Sem Teto, Sem Terra, Inmigrantes Ilegales
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No Roof, No Land, Illegal Immigrants
Monday, April 10, 2006
"Hoy, marchamos; mañana, votamos." / "We are marching; tomorrow we vote."
For some reason, although the Washington march took place today there is very little press on the web about it - they seem to be playing coy; few estimates of the size of the crowd - looks like it might have been 1/4 of a million.
Sunday, April 9, 2006
100,000 marching in Dallas - estimates that 40% of northern Texas' population is immigrants and about half 'illegal'.
Sunday, April 9, 2006
Some 4,000 African migrants have been caught trying to reach the archipelago so far this year — compared to 4,751 for all of 2005 and 8,519 in 2004. About 1,000 have died this year attempting the four- to five-day journey, according to the Red Cross in Mauritania. Landing at Fuerteventura this time. Reports as well of several boats lost with all hands drowned.
No scale on that map ... 60 miles minimum distance to Morocco. They seem not to set off from Morocco though, but from Mauritania which is 500 miles - more control in Morocco possibly. The current is working against them too - 20 cm/sec, about 1/2 mile per hour, 10 miles per day, against them, weakest in the winter and spring, and coolish; then there are the trade winds, against them too, strongest April to September, 20 miles per hour (not sure about this); an uphill struggle that's for sure.
Canary Island ports:
El Hierro: La Restinga, Puerto de la Estaca
Fuerteventura: Corralejo, Morro Jable, Puerto Castillo, Puerto Rosario
Gran Canaria: Agaete, Amfi del Mar, Arguineguin, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Pasito Blanco, Puerto Rico, Puerto de Mogan
La Gomera: Playa Santiago, San Sebastian, Vueltas (Valle Gran Rey)
La Palma: Santa Cruz de la Palma, Tazacorte
Lanzarote: Arrecife, La Graciosa, Marina Rubicon, Playa Blanca, Puerto Calero, Puerto Carmen
Tenerife: Candelaria, Los Cristianos, Los Gigantes, Puerto Colon, Radazul, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Spiegel: America's Illegals, A Nation of Immigrants Clashes over the Future (Archive), discussion.
Spiegel: Germany's School of Hard Knocks (Archive), discussion.
Spiegel: US Rips European Integration Failures (Archive), discussion.
Globe: Masking the truth: Concealment of the face is neither religiously necessary nor socially desirable
Look at the debate that America is engaged in around illegal immigrants. It is being carried on to a great extent in public - the illegal immigrants themselves are demonstrating in large numbers. Are they being photographed and stalked by secret police? Are they being dragged off to jail? No. This is not the Fascist state portrayed by America's many critics. Yes, some of the issues are selfish and corrupt - American business (and citizens) want cheap labour; but it is also about concern for individuals on many levels. Bush himself says: "Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande.", and "If you're a mother and father with hungry children, you are going to try to put food on the table. That's reality. That's called love." (reference?)
The road sign in the picture above; who put it there? I believe it was put there to warn drivers that they might run over someone in the darkness. Bad as I am I cannot come up with a cynical response to that sign.
Friday, March 31, 2006
I worked for a while in Angra dos Reis in Brasil and regularly drove back and forth to Rio. Not far from Angra there was an MST encampamento. I would have liked to go in and talk to them, but I didn't. What could be seen from the road was men women and children hanging out, increasingly solid shacks covered in the ubiquitous blue plastic tarps; pretty soon there were little gardens. Occasional violence was reported in the press - conflicts with the owners and their agents. This is not obvious hand-wringing stuff. In Brasil the sem terras and sem tetos get infiltrated with grileiros, and when the thing is settled, in the event that some land is given away, the grileiros wait for a while and then sell their portion, and move on to the next encampamento. A career of a sort. It is shades of gray of course. The grileiros are a small minority I think but it gives the middle and upper classes a means of discretiting the movement and so forth.
MST is Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Movement of Rural Workers Without Land. MTST is Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto, Movement of Workers Without a Roof, which is the urban side - They took on Volkswagen in São Paulo.
Lula clearly sympathizes - when MST showed up in Brasilia shortly after his election he went out to greet them personally and accepted one of their caps; then the next morning the press whipped him for it and eventually he weaseled out of being so chummy with them, but I thought it was clear where his heart was.
Gwynne Dyer: The "Unstoppable" Wave.
The following photos are of people fleeing the sub-sahara from Mauritania by boat trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands, usually the largest one apparently -Tenerife. From the distances on the maps and looking at these boats I can see that it has to be at least a week. How desperate are people who flee into a dark ocean in small boats - and with no Moses to part it for them?
Then there are the Mexicans trying to make it to America. From the size of the demonstrations recently in Los Angeles and San Diego it seems that there are a lot of people who feel that the clandestinos should be given amnesty, legalized, whatever - brought into the fold. The crosses marked 'no identificado' are more testament to the level of desperation that motivates these people.
A country in which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants can get together and demonstrate can't be all bad eh?
There is more than this. There would have been no Danish Cartoon fiasco without numbers of Muslims living in Denmark; nor almost continuous rioting in France for the last three months without an under-class made up largely of immigrants, legal and otherwise.
Way back in 1978 or so it was the Vietnamese Boat People. Some 2,000 of them ended up in Ottawa where I was working at the time. One morning that spring I was waiting in line at a streetcorner for a bus - a miserable morning, mild enough to generate lots of slush, raining. In front of me in the line was a Vietnamese man holding his child. The child was all done up in a snowsuit, mitts and hat, but when I looked down I saw that he was standing in slush up to his ankles wearing only a pair of low-cut shoes and no socks.
I guess part of the resistance to making a place for desperate people comes from fear, justified or not.
Tags: Sem Teto, Sem Terra, Ilegales, Mauritania, Morocco, Canary Islands, Clandestino, Manu Chao, Brasil, MST, Gwynne Dyer, MTST, Mexico.
No Roof, No Land, Illegal Immigrants
Monday, April 10, 2006
"Hoy, marchamos; mañana, votamos." / "We are marching; tomorrow we vote."For some reason, although the Washington march took place today there is very little press on the web about it - they seem to be playing coy; few estimates of the size of the crowd - looks like it might have been 1/4 of a million.
Sunday, April 9, 2006
100,000 marching in Dallas - estimates that 40% of northern Texas' population is immigrants and about half 'illegal'.Sunday, April 9, 2006
Some 4,000 African migrants have been caught trying to reach the archipelago so far this year — compared to 4,751 for all of 2005 and 8,519 in 2004. About 1,000 have died this year attempting the four- to five-day journey, according to the Red Cross in Mauritania. Landing at Fuerteventura this time. Reports as well of several boats lost with all hands drowned.
No scale on that map ... 60 miles minimum distance to Morocco. They seem not to set off from Morocco though, but from Mauritania which is 500 miles - more control in Morocco possibly. The current is working against them too - 20 cm/sec, about 1/2 mile per hour, 10 miles per day, against them, weakest in the winter and spring, and coolish; then there are the trade winds, against them too, strongest April to September, 20 miles per hour (not sure about this); an uphill struggle that's for sure.Canary Island ports:
El Hierro: La Restinga, Puerto de la Estaca
Fuerteventura: Corralejo, Morro Jable, Puerto Castillo, Puerto Rosario
Gran Canaria: Agaete, Amfi del Mar, Arguineguin, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Pasito Blanco, Puerto Rico, Puerto de Mogan
La Gomera: Playa Santiago, San Sebastian, Vueltas (Valle Gran Rey)
La Palma: Santa Cruz de la Palma, Tazacorte
Lanzarote: Arrecife, La Graciosa, Marina Rubicon, Playa Blanca, Puerto Calero, Puerto Carmen
Tenerife: Candelaria, Los Cristianos, Los Gigantes, Puerto Colon, Radazul, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Thursday, April 6, 2006
Spiegel: America's Illegals, A Nation of Immigrants Clashes over the Future (Archive), discussion.Spiegel: Germany's School of Hard Knocks (Archive), discussion.
Spiegel: US Rips European Integration Failures (Archive), discussion.
Globe: Masking the truth: Concealment of the face is neither religiously necessary nor socially desirable
Look at the debate that America is engaged in around illegal immigrants. It is being carried on to a great extent in public - the illegal immigrants themselves are demonstrating in large numbers. Are they being photographed and stalked by secret police? Are they being dragged off to jail? No. This is not the Fascist state portrayed by America's many critics. Yes, some of the issues are selfish and corrupt - American business (and citizens) want cheap labour; but it is also about concern for individuals on many levels. Bush himself says: "Family values do not stop at the Rio Grande.", and "If you're a mother and father with hungry children, you are going to try to put food on the table. That's reality. That's called love." (reference?)
The road sign in the picture above; who put it there? I believe it was put there to warn drivers that they might run over someone in the darkness. Bad as I am I cannot come up with a cynical response to that sign.
Friday, March 31, 2006
I worked for a while in Angra dos Reis in Brasil and regularly drove back and forth to Rio. Not far from Angra there was an MST encampamento. I would have liked to go in and talk to them, but I didn't. What could be seen from the road was men women and children hanging out, increasingly solid shacks covered in the ubiquitous blue plastic tarps; pretty soon there were little gardens. Occasional violence was reported in the press - conflicts with the owners and their agents. This is not obvious hand-wringing stuff. In Brasil the sem terras and sem tetos get infiltrated with grileiros, and when the thing is settled, in the event that some land is given away, the grileiros wait for a while and then sell their portion, and move on to the next encampamento. A career of a sort. It is shades of gray of course. The grileiros are a small minority I think but it gives the middle and upper classes a means of discretiting the movement and so forth.
MST is Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Movement of Rural Workers Without Land. MTST is Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Teto, Movement of Workers Without a Roof, which is the urban side - They took on Volkswagen in São Paulo.Lula clearly sympathizes - when MST showed up in Brasilia shortly after his election he went out to greet them personally and accepted one of their caps; then the next morning the press whipped him for it and eventually he weaseled out of being so chummy with them, but I thought it was clear where his heart was.
Gwynne Dyer: The "Unstoppable" Wave.
The following photos are of people fleeing the sub-sahara from Mauritania by boat trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands, usually the largest one apparently -Tenerife. From the distances on the maps and looking at these boats I can see that it has to be at least a week. How desperate are people who flee into a dark ocean in small boats - and with no Moses to part it for them?
Then there are the Mexicans trying to make it to America. From the size of the demonstrations recently in Los Angeles and San Diego it seems that there are a lot of people who feel that the clandestinos should be given amnesty, legalized, whatever - brought into the fold. The crosses marked 'no identificado' are more testament to the level of desperation that motivates these people.
A country in which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants can get together and demonstrate can't be all bad eh?
There is more than this. There would have been no Danish Cartoon fiasco without numbers of Muslims living in Denmark; nor almost continuous rioting in France for the last three months without an under-class made up largely of immigrants, legal and otherwise.
Way back in 1978 or so it was the Vietnamese Boat People. Some 2,000 of them ended up in Ottawa where I was working at the time. One morning that spring I was waiting in line at a streetcorner for a bus - a miserable morning, mild enough to generate lots of slush, raining. In front of me in the line was a Vietnamese man holding his child. The child was all done up in a snowsuit, mitts and hat, but when I looked down I saw that he was standing in slush up to his ankles wearing only a pair of low-cut shoes and no socks.
I guess part of the resistance to making a place for desperate people comes from fear, justified or not.
| Manu Chao solo voy con mi pena sola va mi condena correr es mi destino para burlar la ley perdido en el corazon de la grande babylon me dicen el clandestino por no llevar papel pa una ciudad del norte yo me fui a trabajar mi vida la deje entre Ceuta y Gibraltar soy una raya en el mar fantasma en la ciudad mi vida va prohibida dice la autoridad solo voy con mi pena sola va mi condena correr es mi destino por no llevar papel perdido en el corazon de la grande Babylon me dicen el clandestino yo soy el quiebra ley mano negra clandestina peruano clandestino africano clandestino marijuana ilegal solo voy con mi pena sola ca mi condena correr es mi destino para burlar la ley perdido en el corazon de la grande Babylon me dicen el clandestino por no llevar papel  | Clandestino alone I go with my sorrow alone goes my sentence to run is my destiny to escape the law lost in the heart of the great Babylon they call me clandestine for not having any papers to a city of the north I went to work I left my life between Ceuta and Gibraltar I’m a line in the sea a ghost in the city my life is forbidden so says the authority alone I go with my sorrow alone goes my sentence to run is my destiny for having no papers lost in the heart of the great Babylon they call me clandestine I’m the lawbreaker mano negra (?) clandestine peruan (?) clandestine african clandestine marihuana illegal alone I go with my sorrow alone goes my sentence to run is my destiny to escape the law lost in the heart of the great Babylon they call me clandestine for not having any papers  |
Tags: Sem Teto, Sem Terra, Ilegales, Mauritania, Morocco, Canary Islands, Clandestino, Manu Chao, Brasil, MST, Gwynne Dyer, MTST, Mexico.
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