Where is the dividing line....
between abuse and persecution?
Last night I talked to an African man, his Eastern European wife and their teenage daughter.
They talked about the persistent high level of racial abuse that they have received for years as a result of their marriage. Low-level stuff, like been kept waiting for three hours at passport control even though all the documentation was correct. Worst of all, accepting that this was normal and including it as part of their travel plans.
They could not tell me though of tanks in their streets and relatives being killed at checkpoints.
I've no doubt that their case is valid but I'd not be sure how well it will travel into the DOJ maze.
When I mention Roma persecution in the same country he says without any visible irony
"Well they don't want to work and they steal".
posted by Carigeen at Thursday, April 17, 2003
While he was exiled from Florence...
Dante wrote
You shall leave everything you love most dearly:
this is the arrow that the bow of exile
shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste
of others' bread, how salt it is, and know
how hard a path it is for one who goes
descending and ascending others' stairs.
(Florentine bread is made without salt and spiral stairs in Florence twist the other way from those in Genoa).
posted by Carigeen at Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Rereading 'The Plague'
and thinking about the recent war.
"Other men will make history... All I can say is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims - and as far as possible one must refuse to be on the side of the pestilence."
"The plague bacillus never dies or vanishes entirely... it can remain dormant for dozens of years in furniture or clothing... it waits patiently in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers, and... perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction or misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well-contented city."
Albert Camus
posted by Carigeen at Wednesday, April 16, 2003
