European Union

This tag is associated with 4 posts

Islamophobia: only 10% of Muslims believe discrimination is on the basis of religion

Posted by Bigmouth ⋅ July 17, 2009 ⋅ 1 Comment

A somewhat overlooked report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) published towards the end of May this year has shown up some interesting findings.

The report – the second ‘Data in Focus’ report from the ‘European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey’ (EU-MIDIS) – formed part of an EU-wide survey that asked immigrant and ethnic minority groups about their experiences of discrimination and criminal victimisation in everyday life. Surveying a total of “23,500 immigrant and ethnic minority people across all 27 Member States of the EU during 2008″, the FRA claim that EU-MIDIS provides the most comprehensive evidence to date of the extent of discrimination and victimisation against minorities in the EU.

Justifying Terror, Justifying Oppression: How Wrong is Israel & the West’s ‘War on Terror’?

Posted by Bigmouth ⋅ January 15, 2009 ⋅ 3 Comments

palestinian-children In today’s Guardian newspaper, David Miliband suggested that the ‘war on terror’ was wrong. Better late than never.

Acknowledging that it had ‘defined the terrain’ since the attacks of 9/11, Miliband argued that it was wrong on several counts. That it:

…gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida…

…[and] implied that the correct response was primarily military.

He went on to conclude:

The call for a “war on terror” was a call to arms, an attempt to build solidarity for a fight against a single shared enemy. But the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.

The 12 Posts of Xmas (#2): ‘I’m dreaming of a Green Christmas…’

Posted by Bigmouth ⋅ December 8, 2008 ⋅ Leave a Comment

Given the recent interest in all things ‘green’, I find it funny that most people have missed the irony that those running ‘the system’ are still trying to get us to buy more rather than less each and every Christmas…including goods and products that are alleged to be ‘green’, ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘ethical’ etc…!!!

This was no more apparent than last Christmas. When doing my shopping in local emporium, Au Naturale, I was struck to see that environmentally friendly, re-usable shopping bags were being offered as an ethical alternative to other more traditional Christmas presents (in honesty, I can’t remember a time when non-environmentally friendly bags were ever a viable Christmas present but hey, who am I to question). Then shortly after Christmas, when the New Year sales were nearing their timely end, I retuned to Au Naturale to find that hardly any of these bags had been sold (Surprised? Of course not). Instead, they were being offered at the knockdown price of just 25p.

BNP and UKIP: bed-fellows from Heaven or bed-fellows from Hell…???

Posted by Bigmouth ⋅ November 4, 2008 ⋅ 1 Comment

It’s reported that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) has “unanimously rejected” an offer from the British National Party (BNP) to form an electoral pact at next year’s European elections.

UKIP says that ex-tennis star, Buster Mottram – now a UKIP member – made an “astonishing offer” on behalf of the BNP at a meeting in London on Monday.

Under the deal the BNP would fight seats in the north while UKIP would focus on the south in the elections. Whilst the BNP said that a deal made sense, UKIP have publicly stated that it would not work with the BNP.

UKIP, which campaigns for Britain to withdraw from the European Union, says Mottram has since been expelled from the party.

Surprising really given that little more than a year ago, UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage was defending his decision to allow Mottram to join his party and to send an e-mail to West Country MPs that threatened that they could be “decapitated” at the next election if they did not sign up to UKIP’s “Better Off Out” campaign.