Life as a refugee support volunteer with it's occasional victories and frequent defeats.

Occasional Victories is a place for links, news, rants and raves about Refugee related issues.

If you would like to contribute just drop me an email at carigeen(a)yahoo.com

 
From today's Guardian
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Ruud Lubbers: Put an end to their wandering

Blair wants 'safe havens' (such as Sebernecia?) outside EU boundaries and Lubbers arguing for them inside.

There is the 'out of sight, out of mind' danger about safe havens. They would be the easiest of easy targets for budget cuts in the supporting countries.


posted by Carigeen at Friday, June 20, 2003

 
Another report from the obscenity that is "Fortress Europe"

News

The world insists on the free movement of goods and capital and then attempts to restrain the movement of labour by lunatic laws.

What to do? The present situation is unsustainable, masses of people will continue to die on the doorsteps of the rich world.

Open borders would lead to a flood of desperate people and widespread civil strife.

Persuade people to stay at home? A Marshall Aid package for Africa and Asia is necessary but to be effective it would have to involve massive transfers of resources from the developed world.

Persuading the rich world that they don't need the 3nd car, the 5th television and the 2nd holiday will be difficult. Even if this was possible there is simply not enough natural resources in the world for everyone to live like westerners do at present.

If the human race has a future it has to be a modest and humble one. This world went on happily for millions of years without humans and could do so again very easily.



posted by Carigeen at Thursday, June 19, 2003

 
On the Bordertrek cycle trip I was with the good guys....

An elderly lady in skirt and cardigan mounted on a heavy black bike.
She was with us at the start in Enniskillen, I saw her again in Sligo and in Carrick-on-Shannon. That takes courage and stamina.

The chairman of Enniskillen council, who got confused in his send off speech and ended up talking about the weather and it's effects on dairy farming.

A 60-year old man who said 'I've been doing this for 20 years. There were years when it was the only good cross-community thing that was happening at all'

A Civil Defence volunteer rushing from the rest station to work on the Special Olympics torch run.

Sad memories, the Enniskillen war memorial, Omagh High street, Mullaghmore.

Losing my new rain jacket.

The struggle up the Curlews and the glorious blast down the hill all the way to Boyle.

A and J who spotted me on the road outside Ballinamore and turned their car around to wish me well.

Drumlins and swans on the Ballinamore-Ballyconnell canal.

Every conversation having to have the line 'Lovely weather. Were you on last year's trip?' (when the weather was terrible)

The strained Achilles tendon, the massage in Ballyconnell and the glory of the finish line.

Food, that was not bananas, fig rolls or Mars bars!

I'm going to be like that lady in 10 years time!



posted by Carigeen at Tuesday, June 17, 2003

 
It's Bloomsday!

Dyoublong - Literature - ireland.com

Don't forget that Leopold Bloom was from a Jewish refugee family!

posted by Carigeen at Monday, June 16, 2003

 
Margaret Atwood on George Orwell and today
Guardian Unlimited Books | News | Orwell and me

I grew up on Orwell. 'Homage to Catalonia' was my first guide to the dubious ends that glorious causes lead people to. '

Practically all the mass media are written in newspeak now.
posted by Carigeen at Monday, June 16, 2003