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

 
We lost a good friend yesterday .....

Anna Lindt the Swedish foreign minister, stabbed in a Stockholm store. She fought the good fight for refugees and migrants, not just in Sweden but around the world.

I did not know her personally but I've known a lot of Swedes like her.
Gentle, compassionate and self-effacing, with a core of fine steel. People who take time to think a position through and then follow that logic wherever it leads. Good people to have by your side in a fight!



posted by Carigeen at Friday, September 12, 2003

 
Two people died recently of old age....

Robert Teller and Leni Riefenstahl
Both had astonishing talents that they used for incredibly evil purposes.

Robert Teller was the chief builder of the hydrogen bomb.
It might be argued that an atomic bomb has some military application, but there is only one use for a H-bomb - genocide.
Genius who heralded end of humanity

Leni Riefenstahl was a very innovative and creative filmmaker. Her masterpiece was Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens) documenting the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nurembourg.


posted by Carigeen at Thursday, September 11, 2003

 
Just when you think there could be nothing worse than the present lot ....
you get something like this!
Tories plan island refugee centres

'A network of Alcatraz-style island holding centres off Britain, to deal with a maximum annual quota of 20,000 new asylum seekers, was proposed yesterday by a Conservative party policy commission. '

Believe it or not this is an improvement on previous Tory proposals of withdrawing entirely from international treaty obligations on the treatment of refugees!

Have people who come up with these sorts of proposals ever been lonely, or cold, or hungry. or lost, or frightened? Do they not recognise themselves?

"Look at him!" the scholar persisted. "No, but it's too dark now. You can't see the syphilis outbreak on his neck, the way the bridge of his nose is being eaten away. Paresis. But he was undoubtedly a moron to begin with. Illiterate superstitious, murderous. He diseases his children. For a few coins he would kill them. He will sell them anyway, when they are old enough to be useful. Look at him, and tell me if you see the progeny of a once-mighty civilization? What do you see?"
"The image of Christ," grated the monsignor, surprised at his own sudden anger. "What did you expect me to see?"

[ A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller ]
posted by Carigeen at Tuesday, September 09, 2003