tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2013-05-16T21:58:58Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11442 2013-05-16T08:35:00Z 2013-05-16T21:58:58Z

Andrew Lam ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=8 Self-immolation isn’t what it used to be.

This ultimate form of protest became global news in 1963 when the venerable monk Thich Quang Duc set himself ablaze in the middle of Saigon, Vietnam, protesting religious oppression. Doused in gasoline, the monk sat serenely in lotus position and lit a match. A bird of paradise thus blossomed and bloomed, and quickly charred his body.

The photographer Malcolm Browne captured Thich Quang Duc’s fiery renouncement of the mortal coil, the image quickly becoming an icon of the Vietnam War era. The term “self-immolation,” in fact, entered into common English usage after his death, which led to a coup d’etat that toppled the pro-Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem regime.

Half a century later, to die by fire in protest registers little more than a media blip.

As of this writing, 117 Tibetans have set themselves ablaze since 2009 in a series of protests against Chinese rule. The most recent incidents came in April, when two young Tibetan monks and a lay Tibetan woman set themselves on fire. There was little coverage of their deaths.

Indeed, with the exception of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself on fire and thus sparked what became known as the Arab Spring, self-immolation has by all accounts become a failed form of protest as an agent of change. Since Bouazizi, in fact, 150 more Tunisians have set themselves on fire in protest against the new government that took over after the downfall of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali's secular dictatorship.

Whether in Syria or Palestine, Greece, Italy or Vietnam, individuals continue to go up in flames as crowds look on.

“All the Tibetans who resort to self-immolation do so because they feel they have no other way to make China and the rest of the world listen to their country’s call for freedom,” Byrne-Rosengren, director of the London-based advocacy group Free Tibet, told Radio Free Asia last month.

Alas, China has turned a deaf ear to their cries, while the world media has averted its eyes.

Aristotle once observed that the plot of a tragedy should be so framed that, even without witnessing the events, simply hearing of them should fill one with “horror and pity” — even lead to insight and action. But the amphitheater of the 21st century has fallen into decay, scattered and fragmented into a multitude of media platforms. There are too many actors in too many theaters and their tragedies — overwhelming, lacking in context, incoherent, truncated or badly reported — have lost their grip on the human psyche.

Studies about desensitization of the modern mind are aplenty, but the general consensus is that over-saturation of images and narratives of violence have resulted in a collective numbness. A profound act of public death cannot hope to sway a world in which horror itself has lost its power.

What we want instead is entertainment, and what we gravitate toward and react to, more often than not, is profanity.

A year after Bouazizi went up in flames in Tunisia, an unknown amateur filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula,” aka “Sam Bacile,” inflamed the Middle East with incendiary video clips ridiculing the prophet Muhammad. His film turned the Arab Spring of 2011 into the Autumn Rage of 2012, resulted in the death of an American ambassador in Libya, and continues to be a bone of contention in Washington.

The cynic observer can’t help but wonder: If self immolation no longer works as an agent for change, then is it still worth the price?

At its most profound the act stands as the highest form of human compassion, a confirmation of life by giving up one’s own. At its most incoherent self-immolation becomes more expressive of the frustration of the powerless. The individual, enamored by death, possessed by anger, elicits neither horror nor pity but cynicism. After all, to burn with passion is very much different than to be consumed by rage.

Fire — this gift and curse to humanity — is a terrifying beauty. Contained, it hints at elegance, cooks our food and propels our world. Out of control, it engulfs body and soul. It seduces. It overpowers. And it destroys.

In a world where individuals leverage more power online than in the public square, it may be that to live burning with desire for change — regardless of the oppression and humiliation — is the real challenge to becoming actual agents of change in the world. So why not live instead? And find new paths that call attention to the suffering of one’s cause. Find a way to force the world’s attention once more back onto the stage — and evoke pity and horror in us all.

To burn with that desire, to call our attention and hold our gaze until we weep — isn’t that worth living for?

Andrew Lam is editor and cofounder of New America Media. He is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres, and most recently, a collection of short stories, Birds of Paradise Lost. 
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Jude Joffe-Block ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Traducción al español
Pictured above: Santiago Dominugez, bottom right, poses with his children, grandchildren and a portrait of his daughter, Rosa, who is in Arizona. (Photo: Jude Joffe-Block)



TEPEAPULCO, Mexico -- It’s a typical Sunday in the town of Tepeapulco, in Mexico’s central highlands. Families gather, cook and catch up.

And that’s the scene at Santiago Domínguez’s home. At 82-years-old, he’s the family patriarch. He’s wearing pressed slacks, his dark hair smoothed back. By lunchtime, he’s surrounded by relatives.

But one person’s always missing: Rosa, Domínguez’s daughter. In the living room, there’s a picture of her as a young woman.

“I thought she’d only be gone three or four years—and then come back,” Domínguez said in Spanish.

But it’s been 18 years since Rosa left for Arizona with her two young sons. They went illegally to join the boys’ father there. She’s now 43 and has never returned to Mexico. Without papers, it’s just too risky.

“It got to the point that I told her, ‘You know, I’m not sure if we’ll see each other again,’” Domínguez said.

But now they might.

A proposed Senate bill would allow millions of immigrants who entered the US illegally to apply for provisional status and the chance to work legally and travel internationally.

“There’s hope like never before,” Domínguez said.

And it’s a feeling felt throughout Mexico.

A few towns over, Catalina Cervera knocks on a neighbor’s gate to visit the house next door—the one her younger sister, Sandra, abandoned.

Cervera’s sister left Mexico with her young children about 10 years ago. They crossed into Arizona illegally, picked produce, and now live near Phoenix.

“They’ve taken the door, the windows,” Cervera said in Spanish as she stood in front of her sister’s house.

Since her sister’s been gone, thieves have stripped her house clean, even the roof. It’s a cinder block skeleton.

Cervera said she and her sister feel impotencia, powerlessness—they want to see each other, but can’t.

Her sister couldn’t visit when their mother was dying. And a few years ago, Cervera couldn’t get a tourist visa to see her sister in Arizona.

Cervera said she lacked what’s needed for a US visa: things like a bank account, a business, or a credit card. But now she can envision her sister—and her sister’s kids—visiting Mexico again.

“They are motivated with the dream that this immigration reform is going to happen,” Cervera said of her relatives in Arizona.

But as Congress debates the legislation, the wait continues.

Back in Tepeapulco, Domínguez’s tradition is to sing to his daughter a famous ballad over the phone. It’s called “Sin Ti” or Without You.

“What else matters if being far from you makes me cry,” he sang.

Over a 1,000 miles away, in Arizona, his daughter Rosa has become an activist for immigration reform. She asks to only use her first name because of her unauthorized status.

“I want this to happen now, because our parents’ lives won’t wait,” Rosa said in Spanish.

And if reform does happen and she can travel to Mexico freely one day?

She said she’ll surprise her dad with a mariachi band. And they’ll play that ballad he’s sung to her for the last 18 years.

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Sandy Close ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=26 Traducción al español

Editor's Note: Ahmed Rachidi, a native of Morocco who has been a British resident since 1985, was held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo from March 2002 to May 2007, when he was released without charge. Now 47, he is the author of a memoir about his experiences in Guantanamo, called The General: The Ordinary Man Who Challenged Guantanamo, co-authored by Gillian Slovo and published in March 2013. NAM editor Sandy Close interviewed Mr. Rachidi by phone in his home in Tangier, Morocco where he lives with his wife, mother and three children.

Why did you call your memoir "The General"?

Because I was one of a limited number of prisoners at Guantanamo who spoke English, I was often forced to be an "unofficial leader" by guards and interrogators. They nicknamed me "the general."

How were you released?

I was released in May 2007. I was on the "cleared for release" list for one year before I was released. Although I was a British resident and had worked as a chef in London for 16 years, I was repatriated to Morocco. I was never allowed to regain my passport so I was unable to return to London even for the release last March for my memoir.

How did you go from being a chef in London to being a prisoner in Guantanamo?

I had traveled to Islamabad in the late summer of 2001 on a one-month business visa. When I saw television coverage of Afghan refugees fleeing US air strikes across the Pakistan border, I wanted to help. It's the kind of emotional response you have when you see disasters. I thought I would volunteer for a week -- the border was not far away. But I wound up in the middle of a war zone. There was nothing I could do. When I crossed back into Pakistan I thought I was safe. I was riding in a car with five other passengers but the car was stopped at a Pakistani army checkpoint. After 44 days in a Pakistani jail, I was traded by Pakistan intelligence to the FBI.

Were you the only prisoner "cleared for release?"

At any one time there are as many as 50 or 60 prisoners on the "cleared for release" list, including Shaker Aamer, a native of Saudi Arabia. He is the last British resident held in Guantanamo. President Obama claims that those who are cleared for release can't go back either because they will face torture in their home countries, or because their governments don't want them back.

Is that true?

That simply is not true. For the last 11 years the British people have been campaigning for the release and return of Shaker to his family in London. And the U.S. has already sent dozens of prisoners back to countries like Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

How did you know Shaker?

I knew Shaker in the isolation box. Like me, he was a father. I can tell you that a father in Guantanamo is a desperate father knowing that his kids are growing apart and away from him. They are growing away from him without his knowing, without his care, without his affection and attention. So a father in Guantanamo is simply a devastated father.

Can you tell us about the hunger strike?

Shaker is one of over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo who have been on a hunger strike for almost three months. The Obama Administration claims they are on a hunger strike because they want better treatment or better food. But that is not true. They are on a hunger strike because they want justice. They want freedom. They want to go home to their families. And this time they will not quit.

Where you ever on a hunger strike?

I was on a hunger strike many times in Guantanamo. Food is the only comfort that prisoners have in their cell. So when there is a hunger strike that means that the prisoners give up their one source of peace and comfort. They allow themselves to fall into a deep coma. It's like crawling with your weak body into this dark tunnel with no light at the end of it.

What makes them quit?

During one hunger strike in 2006 the prison commander assigned me to a special block to take care of prisoners he said were coming out of the hospital. But they were actually coming from isolation blocks that were kept ice cold. Each prisoner was shaking, each prisoner had a bruised nose with dried blood and black ringed eyes that were petrified. Everyone complained of gut wrenching pain and bleeding hemorrhoids. Soldiers would insert feeding tubes with such force and no anesthetic through their noses and throats while they were strapped to chairs. Then the soldiers would pour medication to make their bowels move. After half an hour they would wet their pants and defecate. They would be left for hours like that. If they vomited, the soldiers would repeat the process. By using these tactics, they stopped the strike. Even I begged the administration to stop.

What is your biggest worry right now?

This will be the last hunger strike. To stop eating is the only way prisoners can exert any control when they are powerless. But this time Shaker and the other prisoners don't have the same strength, the same energy they used to have. Mentally and physically they are very weak. I am worried that something can go wrong, that someone will lose his life.

The hunger strike has gotten President Obama's attention. Has that helped?

President Obama said that he is sending 40 doctors to Guantanamo. Prisoners don't need doctors. Prisoners want to go home to their families. They have been crying out for justice for 11 years. To hold someone for 11 years without trial, without charge, is a crime.

What is the message of the hunger strike?

Guantanamo is a concern to every human being who believes in democracy, who believes in human rights, who believes in the rule of law. We don't have a lot of time. We need to come together to force President Obama to restore the rule of law and put an end to this disgrace.

See a video of Ahmed Rachidi speaking about his time in Guantanamo.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11352 2013-05-01T07:05:00Z 2013-05-01T00:24:22Z

Kent Paterson ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Picture above: Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, the presumed leader of the Knights Templar Cartel that controls much of Michoacan, appeared in an April 27 YouTube video.

As immigrants rally in cities across the United States today, another drum beat of protest and revolt beats loudly in southern Mexico. Beginning as a teachers’ strike against a new federal education law last February, the protest is now transforming into a broad popular movement against not only the much-touted Pact for Mexico policies of new President Enrique Pena Nieto, but also the political and economic structures they are based on.

In the bigger scheme of things, the movement is squarely challenging an economic and educational agenda endorsed by the International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Wall Street.

If the movement could be said to have an epicenter, it is in the Pacific state of Guerrero, where the protest against the federal education reform took a big leap this month with the founding of the Guerrero Popular Movement (MPG). Opponents of the law passed last December by the Mexican Congress argue that a new evaluation system imposed on teachers jeopardizes labor rights, and contains other provisions that will foster privatization and increase the cost of sending children to school.

Formed by unions, small farmer organizations, indigenous communities and youth activists, the MPG declared its opposition to the education reform, new mining projects in indigenous communities, any privatization of the national oil company Pemex, and proposals to increase the 16 percent sales tax.

“Now this is not just a movement of the teachers,” proclaimed the Regional Coordinator of Community Authorities, the leadership body of the community police and justice system in scores of Guerrero’s indigenous communities. “It’s a struggle of all-small farmers, parents, students, political and social organizations”

Government officials routinely minimize support for the teacher strike, but the MPG flexed its muscles with two large demonstrations that paralyzed the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo earlier this month. According to different estimates, each action drew between 50,000 and 120,000 people.

As its first order of business, the MPG supported an unsuccessful attempt by striking teachers to modify the federal education reform law by passing union-drafted legislation at the state level.

Represented by the Guerrero State Coordinator of Education Workers (CETEG), a large dissident organization within the official SNTE teachers’ union, the strikers combined street protests and occupations of government buildings with intense legislative lobbying efforts and on-and-off again negotiations with Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre.

At one point sensing victory within its grasp, the CETEG suddenly suffered a major setback when state lawmakers from President Pena Nieto’s PRI party, backed by allies from other political parties including members of the once-emblematic PRD opposition party, approved a state law last week that ignored the CETEG’s main proposals and upheld the federal reform. The pro-reform lawmakers asserted that any legislation differing significantly from the federal law would not pass constitutional muster. They deny the reform will bring educational privatization.

Next act, Chilpancingo exploded.

As many as 9,000 CETEG and MPG supporters surged through the streets April 24 chanting slogans and denouncing the legislators. After a rally, protest leaders urged demonstrators to return to the strikers’ encampment in the capital city.

Whether due to manipulation by publicly unknown elements or spontaneous and uncontrollable rage, a large crowd that turned rowdy ignored the post-rally plans and began heading for the headquarters of the major political parties-left, right and center.

The crowd then trashed the party buildings- without political distinction- but dished out special treatment to the PRI, whose headquarters was thoroughly ransacked and torched. Columns of black smoke poured from the building before the blaze was extinguished.

“When the people rise up for bread, freedom and land, the powerful will tremble, from the Gulf to the Sierra!” the rioters chanted.

While some journalists were reportedly rousted, no one was injured in the violence, expect for one protestor who suffered a hand injury.

The April 24 Chilpancingo incident put the CETEG and MPG on the defensive, as the Mexican commercial media, which has treated the strike with hostility since the get-go, flashed images of the vandalism and the PRI fire. A litany of denunciations flowed from the political and business classes.

While in Acapulco for a bankers’ convention, President Pena Nieto curtly condemned the Chilpancingo violence. Faulting unidentified “external forces” for stoking a violent and intolerant movement, PRD Guerrero Governor Angel Aguirre announced that 39 arrest warrants were ready for strike leaders. Graco Ramirez, governor of neighboring Morelos state, called strike leaders “true delinquents” who should be detained.

Mumblings from shadowy government and media sources variously blamed the mayhem, with no concrete proof, on the EPR and ERPI guerrilla groups and even on left opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

Acapulco Mayor Luis Walton reiterated an appeal to the CETEG to refrain from blockading the Mexico City-Acapulco freeway, a tactic which led to recent confrontations with the Federal Police. Walton urged the strikers to conduct themselves in a manner that would not affect tourism in Acapulco, which accounts for 40 percent of the economic activity in impoverished Guerrero.

“Of course, the Federation should intervene,” Walton added. “It’s a federal law that motivated this problem. There has to be dialogue. If not, this will not be solved…”

Conversely, more than a few messages praising the trashings and arson attack on the PRI circulated on the Internet, with writers reflecting the seething anger a large sector of Mexican society holds for the government and all the political parties represented in it.

CETEG spokespersons eventually acknowledged that some of its supporters were to blame for a rampage not sanctioned by the leadership

If the conflict over the education reform law wasn’t enough to literally inflame a political crisis, a Guerrero state court added fuel to the fire the same week as the Chipancingo upheaval when it freed two state policemen accused of killing two students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers’ college, Gabriel Echeverria de Jesus and Jorge Alexis Herrera, during a demonstration in December 2011.

Ayotzinapa is legendary for its student militancy, and the school is the alma matter for the locally revered guerrilla leaders Genaro Vazquez Rojas and Lucio Cabanas Barrientos of the 1960s and 1970s.

Indeed, a favorite chant of thousands of demonstrators in recent weeks has been, “Cuidado, cuidado, cuidado con Guerrero, estado guerrillero.” Simply put, the chant warns the government not to mess with a guerrilla state.

Last week, Ayotzinapa’s current generation of pupils lived up to the college’s reputation when students- reinforced by thousands of supporters from the CETEG and MPG- briefly blockaded the Mexico City-Acapulco freeway in Chilpancingo in a protest against a judge’s decision to free the alleged killers of their classmates.

Rocks were tossed at a contingent of federal officers monitoring the march, who responded with obscene finger gestures, but no major escalation of violence ensued.

For teachers, their movement has entered a critical phase. Trial balloons of replacing the strikers are floating in the air, and students stand to lose an entire semester if the conflict drags on much longer. Regrouping during the past few days, the CETEG and MPG are organizing May Day marches in Chilpancingo, Acapulco and other towns.

While Guerrero simmers, allied popular movements in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Morelos and Michoacan are turning up the heat in their localities. All four states have very active local affiliates of the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), the CETEG’s national organization, and are witnessing the formation of broad popular fronts like Guerrero’s MPG. The CNTE plans an escalation of protests after May 1, when a large national march with other unions will also be convened in Mexico City.

So far, the movement has not gathered force in any big way in the central and northern border states, but teachers in the Resssiste organization of Ciudad Juarez are reportedly planning to stage a protest on May 1, a Mexican holiday.

Oaxaca education workers’ leader Ruben Nunez said the groundwork is being laid for a national strike against labor, education and energy reforms.

“In the (CNTE), we are preparing the terrain, the conditions, for an ongoing national mobilization,” Nunez said. “In Oaxaca, we already have the possibility, at any given moment, of setting the date for the uprising.”

Perhaps what distinguishes the current movement from previous ones is that teachers and their allies are proposing very detailed, alternative public policies or actually implementing them on the ground, as in the case of Guerrero’s community police and justice system.

Following the lead of Guerrero, CNTE affiliates in Chiapas and Michoacan have now struck many schools.

“We are clear that the ongoing strike reduces the number of school days,” said Michoacan CNTE official Victor Manuel Zavala. “But to not struggle against this badly-intentioned reform is to renounce the existence of public schools.”

In what might be interpreted as an attempt to curb the further spread of the movement, the general secretary of the official SNTE in the Pacific state of Colima has announced that two sections of the organization will not participate in the government-sponsored May Day parade. However, SNTE oficialistas in Chiapas have announced they will participate in a May 1 protest alongside the CNTE.

Union official Jose de Jesus Villanueva said the virtually unprecedented decision was necessary to counter “goon squads” from Guerrero and Michoacan trying to agitate the local teachers. However, it’s more likely the decision was made to curtail any possible, embarrassing protests by rank-and-file teachers against the education reform law.

Like Guerrero, the situation in Michoacan is reported as explosive, with student protests adding to a charged atmosphere.

Since last fall, students from the Tiripetio rural teachers’ college have repeatedly clashed with authorities over demands for resources and a guaranteed quota of 1,000 jobs for graduates. Last week, the “Tiris,” as they have become known, commandeered trucks belonging to Coca-Cola, Bimbo and other food and beverage firms. In Robin Hood style, the students gave away goods from companies that have a profitable business in schools to eager passerby in the state capital of Morelia.

In a message handed to the trucks’ drivers, the students claimed they took the action because of a government cut-off of resources to their schools. In preparation for a large May Day protest in Morelia, the Working Peoples Unitary Front declared that the public was “fed up” with low wages, jobs with no benefits, constant price increases, shoddy public transportation, and attacks on free public education.

Complicating the political landscape is Michoacan’s seemingly entrenched narco-violence, a phenomenon separate from, yet economically and sociologically linked to, the poverty and generalized discontent that underpins current social conflicts.

Simultaneous crises related to narco-violence, insecurity and social demands are tugging at the state, worsened by last weekend’s shoot-out that claimed 14 lives and resulted in numerous school closures in the Tierra Caliente region of the state. Finding himself immersed in a socio-political whirlwind, PRI Governor Fausto Vallejo, who was elected in a controversial 2011 election riddled with allegations of fraud, announced earlier this month he was taking a 90-day leave of absence, presumably to attend health problems.

And in an almost surreal cameo appearance in the unfolding Michoacan drama, Servando “La Tuta” Gomez Martinez, the presumed fugitive leader of the Knights Templar syndicate that controls a good chunk of Michoacan and surrounding states, popped up April 27 on a YouTube video.

Looking like Farmer Jones with a cow in the background for a prop, Gomez criticized Vallejo’s performance as governor and called for dialogue to restore order in Michoacan. The media-savvy Gomez counseled the state and federal governments to negotiate with his organization as well as the teachers and students. “We are delinquents,” he said, “but we are disposed to seek convincing measures to establish order, not only in Michoacan, but wherever we can.”

Octavio Ferris Leal, who served as an intelligence official under the PRD administration of former Michoacan Governor Lazaro Cardenas Batel (2000-2006), contended that a “hydra” of multiple conflicts, many of them connected to organized crime, has reared its deadly head over the land.

“It’s dangerous, since it could provoke a social explosion, not only in an entity governed by an inept and incompetent PRI, but in the entire country,” Ferris warned. “(Michoacan) could be the spark.”

In Guerrero too, the political fuse is very short, illustrated by the April 29 deliverance of Governor Angel Aguirre’s second government report while under the guard of thousands of police and transported supporters. Despite the recent developments in his state, an upbeat Aguirre insisted that “social peace and governance” prevail.

Earlier commenting on the political turbulence, the Guerrero edition of La Jornada newspaper contended that the conflict sprouting from the education reform law is a complex, multi-faceted one that encompasses issues of poverty, rebellious cultural peculiarities, political arrogance, poverty, and the federal abandonment of schools. The daily’s editors appealed for dialogue over repression.

“One could say that Guerrero is a powder keg,” the newspaper editorialized. “All that is missing is a match.”

In a separate piece, La Jornada columnist Raul Suarez Martinez also called for calm in a state that has “lost control.”

As a remedy to the polarization, Martinez proposed the creation of a peace commission for Guerrero similar to the initiative launched in Chiapas after the 1994 Zapatista uprising.

“The causes are different, which is to say they haven’t arrived to the extremes of Chiapas,” Suarez continued. “ It’s clear that only an external commission, removed from the conflict but which understands its roots and possible solutions, can defuse it.”


Sources: La Jornada, April 29 and 30, 2013. Articles by Elio Henriquez and Luis Hernandez Navarro. El Universal, April 25, 26, 29, 30, 2013. Articles by Alfredo Quiles, Dalia Martinez and Ricardo Aleman. La Jornada (Michoacan edition), April 25, 2013. Proceso/Apro, April 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 2013. Articles by Ezequiel Flores Contreras and editorial staff.

El Sur, April 12, 17, 25, 26, 30 2013. Articles by Lourdes Chavez, Hugo Pacheco Leon, Agencia Reforma, and editorial staff. La Jornada (Guerrero edition), April 24, 25, 26, 29, 2013. Articles by Citlal Giles Sanchez, Hector Briseno, Margena de la O, Raul Suarez Martinez, and editorial staff. El Diario de Juarez, April 12, 18, 23, 24, 25, 2013. Articles by Antonio Rebolledo and Agencia Reforma.
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Image: The Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.Ed. Note: Chechnya landed on the front pages of American newspapers not long after the bombings in Boston. A remote region of Russia unknown to most Americans,...

Peter Schurmann ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=64 Image: The Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in the city of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

Ed. Note: Chechnya landed on the front pages of American newspapers not long after the bombings in Boston. A remote region of Russia unknown to most Americans, it is the ethnic homeland of the alleged attackers, Tamerlan and Djokhar Tsarnaev. A visit there in 2012 by Tamerlan has led American intelligence officials to question what if any links exist between the area and the attacks. Jean-Francois Ratelle spent a year in the North Caucasus, including Dagestan and Chechnya, researching pathways toward insurgent participation there. He spoke with NAM’s Peter Schurmann about the region and its connection to the bombings.

New America Media: What was your initial reaction when you learned the suspects behind the Boston bombings were Chechen?

Jean-Francois Ratelle: I thought it was most likely home grown terrorism. I wouldn’t be surprised if [Tamerlan Tsarnaev] went to some kind of training camp during his trip to the North Caucasus region, but I don’t see any direct link [in the attack] to Chechnya or Dagestan.

His trip might have pushed him further in his views -- maybe because of the repression of radical Islam, or maybe because of what he heard or saw there. But Tamerlan still chose to come back to the United States to engage in jihad. He did not stay in Dagestan to join an insurgent group there.

So it is important at this point to understand that there does not seem to be a link to Chechnya or Dagestan, but much more to American society.

NAM: What does his decision to come back to the United States say about his ideological views?

Ratelle: At this point we don’t know why he came back. He may have come back to include his brother in his jihad. He might have come back because he perceived the enemy of Islam as being the United States, and not just Russia. We don’t know why he came back, but it seems an important aspect that he chose to come back and engage against the United States and not against Russia.

NAM: How does that distinguish him from insurgent groups within the North Caucasus?

Ratelle: What we have seen in Chechnya and other parts of the region since 2007 and perhaps earlier is that the more global Salafi jihadist ideology [as promoted by Al Qaeda and its affiliates] has been adopted by insurgent groups across the North Caucuses. However, they do not really support Al Qaeda’s anti-American and anti-Jewish agenda. Although the ideology is somewhat similar, it is almost entirely turned toward Russia and the Caucuses. This is why I think insurgent groups in the region were so quick to distance themselves from any identification with the bombings.

NAM: Reports show a split in the Tsarnaev family between the father, who was more influenced by Soviet culture, and a more religiously pious mother. Is this common in Chechen society?

Ratelle: First I would underline that the mother is not Chechen but is from Dagestan. That might make a little difference. But what we actually witnessed in all of North Caucasian society was a clash between the Soviet generation -- which rarely turns to radical Islam but rather practices a more moderate brand of Sufi Islam, and the younger generation born during perestroika or at the end of the Soviet Union. Many of them have tended to turn toward a more radical Salafist form of Islam as a way, in part, to challenge the older generation’s hold over society.

NAM: Chechnya in the immediate post-Soviet era has been described as a sort of gangland. Is that accurate?

Ratelle: It is an accurate description. But it has changed since then. One can now say that the criminals who once terrorized the streets are now in the government. They have recycled themselves.

NAM: How is Moscow likely to interpret the bombings?

Ratelle: Russians already have a very negative view of people from the Caucuses region. They are often described as being at best criminals, and at worst terrorists. Moscow will likely try to use the bombings to justify its own policy in the region going back more than ten years. Russia has been saying that it is fighting terrorists and extremists linked to Al Qaeda. I think this will also make it easier for the United States to support Moscow’s actions, especially with the Sochi Olympics approaching in 2014.

NAM: What has been U.S. policy in Chechnya in recent years?

Ratelle: The Caucusus Emirate and smaller insurgent groups all across the region have traditionally targeted the Russian government or local government. In their speeches we’ve rarely seen or heard an expressed desire to attack the United States.

But since 9/11 there has been tacit support in Washington of Moscow’s actions in Chechnya, seen as part of the “global war on terror.” Two years ago, Washington put Dokka Umarov [nicknamed Russia’s Osama bin Laden], the leader of the Caucusus Emirate, on the list of most wanted terrorists.

So I think it’s important to understand that a lot of people in Chechnya feel they have lost the support of the West in general, whether of the United States or Germany or France. After 9/11, the case of Chechnya was very rapidly associated with Al Qaeda, which is far from being proven.

NAM: What would Tamerlan have seen in Chechnya during his visit there in 2012?

Ratelle: We’re not talking about a war zone. The cities are fairly developed. They have not been destroyed by fighting. If you go deeper into the mountains, then you will see a few villages that do bear some signs of war. But in the cities of Dagestan and the other republics you don’t see this. For Chechnya, the major cities are fairly impressive – Grozny is one of the nicest cities I’ve seen in Russia, in terms of the smaller cities.

NAM: Where do you see Chechnya in 10 years?

Ratelle: What we are seeing there now is an internal civil war between Chechens, one side supported by Moscow and the other made up of various separatist entities. If this situation remains, leading to a worsening of the [local] economy and further [political and religious] repression, the violence will continue and young people without opportunities in society will likely look to join insurgent groups. Vendettas and vengeance for the death of relatives is an integral part of society there. What that means is that the violence will not likely stop in coming years.

Jean-Francois Ratelle is a Postdoctoral fellow at George Washington University. He completed his Ph.D at the University of Ottawa in 2012. His main research interests include the micro-dynamics of violence, civil wars, terrorism, Islamic radicalization, the North Caucasus, and the Balkans.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11336 2013-04-29T17:24:24Z 2013-04-29T17:26:48Z

Asian American Press ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
The Minnesota participants are actress and playwright Sun Mee Chomet, attorney Caitlin Kee, and scholar Dr. SooJin Pate. They are three of ten North Americans chosen to participate in the 2013 Korea Education and Exposure Program – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (KEEPDPRK). The other participants this year are from Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, New Jersey, and New York. A documentary filmmaker may also accompany this year’s KEEP-DPRK peace delegation.

“We are three of 10 North Americans chosen to go on a peace delegation to North Korea this summer as part of the KEEP+DPRK program this summer through Nodutdol, a New York-based Korean American organization, dedicated to promoting education, research, reunification, and an end to the Korean War,” Chomet said. “We’ll have the amazing opportunity to visit women’s organizations, hospitals, historical sites, factories, universities, etc. We will also be bringing medical supplies and antibiotics to a maternity hospital in Pyongyang.” Read more here.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11332 2013-04-27T08:10:00Z 2013-04-27T14:44:49Z

Maziar Shirazi ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHILADELPHIA -- It’s not every day that an American physician gets asked to function as an international pharmaceutical supplier, but for some, it’s becoming a regular occurrence.

A doctor I know told of a patient getting ready for a trip to Istanbul, where he would connect with Iranian friends. The patient asked for a prescription for a diabetes medication, “The most you can write for,” he said. The doctor was puzzled: his patient did not carry a diabetes diagnosis. “It’s for my mother,” came the response. “It’s getting very difficult to find this medicine in Iran, and she’s going to run out soon.”

Healthcare professionals report acquaintances, family of family, and others recently approaching and asking for all sorts of medical supplies, ranging from anti-maceration medications for the bedridden, to insulin pumps.

Reading the news in the comfort of my home, I’ve come across more troubling stories -- patients dying from shortages of needed medication, or waiting years for organ transplants only to find themselves without the medication needed to prevent rejection of the donor organ.

Why are the people of Iran in the midst of a medicine shortage?

In 2010, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the United States had begun discussions with allies regarding methods of "pressure and sanctions" to counter Iran’s nuclear program, emphasizing that the goal was to stop the Islamic regime without harming innocent civilians. Specifically, she said the U.S. government’s aim was “to pressure the Iranian government … without contributing to the suffering of ordinary [Iranians].”

More recently, David Cohen, Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department, made similar comments, saying that “we have no quarrel with the people of Iran” and that “the ultimate objective is to try and slow down the development of Iran’s nuclear program … not to make food and medicine scarce.”

In clinical medicine, design and implementation of interventions, ostensibly in the service of improving care, is a common undertaking; when we see that an intervention is not achieving its stated goals, or in fact harming patients, substantial corrective action is indicated, even if it means abandonment of the intervention altogether.

In this vein, how do the intended effects of sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. government and others compare with the actual effects?

The value of Iran’s rial has plunged, and its economy is in shambles; Iran’s nuclear program, on the other hand, is alive and well. Vice President Joe Biden practically bragged of the economy-crippling effects of the latest round of sanctions during last year’s vice presidential debate, even as his Secretary of Defense acknowledged that despite U.S. efforts, Tehran remained intent on advancing its nuclear program. Indeed, the IAEA’s latest report shows that if anything, Iran is likely expanding its enrichment capacity.

Iran’s civilians, however, find themselves in the midst of one of the worst medical supply shortages in the nation’s long history.

Several prominent health professionals within Iran have called attention to the plight of vulnerable patients as a result of the sanctions. Ahmad Ghavidel, head of the Iranian Hemophilia Society, a nongovernmental organization that assists some 8000 patients, characterized the situation as “a blatant hostage-taking of the most vulnerable people.” Fatemeh Hashemi, of the Charity Foundation for Special Diseases, has publicly voiced concerns about impaired access to life-saving treatments for patients with multiple sclerosis, cancer, end-stage renal disease and other illnesses, as a result of the sanctions.

Many diseases such as hemophilia require advanced medicines that are simply not available in Iran for a variety of reasons including patent laws and access to specialized raw materials and technology for manufacture — such medications and materials have to be imported, mainly from Western nations.

While the U.S. government states that there are exemptions for food, medicine and remittances, the timely receipt of the right quantity of medicines is not as simple as submitting a request to the Treasury Department. A Wilson Center report found that it is the sanctions affecting the majority of large Iranian banks (and the international and US-based banking institutions that would do business with them) that have most affected the availability of medicines for purchase and use.

“Iran’s own mismanagement of the situation has aggravated the problem, but it is not the root cause of it,” the authors stressed. “While the list of issues leading to the supply crunch is long and complicated, at the heart of it all are the obstacles that sanctions have created in denying Iran the necessary banking operations and limiting its access to hard currency.” Simply put, “the pronounced role of sanctions in creating shortages of life-saving medical supplies and drugs in Iran may have been unintentional, but it is also irrefutable.”

The report goes on to say that the main beneficiaries of the sanctions have been Iranian government-owned businesses, which often get preferential access to currency, as well as smugglers and black market dealers who are buying up medicines and selling them (or knockoffs of them) to civilians with high markups.

Others are now beginning speaking out. Ahmad Shaheed, the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, who has been vilified by the Iranian government for his investigations, feels that sanctions could “absolutely” worsen the human rights situation in Iran. In a situation where shortages of medical supplies are created, he said, “the most vulnerable people suffer immediately, and over the long term there is wider suffering caused.”

As a citizen, I wonder how this is accomplishing the stated objective of the U.S. government to pressure the Iranian regime while preventing the suffering of Iranian people. As a clinician, an Iranian-American, and most importantly a human being, I am wondering when substantive corrective actions are going to be taken by our government to modify the sanctions (the recommendations of the Wilson Center report are a good start) and attempt to alleviate the harm done to innocent civilians.

Maziar Shirazi is an Iranian-American family physician completing his residency training in Philadelphia.  When he is not working, he freelances and plays capoeira.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11309 2013-04-23T15:15:00Z 2013-04-24T18:41:38Z

Semany Gashaw ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
Ed Note: On January 10, 2013 nine-year-old Rodrigo Guzman was detained along with his family by Immigration and Customs Enformcement (ICE) along the Texas-Mexico border. After determing their visas had expired, the family was sent back to Mexico and told they must wait five years before reapplying for a visa. Social Justice activist Mable Yee is the mother of twin boys, Kyle and Scott Kuwahara, who are Rodrigo’s classmates at Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, California. They are in the forefront of the Bring Rodrigo Home – Kids For Kids campaign that was launched March 19. NAM reporter Semany Gashaw interviewed her.

New America Media: How long has Rodrigo been in this country?

Mable Yee: Rodrigo has lived here continuously since he was 18 months old and he has attended public school at Jefferson elementary the entire time.

NAM: You say he and his mother have been going to Tijuana every six months to renew their visas. So what happened on this trip?

Yee: August 2011 was the last time that they renewed their visas. On that visit, the border patrol remarked that Rodrigo’s Spanish was very poor and his English was really good. That worried the mother, who was concerned that they might think that the family had been living long term in the U.S.

When they were returning to the U.S. from Mexico last January, they flew into Houston. ICE detained them. The boy and his mother were separated from the father, who was questioned for hours with security guards watching the entire time. ICE finally told them that their visas had expired and that they were going to be sent back to Mexico.

While the father was being interrogated, young Rodrigo said he was hungry. The mother asked a security guard if she could buy him some food. The security guard said ok, and he brought him a bowl of soup. But before Rodrigo could eat the soup, the guard demanded that Rodrigo give him his visa and passport ... They took it and then stamped “cancel” on the visa. To this day, the boy blames himself for the whole mess.

NAM: How did Rodrigo’s friends respond when they heard he wasn’t coming back?

Yee: Very badly. When my twin boys, Kyle and Scott, came home from school, Kyle told me, “Rodrigo isn’t coming back.” I asked why and he said “because of visa problems,” but he didn’t really know much else. Kyle also told me: “The kids in our class are really angry and we want to go on a hunger strike and we want to hold a rally!” He told me they’ve been learning about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, and they knew about Cesar Chavez and his hunger strike. And he said we’ve got to do something to help bring Rodrigo back. I encouraged them because after all I’m a social justice advocate.

NAM: Did the kids understand what actually happened to Rodrigo?

Yee: I explained to them that in order to be a citizen of this country, you have to either have been born here or become a (naturalized) citizen. These kids understand the concept of social justice. My son says: “We are taught about Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez standing up for other people’s rights. But who is fighting for Rodrigo’s rights?” Kyle said it is our turn and our time to stand up like Martin Luther King and Yuri Kochiyama. We give them all this information and now they actually have an opportunity to put into action the lessons they learned in class through their history books.

NAM: Do his classmates keep in contact with Rodrigo?

Yee: My sons and I regularly Skype Rodrigo and his mother. Even though he’s in Mexico, it feels as if he’s in the next room. When Rodrigo was here, he would play a game called Minecraft, a popular online multi player platform game where you can build communities. It’s like a 3D virtual Lego world. So the kids play online together.

NAM: Take us through the Bring Rodrigo Home – Kids For Kids campaign.

Yee: I developed a strategy, involving the City of Berkeley and the school district to provide institutional support for Rodrigo’s family. The Berkeley Unified School District and the Berkeley City Council unanimously passed resolutions. The City council’s included sending letters to President Obama, Senator Diane Feinstein and Congresswoman Barbara Lee urging them to grant humanitarian parole for Rodrigo. My son, Kyle, personally wrote a letter to President Obama. It has been translated into Spanish, broadcast on the radio and read on the Internet.

I found an immigration attorney who spoke directly with the family. She interviewed the parents and said basically they had overstayed their visas and that ICE was within their rights to turn the family back. But she said if the family were fortunate enough to have a legislator sponsor a private bill granting humanitarian parole and it was approved, they could be able to return legally. This could happen if enough public outcry and media attention were generated for their case.

NAM: Are you optimistic about bringing Rodrigo back home?

Yee: Yes. We met Congresswoman Barbara Lee at her immigration town hall meeting a few weeks ago in Oakland, Calif. Our kids and parents got a private meeting with her for 10 minutes. We skyped in Rodrigo and his mother live from Mexico. Rodrigo asked her if he could have a second chance to return to his home. Congresswoman Lee was so moved. She said: “I will do everything possible to bring you home Rodrigo.” He then asked her: “Can you please invite my classmates to go to Washington DC to speak for me because I can not speak for myself?” At this, she turned to the kids and said: “You are all invited to Washington, DC, and I need you to come and speak to my congressional colleagues about the need for immediate and comprehensive immigration reform.”

Rodrigo is the face of immigration. He is an innocent child caught in the middle of this mess for which he cannot be blamed. He is as American as you and I are.

Click here to see young Kyle Kuwahara’s speech to the Berkeley council. More information is available at the Bring Rodrigo Home – Kids For Kids campaign website. 
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11298 2013-04-22T08:10:00Z 2013-04-25T23:28:21Z

Mohamad Ozeir ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Second of two articles. Read part one here.

Editor’s note: The following article, posted April 25, 2013, includes revisions correcting errors in an earlier version.

DEARBORN, Mich.--Parked in front of a typical Michigan colonial house, a social worker, who works with elders, is waiting for me. She has agreed to introduce me to an older woman, as long as the meeting is discrete. As I approached the social worker’s car, she looks around to make sure we won’t be watched as we walk up the driveway.

“The residents of this street are all Arab Americans and I don’t want any neighbors to see us coming in. I don’t want to get the lady in trouble with her family,” she explains.

At the side door of this three-bedroom home, we are welcomed by Hajji Fatimah, who is known by the name “Um Kassem” (mother of Kassem, her first son), a traditional Arabic way of addressing parents.

‘I Feel Like a Captive Here’

When asked how she feels about America, Um Kassem replied, “It is a great country. But nothing is better than your own country.”

“But isn’t America your country now,” I said?

“Well, I wish I came here much younger; maybe then I can say yes. But when I don’t go outside this house unless I go to the doctor, the social service office or to a funeral, I cannot say it. Back in Lebanon I was free to go anywhere I wanted in the town. I know everyone there. Here even I cannot visit the few people I knew from back home. No one has time to take me or to bring them over,” said Um Kassem.

I asked if she regretted the move here.

“It was not up to me. But I would have been better if I didn’t come. I feel like a captive here. I have nowhere to go, nothing to do besides babysitting and house chores. In the beginning I was occupied with the kids but as they got older and went to school I got more and more alone. My daughter-in-law is busy with her friends and, if not, she is driving the kids to their school and events.”

What are your activities in your free time?

“I mostly watch Arabic TV. But when the kids are home I cannot because they watch their own shows or play their games on every set in the house. In the summer I walk down the street to see an old friend of mine. Besides this I go to the doctor and the social service office when I need to update my papers.”

Um Kassem said she has thought about moving out and living on her own, but she wouldn’t want to embarrass or upset her family. When she got into the subject with her son once, he didn’t approve of the idea.

Lack of Programs, Invisible in Research

Before parting with the social worker who arranged the interview, I ask her what is being done for people in this situation. “So far, very little. We don’t have programs or resources. We try our best to help them to get the services that are available, but the cultural barriers make it difficult even for the little that we can do. As long as we don’t have a tailored program that takes into consideration the religious and cultural aspects, our role will be very limited.”

Such a program requires funds. To obtain the needed funding, an organization needs to compile several pieces of data, including the number of potential beneficiaries, the scope of service, an explanation of why there’s a need to establish a specific program outside the general available services, and evidence of sufficient public support.

None of this data is available currently. According to Amne Talab, social services director at the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS) in Dearborn, Mich, there are no surveys or studies concerning Arab American elders. Fortunately, ACCESS and the University of Michigan are working on a joint venture to fill this gap.

The lack of information in this field is what drew the attention of Sonia Salari, a professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

Salari said that in her study of Arab and Middle Eastern Americans, titled “Invisible in Aging Research,” she was “surprised to find the lack of information not only about aging issues, but about most of the social issues facing Arab Americans in this country.”

She explained, “The notion of the strong relationships among Arab American families hides the fact that elders are deprived of some basic services. Although there are a lot of similarities in issues for all elders, cultural and religious considerations make it harder for Arab American elders to benefit from the available programs.”

Salari considers social isolation to be the most profound problem facing Arab American elders. For instance, it is especially challenging for older women who have been divorced their husbands. They are often stigmatized by having made this choice and become isolated later in life. She called for more studies to be done aimed at better understanding these problems and formulating ways to address them effectively.

Kristine J. Ajrouch, a sociology professor at Eastern Michigan University, encountered the same vacuum of information when she began her research 10 years go: no data sets, no surveys and no studies.

Younger Arab Americans she interviewed echoed the traditional notion that Arab Americans value their parents and would never “put a family elder in a nursing home.” But, she found, the same youth “had never experienced living with an aging family member, such as grandparent, because their parents were immigrants” and did not have first-hand experience with old age.

Overall, Ajrouch said the Arab American community has been very supportive of her research. However, some individuals have dismissed her efforts as “a waste of time, because we don’t have a problem.”

On an organizational level, she has been frustrated with the standard reply, “Even if we define the need, we cannot do anything about it due to the lack of funds.”

Bringing the Elders to the Table

In a recent focus-group study of aging Muslims, Ajrouch said she found that “men were much more inclined to want family to be their sole source of support in times of need in their later years, while women were more open to considering ways to obtain support beyond the family.

Knowing the elders and interacting with them is the most important step needed at this time, according to Ajrouch. Besides advocating for more data collection, she believes community organizations should take small but important steps that can make a difference, starting with bringing the elders to the table and listening to their stories.

There are too many stories to tell. But as long as aging is not considered an important issue in the community, those stories will remain personal and will create more frustration and isolation. It is time to get out of our moral comfort zone to tackle this growing need. We can start by bridging the obvious needs with the available resources.

This series is adapted from the story Mohamad Ozeir wrote for the Arab American News through the MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellows program, a collaboration of New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America.





]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11297 2013-04-21T08:35:00Z 2013-04-22T17:52:17Z

Mohamad Ozeir ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 First of two articles. Read part two here.

EAST DEARBORN, Mich.--The Kennedy Center building on Bingham Street in East Dearborn is a nine-story residential site for low-income elders in the heart of the Detroit area’s Arab American community.

Although one might expect the center to be bustling with family members visiting the many older Arab Americans who occupy 78 of the building’s 117 units, my recent stop there instead suggested a story of isolation and neglect emblematic of the current state of affairs for Arab American elders.

Arab Americans constitute an emerging ethnic community trying to balance the old way of life in the motherland with the facts of life in the new world. Moral claims of respect for elders aside, most Arab Americans emigrated from states where aging is not an issue. Life expectancy in many Arab countries is at best only a couple of years more than the average retirement age in the United States.

Estranged from Family, But Independent

At the Kennedy Center, a woman in the traditional Islamic hijab arrived to visit her mother-in-law, who she said has to “face the rest of her life alone.” Lila, who did not provide her last name for publication, explained that her mother-in-law used to live with her family and helped raise her children.

Although Lila’s mother-in-law didn’t complain for years, she increasingly felt constrained by traditional expectations. With her social life largely limited to attending funerals or memorials, except for attending citizenship classes at the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS).

Then three years ago, said Lila, her mother-in-law “reached the end of her rope.” When she told her son she was going to ACCESS to find a place to live, Lila recalled, “My husband threatened to not see her or talk to her as long as he lives because she will bring shame to her family by allowing people to say that he is like the Americans, who send their parents to shelters.”

Since her mother-in-law moved, Lila has visited her against her husband’s will.
One of Lila’s children visits his grandmother secretly, as well. “She tells me that he brings her back to life when she sees him,” Lila added. She emphasized that her mother-in-law feels “she has her own space and she doesn’t regret her decision to leave.”

An Increasingly Pressing Issue

Amne Talab, the social services director at ACCESS, emphasized, “Our plate is overflowing with other pressing issues, such as refugees, new immigrants, legal, social, employment, health, mental health and emergency services.”

Talab continued, though, “The elders are becoming a pressing issue, as well.” That’s because many who benefit from health and other services are living longer here, eventually requiring eldercare services, she said.

Longevity for Arabs in the United States is about two years shorter than that of whites or non-Arabs, partly because Arab elders have high levels of chronic illness.

Talab is applying for a grant to establish a center that would host senior activities and services. But even without an exclusive program for elders, ACCESS and similar organizations, such as the Arab American and Chaldean Council, have something substantial to offer.

Social workers in Arab American community organizations there work with their counterparts in city agencies to access available services for elders. However, the benefits are not distributed equally for practical and cultural reasons.

Even though having government-subsidized residential centers in East Dearborn, such as Kennedy and the Freda Center, addresses part of elders’ needs, it also presents new challenges.

For example, the high illiteracy rate among Arab American elders, especially women, makes understanding the rules and communicating with management and providers very difficult.

Some elders violate rules by frequently babysitting their grandchildren. Others cook and do laundry for their kids in the senior developments. Center managers also complain of other infractions, such as receiving guests for sleepovers, using the hallways and balconies for storage, and misusing the available utilities.

Many of the elders are in poor health and have inadequate treatment for their ailments because they lack information about health services or preventive care.

Isolation Not Part of Normal Aging

The salient issue is social isolation is fed by infrequent visits from loved ones and feelings of guilt for being away from their families. Intensifying this problem is the tendency to view isolation as a normal stage of aging and not seeking help to deal with it.

“This kind of problem can be dealt with easily if there is someone to help elders understand the rules and learn about available health and mental health services,” said a non-Arab American social worker, who assists the elders in the low-income housing centers.

This social worker, who asked not to be identified, added, “Some problems can be solved with a simple translation or some orientation in Arabic, but no one is doing it.”

A health care provider, who conducts routine health screenings at the centers, commented, “A lot of the residents don’t bother to show up for some basic testing for their vital signs like blood pressure, heart rate and screening blood tests.”

She stressed, “Even the elders who do the tests often will dismiss the importance of conditions, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, bone thinning and eye and ear problems.”

Religious and cultural differences leave some available programs out of reach for Arab American elders and stigmatize other activities. The city of Dearborn provides a wide range of recreational and entertainment services, such as swimming, cardiovascular work-outs, movies, dance, music, theater, card or board games and day trips.

But the Islamic code on dress and on mixing between genders prevents Arab American elders from participating in most activities. Social perceptions make attending a simple musical event or watching a movie with a group a source of embarrassment.

There is no shortage of sad stories of Arab American elders residing in senior housing. For some, isolation has meant dying alone, only to be found days later, or being defrauded and stripped of all their belongings and assets. Still more have lost their benefits because problems with their applications for assistance or lost important notifications being sent to their old address.

Even with such problems, these elders are in a better situation compared to those who do not make the move to independent living.

Part 2 will examine specials challenges for Arab women in America. This series is adapted from the story Mohamad Ozeir wrote for the Arab American News through the MetLife Foundation Journalists in Aging Fellows program, a collaboration of New America Media and the Gerontological Society of America.



]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11286 2013-04-18T08:35:00Z 2013-04-18T19:47:46Z

Peter Schurmann and Aruna Lee ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
SAN FRANCISCO – Despite a mountain of international sanctions and grinding poverty, North Korea’s leaders have proven adept at procuring everything from the latest in digital toys to nuclear technology. But for the country’s disabled population, there is one item that remains in constant short supply.

Just outside San Francisco, in the East Bay city of San Leandro, Hee Dal Park has spent the past five years collecting donated wheelchairs and shipping them to the communist nation.

“Regardless of nationality, ethnic background, religion or ideology, I want to offer my help as best I can,” says the 67-year-old Seoul native who for the past 12 years has spent his weekends serving the homeless. “I haven’t missed a day,” he says proudly.

That calling led Park in 2007 to launch the non-profit Jageun Nanum, a term akin to the English phrase “every little bit counts.” To date the group has shipped upwards of 1400 wheelchairs to countries across Asia, including North Korea. Park himself has made four visits to the North since 2007.

“I was surprised to find that people I met in North Korea think and talk like people in South Korea,” recalls Park, who noted the distinctly Korean obsession with education. “Some of the officials who showed us around were very much concerned about their children’s education, wanting to send them to this or that university.”

Other sights were more troubling, such as the disparity in available care for the disabled between the relatively affluent North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and outlying cities and towns.

“Conditions at hospital facilities in Pyongyang aren’t bad, but outside of the capital it’s a different picture,” Park eplains. “I visited hospitals in Chongjin and Nasun, in northern Hamkyung province, last year. A four-story hospital [there] had no elevators and [so patients] had to rely on the staircase.”

Park says that relatives or other patients would often help carry one another up and down flights of stairs.

Infrastructure is indeed an issue, considering the country’s moribund economy. North Korea ranks 129 in per capita GDP, with about half the population living in “extreme poverty,” according to the CIA World Factbook. The World Food Program says about a third of North Korean children are stunted due to malnutrition, with reports warning of another growing food crisis.

With scarce resources and the ruling class more intent on enriching itself through the inflow of illicit goods smuggled in via China, improving conditions for the nation’s disabled are likely not much of a priority.

There are some 1.8 million disabled people in North Korea, about 7.5 percent of the population, according to the Green Tree Charity Foundation in South Korea, which based the figures on information provided by the North Korean government.

Discrimination against them is widespread, and often brutal, according to reports. In 2006, the Associated Press quoted a North Korean doctor who defected to the South. He alleged that babies born with physical defects are rapidly put to death and buried. A United Nations report from 2007 noted that disabled people are allegedly rounded up and placed in “special camps.”

Experts contend that in their eagerness to obscure any sign of potential weakness, North Korean leaders have long prohibited disabled persons from living in the capital, where they might be noticed by visiting foreigners.

Still, there are signs emerging that attitudes in the country may be shifting. North Korea’s state-run Korean Federation for the Protection of Disabled People has been working with the NGO Handicap International since 1999. In 2008, the United Nations noted the government had also considered providing welfare to the disabled.

More recently, North Korea participated for the first time in the 2012 Summer Paralympics, fielding one athlete in the freestyle swimming competition. Yahoo News reported that same year that Pyongyang had opened a Paralympic culture center in the city.

Heung-duk Kim, head of the Joy Center for the Disabled in Southern California, was in North Korea last year as part of a program that, like Park’s, works to assist the country’s disabled residents. While he admits there have been improvements in attitudes, Kim says discrimination remains a problem.

In an interview with the Korea Daily, Kim said disabled North Koreans are still seen in a negative light. He recalled a North Korean drama he’d seen while in the country, in which an injured soldier is “brought out of his wheelchair” thanks to the ministrations of a patriotic female friend.

The message: being disabled is unpatriotic.

He also noted that while centers for the disabled have opened in recent years, their scope remains limited. “The reality is that there are eight special facilities for the blind and three for the deaf but not many services for people with other disabilities,” said Kim, who added it is still very rare to see someone with a disability in the capital.

Park began his work with the disabled in South Korea, where he would send wheelchairs donated by members of his local church and community in the Bay Area. “Despite South Korea’s booming economy, there are still many disabled people there in need of assistance,” he says.

South Korea last year signed the U.N. Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, first adopted by U.N. member states in 2006. April 20 also marks the country’s National Disabled Person’s Day.

Park started sending wheelchairs to North Korea in 2007 on the urging of a pastor with the Doorae Missionary Church in South Korea, which for the past 40 years has worked to improve the lives of rural farmers in that country.

Once they arrive, the wheelchairs are handled by the Korean Federation for the Protection of the Disabled, explains Park, which then distributes them to local hospitals around the country that “need them the most.” He notes ha has been able to verify that wheelchairs are going to their intended recipients, though he did not go into detail.

Park, who was honored for his work last year by the northern California chapter of the Federation of Korean American Journalists, says he plans to return to the North in May, where he is scheduled to meet with officials from the agency in charge of distributing the wheelchairs. He adds “there are about 200 wheelchairs now on their way to the country.”
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11252 2013-04-12T18:10:06Z 2013-04-23T19:08:53Z

Louis Nevaer ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=20281 Traducción al español

MEXICO CITY – With no end in site to Europe’s financial strains, countries in Latin America are looking on as their one-time colonizers struggle to keep popular unrest over unemployment and austerity measures at bay. Many see signs of a historical shift in the trans-Atlantic power dynamic.

Some, notably Mexico and Brazil, see opportunity.

In early March, hundreds of thousands of Portuguese marched from Lisbon to the city of Oporto in protest over slashed budgets. Those protests came on the heels of a series of major rallies in Spain, where thousands across the country demonstrated against government austerity measures from Madrid to Barcelona and scores of smaller cities and towns.

Meanwhile, young Portuguese and Spanish job seekers are leaving their home countries in droves, in search of economic opportunity elsewhere. Add to that the recent "junk" rating given Portuguese and Spanish government bonds, and the resurgence of the Mexican and Brazilian economies, and you have nothing short of a paradigm shift in the making.

Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who was named the world's richest man by FORBES magazine, recently warned that the crisis enveloping the European Union -- Spain and Portugal in particular -- was an unprecedented development with major implications for Latin America.

“It is unimaginable to think that young people [in Spain] can have an unemployment rate of 50 percent, or [even] 30 percent or 25 percent," Slim told the Spanish news organization La Entrevista late last year, suggesting that Mexico and other growing Latin American economies take a lead role in coming to their aid.

Slim’s words carry as much weight in Latin America as Warren Buffett's do on Wall Street – that is to say, a lot.

Mexican and Brazilian officials now find themselves in the unfamiliar, if ironic position of contemplating possible economic lifelines to the countries that once ruled over them.

For its part, Mexico has allowed for the unimpeded influx of young, unemployed European professionals. To date, thousands of Spanish youth have arrived in Mexico, either on tourist or work visas. Brazil, since last year, has considered purchasing Portuguese bonds as a way of infusing cash into Lisbon's treasury.

The moves are not without controversy. In January, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto unveiled an ambitious anti-poverty campaign designed to address the needs of Mexico's poorest citizens. Called Cruzada Nacional Contra el Hambre, or National Crusade Against Hunger, the campaign was launched in Chiapas, Mexico's poorest state.

With an estimated 52 million Mexicans living below the poverty line, there is tremendous pressure on the Peña Nieto administration to take care of Mexico first.

In Brazil, too, which is set to host the World Cup later this summer and the Summer Olympics in 2016, ordinary Brazilians question the idea of spending billions to purchase “junk” Portuguese sovereign debt as the country struggles with growing economic inequality and rampant crime.

Colonial memories are also at the fore.

When Brazil’s former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, urged Brazilian companies "to invest" in Portugal, critics mocked the idea as "capitalist exploitation,” citing the very public clashes, for example, between rival Brazilian companies over the acquisition of Cimentos de Portugal. The company was eventually taken over by Brazil’s Camargo Corréa.

For Slim, the lessons of history are clear. "I have argued,” he said, “that the [Latin American] external debt crisis of 1982 … offers a model in which Mexico can invest in the outside world, encouraging exports [and] opening up trade.”

Jerry Haar is a professor at the business school of Florida International University in Miami, where he tracks foreign investment. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek he noted, “Bottom fishing during and after financial crises is nothing new.” What is new, he continued, “is the increasing participation of emerging markets in the game. Where language and cross-cultural affinity are involved, all the more so.”

Still, the impulse to come to the aid of Europe’s flailing economies is not entirely motivated by the promise of monetary gain. Concerns over the potential of a “Lost Decade” similar to the experience of Latin America during the 1980s weighs heavily on debates in Mexico and Brazil.

Officials openly ask what might happen to today's unemployed 25-year-old architects, engineers and doctors in Spain and Portugal. Moreover, do Latin American offers of meaningful employment for these young professionals represent a potentially life-threatening “brain drain” in their home countries?

Such questions point to the thin line now being navigated in Mexico City and Brasilia between opportunism, on the one hand, and altruism on the other. They also point to the historic shift in cross-Atlantic ties.

"We are living through a period of significant change,” noted Slim, “and have to make the structural changes that are required.”]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11242 2013-04-10T19:33:26Z 2013-04-10T20:01:19Z

Peter Schurmann ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 SAN FRANCISCO -- In the mounting war of words North Korea is having with the United States and its allies, it’s easy to believe who the chief aggressor is. A bankrupt dictatorship more interested in arming itself than feeding its populace can hardly expect a sympathetic audience.

Yet signals coming from inside the communist nation – via headlines, reporters, tourists and business people alike – are turning that picture on its head.

An April 5 piece by historian James Pearson that appeared on the site NK News.org notes that as world headlines continue to beat the drums of war with North Korea, the country’s largest daily newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, is “sending out quite a different message.”

What’s that message?

Brian Myers, an expert on North Korean propaganda, told the Wall Street Journal, “The party daily has been calling for economic growth as always, and factories and farms appear on the TV news before the announcers launch into anti-U.S. and anti-South Korean rhetoric.”

Last week’s appointment of Pak Pong Ju as the new premier of the North Korean cabinet adds further credence to the notion that the heated rhetoric out of Pyongyang may be tied to a push by the nation’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, to invigorate the North’s moribund economy. Pak is known to be a supporter of Chinese-style economic reforms.

According to NK News.org, four of the past five front-page headlines in the Rodong Sinmun explicitly call for economic strengthening as part of a larger policy known as byungjin, a term signifying military and economic security--including the development of a robust “nuclear deterrence.”

Compare that to the litany of alarmist language daily seeping from mainstream media outlets across the globe. “Northeast Asia on Edge Ahead of Possible North Korean Missile Test,” declares CNN. The New York Daily News quoted former Vice President Dick Cheney stating that because Kim Jong Un “does not share our world view … we’re in deep doo doo.”

In South Korea, the media message is the same, despite the collective yawn elicited on the street. Residents are fed a daily diet of everything from North Korean “terrorist attacks” to cyber security breaches.

Swiss entrepreneur Felix Abt, who has spent the past seven years working in North Korea, summed up the contrast in the following tweet: “Warmongers in the West? Western Papers Discuss War, North Korean Papers Discuss Economy.”

Abt, who has run financial training programs for bankers with North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, told Reuters the push to tighten sanctions could threaten humanitarian agencies working in the country.” The sanctions, he said, would be a "huge setback for economic development" in North Korea, forcing aid agencies to use “cash couriers or other funny methods" to continue their work.

Although the North Korean threat may be exaggerated, the fear certainly isn’t. A piece in the Korean-language Korea Daily noted that visitors to the South have fallen steadily, with Korean Air seeing a 6 percent decline in reservations from the same time last year.

Last week, a group of 500 Chinese tourists cancelled plans to take a ferry from the Chinese city of Qingdao to the South Korean port of Incheon.

In response, Seoul’s Ministry of Tourism is working overtime to convey another message: Things here are “secure.” Reports that acclaimed singer Psy, of “Gangnam Style” fame, may be preparing to release another single might help.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reporter Jean Lee tweeted recently that there is “zero panic on the streets of Pyongyang.” According to a story by Lee, tourists are still arriving in the North Korean capital for the April 15 commemoration of state founder Kim Il Sung’s birthday, such as biomedical engineer Australian Mark Fahey, who shrugged off the likelihood of war as "pretty unlikely."

“Downtown,” Lee wrote, “schoolchildren marched toward the towering statues of the two late leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, dragging brooms to sweep the hilltop plaza … Women with coats thrown over traditional dresses rushed through the spring chill after leaving a rehearsal for a dance planned for Kim Il Sung's birthday celebrations.”

While that’s hardly the image of a nation preparing for war, the question of objectives remains paramount, as the world attempts to glean clues as to Pyongyang’s motivation.

For North Korea scholar Bruce Cumings, the more pertinent question might be: What exactly does Washington want?

Writing for The Nation, Cumings argues Pyongyang’s intent is threefold: to pressure South Korea’s new president, Park Geun Hye, to reverse her predecessors hard-line stand, to challenge Obama’s “strategic patience” approach, and to present China with the choice of backing sanctions at the risk of more instability or maintaining its posture of support, however begrudging.

As for Washington, Cumings is more blunt. “Now comes Barack Obama with his ‘pivot to Asia,’ bringing new U.S. bases and force-projections to the task of containing China—while denying any such purpose.”

The journal Foreign Policy reported Wednesday that Obama’s latest budget proposal
calls for stepping up spending in nuclear arms development while cutting down on non-proliferation programs. That plan only reinforces the perception, at least from Beijing and Pyongyang, that the U.S. position may be less than benign, and certainly far from defensive.

Peter Schurmann is an editor with New America Media. Before coming to the Bay Area, he spent three years as a reporter and editor in Seoul, South Korea.
]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11235 2013-04-08T21:13:03Z 2013-04-08T21:17:09Z

Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of British politics who died on Monday at 87, played a key role in China's relationship with the United Kingdom, especially in the peaceful handover of Hong Kong, experts said.Britain's first and only female prime...

China Daily ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of British politics who died on Monday at 87, played a key role in China's relationship with the United Kingdom, especially in the peaceful handover of Hong Kong, experts said.

Britain's first and only female prime minister, Thatcher died peacefully at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke, her family announced. She governed Britain from 1979 to 1990.

"Margaret Thatcher played an important role in the development of UK-China relations. During the discussions over the handover of Hong Kong in the early 1980s, she came to recognize that it was important that the transition from British to Chinese rule should be smooth, and the diplomatic process was positive and productive as a result," said Rana Mitter, professor of Modern China at Oxford University.

Read the rest at China Daily

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2013://19.11231 2013-04-08T07:30:00Z 2013-04-06T00:48:16Z

Tonderayi Mukeredzi ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 Ni hao, Chinese for “hello,” or ting bu dong, meaning “I hear you, but I don’t understand,” are two expressions one often overhears today in Zimbabwe’s capital. It is one of the results of tenacious efforts by governments, private companies and individuals across Africa, but in Zimbabwe particularly, to learn the Chinese language and understand China’s culture.

Learning Chinese as a second or third language has been a global trend in the last few years. In Africa, the rapid increase of Chinese investments and trade (China is currently the continent’s biggest trading partner) has spurred the trend.

Zimbabwe’s government has been very deliberate in enhancing its bilateral relationship with China. It launched the Look East Policy in 2003 to give priority to investors from China, Japan, Singapore and other countries from that region. As a result, trade between China and Zimbabwe has been growing exponentially — China is now the biggest buyer of Zimbabwe’s tobacco.

Although learning Chinese dates back to Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle in the late 1960s and 1970s when freedom fighters went to China for military training, the trend has now accelerated significantly, and for different reasons.

Confucius Institute

To spread the Chinese language and culture, the government of China is utilizing a concept called Confucianism. Confucius was a great Chinese philosopher and educator born in 551 BC. The Chinese believe that his thoughts have tremendously influenced Chinese culture and even had an impact other cultures. Chinese people refer to Confucius as “a greater teacher.”

Zimbabwe leads the rest of the continent in the training of local teachers of Chinese, having integrated the Confucius Institute into the University of Zimbabwe’s academic structures in 2007, as part of an expanding network of about 400 Confucius Institutes worldwide. The program has largely been successful, and the university is poised to export surplus teachers of Chinese to other countries as well.

Professor Pedzisai Mashiri, the inaugural director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Zimbabwe, says that one of the institute’s goals is to promote the Chinese language and culture in Zimbabwe.

Because the government is yet to integrate Chinese into the national curriculum for primary and secondary schools, schools that host Confucius classes offer the Chinese language as an extra-curricular activity. More than a thousand students have received such language training through the institute since 2009. A few others are completing studies in China and will join the university soon.

A skill that pays

Observers say there has been a rising demand from organizations and individuals seeking to learn Chinese. Clarence Makoni, the founder of the Cendel Language Bridge, a private company that provides translations, interpretation and foreign language instruction, told Africa Renewal that there are huge benefits in learning foreign languages. Chinese, he says, is by far the most sought after.

“If you look at the rate at which the Chinese are coming into this country,” says Mr. Makoni, “you do not need to be a prophet to tell who is going to be the most significant employer in a few years to come. . . . All the people we train are snapped up by companies as soon as they finish their courses, and they are paid very handsomely.”

He adds that the ability to speak another major language besides English is a great selling point in the marketplace. A Chinese-speaking interpreter can rake in a monthly salary of Z$5,000, while a bilingual secretary with the same capabilities can claim up to Z$3,000 — earnings deemed at the top range in Zimbabwe.

Laston Mukaro, a language consultant and lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe’s linguistics department, says that although his job grading has not yet changed, he is now earning much more after learning Chinese.

“It makes sense to learn Chinese now other than for the reason necessitated by the government’s Look East Policy,” he says. “Chinese is one of the United Nation’s official languages and if you look at the way China is expanding into the world, you can do better if you speak their language.”

Mr. Mukaro also earns a lot of money from exchange programs between China and Zimbabwe. In addition, he frequently consults for the local Confucius Institute. Other benefits include his current work on a handbook for translating between Chinese and Shona, one of Zimbabwe’s main indigenous languages. “For those who travel to and do business with China a lot, and are privileged to tap its diverse tourism, then learning Chinese is practically obligatory and has immense benefits,” he says with enthusiasm.

More expansion ahead

Professor Mashiri says there are plans to open at least five more Chinese teaching points in other parts of the country, and to construct a Confucius Institute building at the University of Zimbabwe. The Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe has also promised to build a cultural centre to strengthen cultural cooperation between the two countries.

The world is now a global village, requiring people to understand each other’s culture and languages, says Levi Nyagura, the University of Zimbabwe’s vice-chancellor. “We want to see Zimbabwean students get jobs in China. We will continue to work hard to institutionalize the Chinese language, as we have done with the other major world languages.”

There are also suggestions for introducing Chinese into the national curriculum. “The net effect,” argues Professor Mashiri, “is to have the teaching and learning of Chinese cascade from university to secondary and primary schools.”

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