strike breakers from Mexico, but police came and arrested the men.
“So we told the other women to come and help us and they told us they were afraid. So I told them to go home — what were they doing here?” says Vera. “I told the woman from California, ‘Let’s block the bridge, you and I. It doesn’t end here.’ So we layed down and blocked the bridge.”
Vera and the woman from California were also arrested, but then released. Vera says she was never afraid and knew the work she was doing was important for equal rights for farmworkers.
“I wanted to do what Cesar Chavez was doing,” she says. “I wanted to do what I had to do to help the people.”
Today, farm workers usually work with pesticide control, access to clean water, workers’ compensation and other conditions not present 50 years ago. However, Juanita Valdez-Cox, executive director of La Union Del Pueblo Entero (founded by Cesar Chavez), says that isn’t true for everyone.
“We still hear stories of workers who are not being paid their fair wage,” says Valdez-Cox. “A lot of the conditions have changed, but many still remain.”
Valdez-Cox says the commemoration serves as a reminder of those who stood up against injustices so that they don’t happen again. She says it’s especially important now because of the current political rhetoric against Mexican Americans during the ongoing US presidential election cycle.
“It seems like racism is alive and well with some political candidates,” says Valdez-Cox. “We’re up against hard times with those politicians who are running and the negative remarks we have heard about Mexican American people.”
Valdez-Cox says she hopes the commemoration lets the younger generation know that there is still work that needs to be done both on and off the farms. For her, workers’ rights, immigration reform, better living conditions in colonias, deportation relief programs, are all issues that still need to be addressed and worked-on today.
“Come November, it’s going to be super important to make sure that [young people] participate, that they vote, because right now racism is alive and well and we need to fight back.”
And the fight is worth it for those who re-enacted the melon strike.
The 1966 strike ended a year after it began, without concretely reaching its goals. But Valdez-Cox says the strike and march gained respect for farmworkers.
“We want young people to know that our parents and our grandparents paved the road for many Mexican Americans that were to come after,” says Valdez-Cox.


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Botched English translation in Kyoto implies elderly people are “terrible drivers” · Global Voices
Sarah Lee Stones

The botched translation displayed at a driver's license renewal center in Kyoto. From image widely shared on social media. Modified from original photo by Joshua Levine.
A notice board displayed at the newly opened Kyoto Driver's License Renewal Center last month featured a rather unfortunate mistranslation. The Japanese word 高齢運転者 (koreiuntensha), meaning “senior driver”, was incorrectly — and perhaps mischievously — translated as “terrible driver”.
The mistranslation was displayed on electronic noticeboards both at the entrance to and inside the center from September 1-20.
Modified from original photo by Joshua Levine, widely shared on social media.
The mistake was pointed out by translator Julian Holmes, a resident of Kyoto, who contacted the local newspaper.
The Kyoto Shimbun reported:
「なぜこのような英訳になったのか。事前チェックしていない証拠だ。高齢者を侮辱しており、国際都市・京都として情けない」と話している。
“Why has the English translation ended up like this? It's just proof that nobody checked it. This is offensive to elderly people and unacceptable coming from an international city like Kyoto,” said Mr. Holmes.
The incorrect English was initially removed, and the phrase “terrible drivers” later replaced with the more appropriate, if not quite grammatically accurate “elder drivers”.
The Kyoto Prefectural Police apologised for the error, explaining that the mistake was present in the translation when it was received from the contractor, and that the translation was not checked for accuracy before being put on display.
A blogger reported the apology:
「お年寄りの方の気分を害し、申し訳なかった。確認不足だった」としている。
“We are sincerely sorry to have caused offence to the elderly due to our insufficient verification (of the translation)”, said the police.
However, online news service J-Cast News provided a bit of context about just how “terrible” the phenomenon of older drivers might be in Japan, noting:
[…]「ひどい」という表現が不適切だと判断されたためだが、高齢運転者の事故率の高さは全国の警察にとって課題になっている。例えば京都府の場合、2005年に府内で起きた交通事故1万9460件のうち、高齢運転者（過失が重い「第1当事者」）による事故は1941件。高齢者の割合は10.0%だった。これに対して14年に起きた交通事故は1万185件で、そのうち高齢者によるものは1803件。割合は17.7%と大きく増えた。全体の事故数が大幅に減少する一方で高齢者の事故数はあまり減らないためだ。
While the term “awful” was decried as an inappropriate way to describe elderly drivers, according to police, nationally the rate of senior citizens involved in accidents is cause for alarm. For example, in Kyoto Prefecture senior citizens were determined to be at fault in 1,941 of 19,460 accidents that occurred in 2005—a rate of about 10%. A decade later, in 2014, seniors were at fault in 1,803 of 11,850 accidents. So the rate increased to 17.7%. While the total number of accidents has declined, the rate of seniors determined to be at fault in these accidents has increased.
The unnamed reporter also dredged up a variety of comments on the Yahoo version of the article that demonstrates the bias against older drivers potentially held by some Japanese people:
この誤表示を伝える記事のヤフーのコメント欄でも
「事実じゃないか」
「完全に間違っているわけではないと思う」
「間違いではない気がする」
といった声が相次いでいる。
The Yahoo article that reports on the mistranslation features comments like these:
- “Isn't it (“terrible drivers”) just the reality?”
– “The mistranslation is not totally incorrect, right?”
– “I don't think this is totally a mistranslation.”
There are a bunch of comments like this.
Mistranslations are all too common in Japan, and throughout Asia. The website Engrish.com is a gold mine of these bizarre misuses of the English language.
Image from Flickr user Andrew.
The reasons for this prevalence of mistranslations are manifold. Translation requires two major skills: the passive language ability required to understand the source text, and the active language ability required to render it into the target language. As the second skill requires an active command of the target language — something generally possessed by native speakers — it is generally accepted that translators should be native speakers of the target language, not of the source language. Thus, a French speaker would undertake an English to French translation, but not a French to English translation.
Image from Flickr user Karl Baron.
Whether due to a lack of understanding about translation, cost restrictions, or the relatively small number of native English speakers who learn Japanese, many Japanese companies do not employ native English speakers for translations into English. Some companies with no foreign staff translate in house, assigning the task to the Japanese staff member perceived as having the highest level of English ability—no matter how limited this may be.
Image from Flickr user Karl Baron.
Machine translation is also commonly used, to often amusing results. The convoluted and cryptic phrases produced by machine translation prove that this technology is a long way off replacing human translators, particularly across some languages.
Some of the strangest English in Japan, including the puzzling phrases that often adorn T-shirts and bags, is used for purely stylistic purposes, and is not intended to be read or understood.
Image from Flickr user Joseph Brent.
While acceptable, or at least harmless, when used for decoration, mistranslations are not something that should be expected from major corporations and the government, which should have the resources needed to maintain higher standards. Hopefully Kyoto City will get its translations from a more reputable source in the future.

author: Sarah Lee Stones


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GV Face: After More than Five Decades of War, Colombians Mull the Meaning of Peace · Global Voices
Elizabeth Rivera

Colombia is currently waiting on a historic referendum that could draw a line under a horrific armed conflict that has dominated the country's narrative for more than 50 years, waged between the government and the militant group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
On October 2, 2016, Colombians both inside and outside the country will vote to either accept or reject the signed agreement between the government and the FARC that would bring an end to the violence that has consumed over 200,000 lives. The long-winded negotiation process has been the subject of much public discussion, reflecting enduring divisions within Colombian society.
How have we arrived here? How was a country able to function for so long under conditions of war and how did the war impact the way Colombians think? How does the current peace process in Colombia compare to others around the world? What would the upcoming referendum's result mean for the future of Colombia? How can common purposes and ways forward be forged after the war?
We looked at all these questions in a vibrant conversation with Robert Valencia, Global Voices author, political analyst and National Urban Fellow; Diego Osorio, advisor, consultant and researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at Université de Quebec in Montreal; and Andrés Lombana-Bermúdez, researcher and designer at Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
Speaking about the frequent and stereotyped conflation of FARC — a left-wing militant group founded in 1964 — and the drug cartels that have wrought tremendous damage on the country, Robert Valencia answered:
Comparing FARC with the Mexican cartels is a bit too much of a stretch for one big reason. Since the inception of FARC they had a political purpose. Mexican drug cartels do not have a political purpose, their only purpose is to make money.
Andrés Lomaba-Bermúdez added:
These comparisons, of the FARC and drug cartels, come after the FARC evolved precisely because the war in Colombia became sustainable through narcotraffic, and this happened in the 1980s. So the origins were farmers trying to fight for political participation, for land redistribution […] but in the 80s the narcotraffic as a global phenomena entered the country finding a great setting or stage not only for cultivation and production of drugs but also for building laboratories.
Other Global Voices authors also gave their input. Cati Restrepo said:
En la zona donde estoy trabajando ahora la gente dice que vota sí a ojo cerrado. Pero en Medellín mucha gente dice que vota no. Es la polarización de la que te hablo. Ciertos sectores dicen que votar para aprobar los acuerdos es vender el país.
Hay una idea de: “Sí vota sí, el próximo presidente va a ser un guerrillero” porque parte de los acuerdos es que ellos van a tener curules en el congreso.
In the region where I am working some people say they'll vote “yes” with their eyes closed. But in Medellin many people say they'll vote “no”. This is the polarization I am talking about. Some sectors say that a vote to approve the deal is to sell the country.
There's an idea that, if you vote yes, the next president will be a guerrilla, because part of the agreement is to give them seats in the Congress.
Regarding the agreement itself, Robert Valencia reflected:
The agreement that was signed yesterday is not just a piece of paper that was signed. The biggest challenge for many Colombians today is going to be tolerance. Being able to understand this is a pluralistic society where everybody has different ideas and yes, that includes those of the FARC.
While Diego Osorio pointed out:
This is not a military victory, it is a negotiation.[…] People in certain parts of Colombia say: why don't they [FARC] just request forgiveness? Why are they getting this things? Because we are convincing them to get out of the mountains and be part of the political process. Otherwise you would have to force them, and that is 20 more years of war.
As a final thought Osorio added:
This is the only case in which I only see a positive way out. I've seen so many others [peace processes] where it is basically at best just about keeping the patient alive. This patient can just walk away from the hospital, if only Colombians get their act together. The main problem with the situation in Colombia is the distrust and the ability to organize themselves. […] Peace is possible and it is proven because if you compare it to other places you see all the conditions to make it happen in Colombia, because Colombians have the capital, because Colombians made this peace possible, and because Colombians are already so close, that it would be crazy not to [go through with it].

author: Elizabeth Rivera


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Jamaicans Get Fired Up About the U.S. Presidential Contest  and a Popular Singer’s Shock Endorsement · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Jamaican singer Etana; photo by Yorkali Walters, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Jamaicans have a passion for political rough and tumble and with a large diaspora population in the United States, politics-watchers are currently fixing their gazes on the bitterly contested 2016 U.S. presidential race featuring Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump.
On September 26, for instance, an enthusiastic (and very vocal) group of around 100 young Jamaicans watched the first presidential debate between Trump and Clinton at a special viewing and discussion event in Kingston. It was standing room only, with some latecomers squeezing into a corner on the packed floor.
Attendees at the Kingston viewing and discussion of the first U.S. presidential debate. Some 90% of the audience was young people. Photo by the author, used with permission.
Jamaicans are, of course, already plugged into the culture and politics of their neighbors to the north via cable, Internet and mass media, so interest in the vote would be fairly high at any rate.
But a local controversy wherein local reggae singer Etana startled fans by asserting her admiration for controversy-laden Republican candidate Donald Trump has boosted interest in the contest even further.
Etana made clear her support for Trump in a September 23 interview on the popular Television Jamaica culture show ER (Entertainment Report) crediting Trump for being “straight-talking” and defending his stance on Mexican immigration that has sparked fury both inside and outside the Latino community in the U.S.
The reaction from young Jamaicans was swift and scathing.
#Etana sey “my music has nothing to do with what I believe in”. Well thanks for the clarification. I now know never to listen again!
— EmpressYolie (@jahmekyagyal) September 24, 2016
Truly disappointed and disgusted at any form of racial profiling being endorsed by #Etana https://t.co/niq69Iudbg
— Kimberly Bryan (@KimberlyteRocks) September 26, 2016
With the exception of #Etana, most #Jamaicans are in support of #Clinton #debates
— ♐*Fueled By Ramen* (@tHeONicK) September 27, 2016
The singer, hailing from the fairly humble August Town area, has established a rootsy, down to earth and politicized image in recent years, calling herself “The Strong One”.
Her interviewer, Anthony Miller, defended the singer's sincere approach as public rancour bubbled following her Trump endorsement:
#Etana is very frank and straightforward with social ills in Jamaica. She is one of the few who will say it as is – Anthony Miller,#RJRBTH
— Giovanni R. Dennis (@GiovanniRDennis) September 26, 2016
In the interview, Etana also compared unfavourably the Jamaican socio-economic situation — especially the health service and security concerns — with that of the United States.
Her local fans expressed shock and betrayal, assuming from her tone that she must now be living overseas.
While the perceived contrast between Etana's socially aware lyrics and her televised comments upset fans, it did not perturb the singer herself.
“This is just a personal thought,” she said, regarding her Trump endorsement. She betrayed some ignorance of the facts surrounding her preferred candidate, however, appearing confused about his wife Melania Trump's nationality and ethnicity.
As Jamaican social media went into uproar, Etana quickly issued a statement, apologising for any offense caused:
I am Jamaican, whenever there are issues in Jamaica, America, Canada or the UK we all cuss or have colourful conversations about our issues. I simply stated my views on the change I'd like to see. I would never bash or turn my back on the country I love and the people who sang Wrong Address and other songs I have written so passionately. My statements did not come off right and I won't blame Anthony Miller for that. I take full responsibility for all that went wrong.
Please do not forget all the good I have done. I am not offended by any passionate remark, I know you are angry. I love you all unconditionally and nothing will change that.
One perfect unconditional love. Etana.
Later, on the eve of the first presidential debate, she appeared to waver in her support for Trump, noting:
I am heavily invested in the outcome of this election and given the backlash on social media because I said I support Trump, I have decided to do some more research, watch the debates and weigh all that before I come to a decision. I am entitled to my own opinion and I have the right to change my mind as I see fit, I will be tuning in to watch 90 unpredictable minutes of this first debate on Monday night.
Etana is not the only Jamaican entertainer to comment on social and political issues: Kabaka Pyramid, Protoje and Chronixx also address social justice issues in their music, which is a hybrid of roots reggae and dancehall, sometimes called the “Reggae Revival”.
Two dancehall singers, Tanya Stephens and Macka Diamond, defended the singer, with Diamond protesting:
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We live in a democratic system. If Etana had said she was voting for Clinton, nobody would be attacking her that way, so it means that only their opinion counts. Only the opinion of Internet bullies count now.
UK-based Jamaican writer Kei Miller used some of Etana's own songs to illustrate his plea for forgiveness for his favorite singer:
So a week has gone, and maybe — just maybe — tempers have calmed. There are more important things to worry about than Etana’s lapse into silliness, not least of all a coming hurricane. And after all that brouhaha, all the rage, all the brugalungdung — it is time now to forgive the woman. For all the good she has done and sung, we owe her that…
In my mind, Etana’s committed one big sin in her interview, and that was to turn her back on a message she had once preached so powerfully. She had become — perhaps unwittingly — a hypocrite.
Etana’s support of Donald Trump is many things — confusing, mind-boggling, frightening — but it is not a sin that requires any repentance from her or any forgiveness from us. Most of us have no real say in the upcoming American elections but at some level we have to respect the democratic process. Many people — indeed many black people — seem to support this orange-haired buffoon, and hard as it is, we have to be able to hear what it is they stand for and what is in his message that they support rather than shouting them down and shaming them into silence. I have so many friends who are people of colour, and Republican, and I imagine this must be an especially difficult time for them to be who they are and to say what they feel.
And indeed it was shocking — that Etana who for many of us epitomizes more than just feminism but a sort of ‘womanism’ and also black pride, should throw her support behind a man who epitomizes misogyny and racism. Her flippant comment that she likes that Donald Trump simply says it like it is was, at best, uninformed. We know that Donald Trump says things as he sees them, not necessarily as they are. Still — much of this is confusing and scary, but none of it is a sin.
Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Ingrid Riley took a sly dig at “The Strong One”:
I am ordering tranquilizer darts for any Jamaican at home or overseas, who is a Trump suporter. That goes for any Uncle Tom African Americans as well. You shoulda shame! #debatenight
The whole “Etana drama” points to an interesting question in Jamaican society and culture: Should those in the entertainment world, who have a huge influence on our youth, feel obliged to practice what they preach? There is no doubt Etana's support for Trump has lost her some Jamaican fans.
One tweeted sadly:
Hearing songs by #etana doesn't feel the same *adjusts playlists*
— Staysean@KraasDesign (@KraasDesigns) September 25, 2016
Finally, another Twitter user had some advice for the singer:
#Etana needs to give Social media and Press Releases on anything not musically related a break. We r a 9 days news country. #itwillpass
— Kymberli Whittaker (@Kymberliroxanne) September 27, 2016

author: Emma Lewis


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Polish Pro-Choice Protest Movement Prepares Nationwide Strike on “Black Monday” · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

A widely shared image announcing the ‘Black Monday’ strike, via Twitter user Anna Blus.
Poland is readying for a massive general strike on October 3, as part of the next stage of a protest movement against legislation strengthening the national ban on abortion. Activists in Germany are also preparing solidarity actions.
Polish women's rights activists announced a nationwide strike of female workers intended to bring Polish society and the economy to a standstill on October 3.
The strike is a continuation of the “Black Protest”, a massive reaction to the government's latest plan to increase the severity of the anti-abortion law by including stipulations such as five-year prison terms for both women abortion patients — including rape victims — and doctors.
The first phase of the protests involved digital activism, with people expressing their disagreement with the proposed law by posting photos of themselves dressed in black, using the hashtags #czarnyprotest (“#BlackProtest,” found here on Facebook and Twitter) and #blackprotest (Facebook, Twitter).
After the Polish Parliament proceeded with consideration of the controversial legislative proposal on September 23, activists responded with massive demonstrations in tens of Polish cities as well as in several other cities around the world the following weekend.
Right-wing national-conservative party PiS (“Law and Justice”) holds a majority in the parliament and has the backing of the Catholic Church. Its lawmakers also voted to dismiss another piece of legislation that would have liberalized existing laws. Proposed by the “Save Women” pro-choice coalition, and supported by a petition with 150,000 signatures, it would have allowed for legal abortions up until the 12th week of pregnancy.
Anti-government protests in Warsaw today #czarnyprotest #blackprotest #kod #warsaw pic.twitter.com/hlE7EYSJI1
— Sophie Tabatadze (@zosia007) September 24, 2016
On October 1, political party RAZEM (“Together”), a very active element of the protest movement, which also includes civil society organizations and individual activists, organized another pro-choice protest in front of the Sejm, the Polish Parliament in Warsaw.
Warsaw right now #CzarnyProtest pic.twitter.com/qbNE4radLf
— Ola Cichowlas (@olacicho) October 1, 2016
#Blackprotest in #Poland against total ban on abortion #CzarnyProtest #zartysieskonczyly pic.twitter.com/7gSVsnqKFL
— Natalia Ojewska (@Natalia_Ojewska) October 1, 2016
The protest movement has received support from left-wing political parties and human rights activists across Europe.
#CzarnyProtest | S&D's @KaufmannSylvia @BirgitSippelMEP @Weidenholzer march in solidarity with Polish women in Warsaw! #OurFightWomensRights pic.twitter.com/v1mmTb33Tt
— S&D Group (@TheProgressives) October 1, 2016
A survey by polling company Ipsos indicated that 11% of citizens support stricter anti-abortion laws, 47% do not approve changes to the existing law and 37% demand liberalization. Another poll showed wide support for the protest movement.
55% of Polish women support #czarnyprotest against total #abortion ban. 44% of men support protests, 15% oppose them https://t.co/SwPm2AHqPR
— Gulliver Cragg (@gullivercragg) October 1, 2016
The strike and protests scheduled for October 3 have been branded under the slogan “Black Monday.” Activists use the corresponding hashtags in #CzarnyPoniedziałek in Polish (on Facebook and Twitter) and #BlackMonday in English (on Facebook and Twitter). The main Facebook event also provides links to tens of planned demonstrations both in Polish cities and cities across Europe and North America.
One major “Black Monday” Solidarity Demonstration with Polish Women's Strike is scheduled to take place at S+U Warschauer Strasse Station (Warsaw Street) in Berlin. The organizers, the independent collective Dziewuchy Dziewuchom Berlin, include ethnic Polish women who want to support those that face further infringements on their human rights.
Black Monday is a warning strike by all women in Poland. During the daylong strike, they will take a day off at work, universities and schools, they will leave their housework at home. The strike is a collective initiative, gathering women of different ages, occupations and life experiences.
The Black Monday protest is a national-scale event, motivating thousands of women in a very short time, in response to a critical situation in Poland. Recently, famous Polish actress Krystyna Janda posted on social media the idea of organizing a national strike based on the one in Iceland, which took place in 1975. There, women fought against gender inequality and their strike paralyzed the whole country for a day.
In the current circumstances, in 2016 (in the 21st Century!), Polish women need to fight for their basic human rights of self-determination, and more specifically, for their reproductive rights.
One digital tool deployed to mobilize people around the upcoming ‘Black Protest’ activities is this punk video created by the group EL Banda. As of this writing it has amassed over 6,000 views on YouTube since it was posted September 27.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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The Women Who Resisted Uruguay’s Dictatorship Get a Film Honoring Their Heroism · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Manane Rodríguez, the filmmaker behind Migas de Pan screenplay and direction. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission.
Thirty-one years separate the civil-military dictatorship in Uruguay and the arrival of the film “Migas de Pan” (“Bread Crumbs”) in cinemas. The movie tells the story of Liliana, a Uruguayan woman who was arrested and tortured by the military and has to face her memories 30 years later. In the film, after returning home, Liliana becomes the center of a national debate about memory and justice.
Uruguay's military dictatorship lasted 12 years (from 1973 to 1985). The regime locked up more than 300 political prisoners, including 55 women, according to a report: Uruguay Nunca Más. The resistance movement that sprung up during this time also relied on many women leaders. When the history is told today, however, their roles are generally overlooked and downplayed, in favor of narratives about men.
Like the lead character in her movie, director Manane Rodríguez also fled the dictatorship in Uruguay in the 1970s, moving to Spain. She has completed several short feature films based on the works of the poet Mario Benedetti.
“Since the beginning, I wanted to see this movie helping to remove the silence covering our recent past and taking women out of the shadows,” Manane told Global Voices. Her movie is entering its fifth week in theaters, attracting large audiences of people who say they identify with the film's story.
Manane says the only thing that matters is the viewers leave the film sharing a single thought: “Nunca más.” (Never again.)
Actress Justina Bustos, who plays the young version of leading character Liliana. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission.
Global Voices: What has inspired you to make a movie about women and the dictatorship period? How do you think female experiences back then were different from male ones?
To me, what excited me was to make this movie a denounce. About a group of about 30 former political prisoners who accused a large group of military officers of sexually abusing them systematically. The case is still resting in some court’s drawer. This group of women, who had hardly over 20 years-old, besides being tortured through traditional methods were also raped by their executioners. After 30 years of silence, they decided to talk about it. Breaking the powerful taboo that precludes certain subjects and breaking this sickening silence that, somehow, blames them for being victims.
Ivonne Trías, who is an author and a journalist and who was also arrested for many years at the Punta de Rieles Penitentiary, wrote that with the wisdom of their 20s, they established a red line: from the grid to the inside – us; from the grid to outside – them. With those parameters, they resisted all together to the project of moral and physical destruction [the military] had planned for them. They protected each other. They studied, shared knowledge. They kept their minds active and resisted to many obligations that were being imposed to them. And so they’ve continued, without renouncing to their own convictions, most of them alive and with a will for life.
The central character is based in the stories of many women, not only in one in a literal way. She is a fiction character that, somehow, concentrates many situations that many women who were imprisoned at the maximum security prison by the Uruguayan dictatorship had to face.
Argentinian actress Cecilia Roth, playing Liliana, returning to Uruguay 30 years after. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission.
I do not recognize MLN as the maximum freedom fighters in Uruguay. And, as of today, I think the sexism in Uruguay is as strong as in any other country of the world. Besides the spectacle behind some of the MLN’s actions, in Uruguay there were also other social organizations (unions, students and neighbouring ones) and political parties who fought the dictatorship when it arrived, but even before that, [they fought] against reactionary measures adopted by a right-wing government.
In Uruguay, not only the story through a female point of view is not told, but there is actually very little narrative about this period as a whole. The denounces are still sleeping in some courtroom’s drawer, judges who investigate crimes against humanity are frequently pushed aside. There is a certain kind of official silence – supported by well-known members of MLN, who are occupying governmental positions for the past 11 years – that makes really hard to have a true NUNCA MÁS (never again) with truth, memory and justice.
I was a student when the elected president and the military did the coup that cancelled all the constitutional guarantees. All political parties, unions, students organisations became illegal. A lot of people were arrested, a lot of people were victim of repression. But, I rather remember the resistance that we had since the first hours: the general strike called by the central of unions and the huge protest that took place 15 days later. The largest one that I have ever seen taking place in Uruguay. After that, it came the repression, the night and I was persecuted with my friends (…). I stayed in Argentina, before moving to Spain. There was also a coup d'état there, from what we know, even worse than the one that happened in Uruguay.
In the movie, Liliana Pereira is arrested alongside a group of 30 women, in Punta de Rieles. The story was inspired in the several political prisoners held by the dictatorship in this prison. Photo: Manane Rodríguez's personal archive and used with permission.
My movies don’t talk about the dictatorships. Some of them have this context, but they are actually talking about the marks left by it in some characters. “Los Pasos Perdidos” (Missing Steps) is the story of a young woman who finds out, because of a court request, that the people she believed were her parents are not her parents, and that behind the hiding of this secret is the dictatorship and its crimes. “Memorias Rotas” (Broken Memories), a documentary, talks about a village that has preserved in a couplet, sang for many years from door to door, the story about a group of anarchists killed while they were trying to leave Asturias, taken by General Franco’s army. And “Migas de Pan” (Breadcrumbles) tells the story of a group of women that never surrender and that resists to the destruction plans the repressors have for them, while showing them today alive, resistant and happy, facing new battles.
It’s a disaster. It’s a tragedy to the people, whether you’re conscious about it or not. The media has a huge power and they have led many people to believe that the situation where progressive governments have taken them is a status quo that cannot be changed. But that is not true. They are taking down all the social policies created by the governments they are succeeding, firing a lot of people…There will be even more poverty, insecurity, a greater external debt. This is a disaster that should make us to reflect on its meaning.

author: Fernanda Canofre


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Tourist Video Featuring Ancient King Tests the Boundaries of Artistic Expression in Thailand · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Screenshot of one of the deleted scenes in a Thailand tourism music video. Source: YouTube
A tourism video was almost banned in Thailand after some officials complained about the ‘inappropriate’ portrayal of a popular Thai literary figure.
Produced by the V Bangkok Co, the “Tiew Thai Mee Hay” (“Fun to Travel in Thailand”) music video featured Thotsakan, a demon king from the ancient national epic the Ramakien, which is the Thai version of the ancient Indian poem the Ramayana.
Thotsakan was accompanied by other characters in a traditional mask dance (Khon) around the country.
The four-minute video, which was made in support of the program of the Tourism Authority of Thailand to boost domestic travel attracted wide support especially among youth and netizens. Many praised the colorful visuals, the catchy song, and the message enjoining the public to visit the country’s main tourist destinations.
But on September 21, a former Fine Arts Department official in charge of identifying works of art not suitable for public viewing, complained that Thotsakan was inappropriately depicted in the video. The former official argued that the king of ogres should not be seen doing mundane things such as taking selfies, driving go-karts, riding a horse, having fun in a banana boat, and cooking a coconut dessert.
A prominent professional dramatist also complained that the Khon should only be performed in a suitable place such as the National Theatre or the Royal Palace.
The cultural ministry initially contemplated banning the video, but following advice from the prime minister, it allowed the airing of the video with some of the more controversial scenes removed. The V Bangkok Co agreed to delete about 20 percent of the original footage.
Screenshot of one of the deleted scenes in a Thailand tourism music video. Source: YouTube
Many Internet users criticized the order to edit the original video. As of this writing, more than 70,000 people signed a petition uploaded on change.org opposing the complaint filed against the music video.
Venus’ Vision, a columnist at a popular English language newspaper in Thailand, reminded the cultural ministry about the need to embrace creativity in promoting traditional art:
If it monopolises any form of art, drains it of involvement from the common man, that art is likely to go extinct. My friend Chana Sevikul, the veteran songwriter and art teacher, sees culture as a big tree of many branches. If we keep cutting off the branches, he says, one day we'll be left with a bonsai, pretty but forever stunted.
Some even noted that Thotsakan can be accused of doing far more controversial things than he was seen doing in the tourist ad, such as kidnapping the love of his life.
A Facebook page launched a fan art contest in response to the furore. Many of the submissions portrayed Thotsakan in various ‘inappropriate’ ways.
This video summarizes the scenes deleted from the original production:
A side-by-side comparison showing the original music video & the new edited version (Via @weeranan) pic.twitter.com/5PQ4h1I0O6 #Thailand
— Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) September 25, 2016


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When Russia’s Homeless Population Starts Talking · Global Voices
Darina Gribova

When Anastasia Ryabtseva first tried interviewing homeless people in St. Petersburg, many of them refused to talk to her. As a journalist, she startled people, who were immediately suspicious about being singled out by a reporter. That changed, however, when she began introducing herself as a volunteer with the Nochlezhka homeless shelter, where she’s helped out for the past two years.
Anastasia Ryabtseva. Photo: Vkontakte
Ryabtseva interviews members of St. Petersburg’s homeless population and collects stories from volunteers at homeless shelters. In addition to her work with the Nochlezhka shelter, she also helps out occasionally at the “Night Bus”—a wheeled eatery serving the city’s down-and-out.
“The first thing you realize is that you’ve got no reason to complain, because the people who come to us for food have it much harder,” Ryabtseva told RuNet Echo. “Second, you get an enormous amount of gratitude in return. It’s an amazing feeling to be thanked sincerely dozens of times in an evening.”
Ryabtseva runs a website called “It’s Their Own Fault,” where she publishes the stories she learns from the city’s homeless people and shelter volunteers. In two years, she has collected roughly 40 of these stories. The name of the project is meant to capture the dismissive attitude most people have about the homeless.
When it comes to charity, the public is more willing to help children and the elderly, Ryabtseva says. “The homeless—along with the addicts and the mentally ill—are the very last people anyone wants to assist,” she observes, adding that there’s often more willingness to kick someone in the street than lend any aid. In many of the stories Ryabtseva has collected, this is precisely what has happened to people: a man is lying in the street, suffering, and a passerby suddenly kicks him.
Before launching her own online project in September, Ryabtseva published some of the stories on the website “Takie Dela” (So It Goes).
There were once plans to publish Ryabtseva’s interviews in the Russian print edition of Esquire magazine. These stories were supposed to appear in the outlet’s famous “Rules of Life” section.
But it didn’t work out. Ksenia Sokolova, who took over the magazine in August (while running for a seat in the parliament), never showed any interest in running Ryabtseva’s work. She didn’t even answer her emails.
While finding an outlet for her work has been difficult, Ryabtseva says she’s also overcome extreme nervousness when interviewing some of her subjects. For instance, her first interview was with a man named Sergey, whose family kicked him out of their home, into the street. After this meeting, Ryabtseva says she realized that she’d unconsciously dressed herself in cheaper clothes than normal, probably in an effort to fit in better.
Anastasia Ryabtseva. Photo: Vkontakte
Another interview Ryabtseva calls “extremely important” to her project was with a man named Dmitry, a homeless architect who refused to be photographed. If you’d seen Dmitry on the street, she says, you’d never have guessed that he was homeless. “He’s actually one of the best-educated people I’ve ever met,” Ryabtseva says. “I felt like a student beside a professor, while he was quoting the Old Testament and telling me his life philosophy.” She says he later joined a monastery.
Ryabtseva considers herself very lucky to have had the opportunity to collect so many stories. “I've learned a lot about the world in general—for instance, that everything can change at any moment. Overcoming our indifference to people can change someone’s life,” she told RuNet Echo.
Many of the people Ryabtseva interviewed have expressed profound gratitude toward the volunteers who work at shelters throughout St. Petersburg. Andrey Almasov, a 46-year-old former thief, told her about his restored faith in people:
Я даже в голове знать не знал и не мог себе представить, что такие как мы, оказывается, кому-то нужны. Что это их профессия. Я не хочу громких слов говорить, но я здесь в людей поверил.
I had no idea and I couldn't even imagine that anyone cares about people like us—that it's some people’s profession. I don’t want to sound hoaky, but this is when I started believing in people.
There are still a few unpublished stories saved in Ryabtseva’s files. There’s one man who used to be on the streets but now has a home again. “Now he says [about homeless people] that it’s all their fault,” Ryabtseva told RuNet Echo. “He sees himself as a strong man, and says the people who can’t solve their own misfortune are weak. It probably just helps him to forget his own problems,” she says.
Ryabtseva believes attitudes in St. Petersburg about the homeless are slowly evolving, and she credits rising media attention with some of the shift. The Nochlezhka shelter is reportedly attracting more and more volunteers, and the facility has also received significant donations.
“The project’s aim,” Ryabtseva says, “is to break the stereotypes, so that more people stop and see a person, when in the past they might only have ignored ‘a bum.’”

author: Darina Gribova