Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Finnish Roma activist Miranda Volasrata and Romanian writer Luminita Cioaba, who fought her Roma family to attend school, at the inauguration of the Roma Cultural Route at the Roma Kamenci settlement near Lendava, Slovenia, in November 2009. (Brigid Grauman/GlobalPost)

From Brigid Grauman in the Global Post.

LENDAVA, Slovenia — The word “gypsy” is often used pejoratively. But the Council of Europe is trying to change that with a new tourism route focusing on Roma culture and history.

“People see gypsies by a squalid dump at the side of the road,” said Jake Bowers, a militant British gypsy and journalist, “but they don’t really know us. I’d like a situation where we are recognized as a transnational European nation with representation at the United Nations.”

Bowers was speaking at the inauguration of the Roma Cultural Route last month, sponsored by the Strasbourg-based Council, which is not related to the European Union and works on European integration through culture and human rights. The route will link dispersed gypsy, or Roma, communities across Europe to strengthen existing networks and encourage Roma and non-Roma people to meet. Nine countries are already taking part with museums, shows and documentation centers. The inauguration took place in Slovenia at the Roma Kamenci settlement near the spa town Lendeva.

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From Charles Blow, in The New York Times

A hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Dickens opened “A Tale of Two Cities” with the now-famous phrase: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. …”

Those words resonated with me recently while contemplating the impact of the Obama presidency on blacks in America. So far, it’s been mixed. Blacks are living a tale of two Americas — one of the ascension of the first black president with the cultural capital that accrues; the other of a collapsing quality of life and amplified racial tensions, while supporting a president who is loath to even acknowledge their pain, let alone commiserate in it.

Last year, blacks dared to dream anew, envisioning a future in which Obama’s election would be the catalyst for an era of prosperity and more racial harmony. Now that the election’s afterglow has nearly faded, the hysteria of hope is being ground against the hard stone of reality. Things have not gotten better. In many ways, they’ve gotten worse.

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From Cyrus Hall, on 3 Quarks Daily

My temporary home of the last five years, Switzerland, has just voted for one of the most bigoted and undemocratic constitutional reforms in recent memory: the banning of Islamic minarets on Mosques. The vote appears to be quite stunning, with 58% of voters backing the ban. This was after the most recent polls showed the measure being rejected by 53%, a story in itself.

This represents the most direct attack on the European Muslim minority yet. The French “headscarf ban” was at least religion neutral — something I would still argue against (as an Atheist), but I appreciate the attempt at even-handedness. On the other hand, this constitutional amendment targets a small, largely immigrant population (many of whom have no vote), single-handedly banning them from behavior that would be perfectly acceptable were they of any other faith. Outrageous.

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From Janet Muller, in Nationalia.

INTERVIEW. Janet Muller speaks to Nationalia. She is the Chief Executive of Pobal, a partnership that coordinates and supports the groups in favour of Irish language in Ireland. Muller explains the current state of the Celtic language, especially in the media. Two important Irish language papers closed down during 2008. Mairtin O’Muilleoir, former publisher of one of them, then said: ‘To lose one newspaper in Lá Nua is a tragedy but to lose two with Foinse closing is just plain carelessness.’

Nationalia: Two Irish language newspapers -Lá Nua and Foinse- closed down during the last year. Is it a sign of declining public usage of Irish or just another consequence of the current economic downturn which is especially affecting the print media?

Janet Muller: It is a sign that it is difficult to maintain such an intensive project as a newspaper, particularly in the case of Lá Nua, which was a daily paper and had never been properly supported by the state throughout its entire existence. It is extremely ironic that the paper, which had nonetheless survived for twenty years was closed down after the Good Friday Agreement and the St Andrews Agreement and through the decision of the all-Ireland body for the Irish language to end its funding. The other paper, which was a weekly has now started again in a different form and is being distributed as a weekly supplement with an English language paper. It has been very shocking to the community to lose two newspapers in six months and while some positive developments are happening in the media, these are being mainly community-driven rather than brought about through careful collaboration and co-ordination between the community, the funders and the states.

Nationalia: How was this loss perceived by the Irish society? Do you think there is support for further public spending on the language? Are there significant differences between both sides of the border regarding this issue?

Janet Muller: This is a mixed picture. There is wide support for Irish throughout Ireland, even amongst those who do not necessarily want to use the language themselves or have their children educated through it. However, there is an ethnic and colonial history in Ireland and in the North, the British government has neglected and politicised the Irish language (most recently in 2007 when it failed to fulfil its commitment on the Irish Language Act and used this as a bargaining ploy with the unionist parties) and some political parties who have stoked hostility towards the Irish language to make themselves appear ‘stronger’ to their electorate. The circumstances of the language North and South are very different. In the South the language has constitutional protection as well as the Official Languages Act 2003. The community sector is longer established and has a different relationship with the state than the sector in the North has. Although Irish is one language it exists in vastly different situations north and south and this must be recognised.

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From The Economist.

Picture a typical MBA lecture theatre twenty years ago. In it the majority of students scribbling away furiously will have conformed to the standard template of the time: male, middle class and Western. Walk into a class today, however, and you’ll get a completely different impression. For a start you will now see plenty more women—the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, for example, boasts that 40% of its new intake is female. You will also see a wide range of ethnic groups and nationals of practically every country.

It might be tempting, therefore, to think that the old barriers have been broken down and equal opportunity achieved. But, increasingly, this apparent diversity is becoming a mask for an insidious new type of conformity. Behind the differences in sex and sexuality, the varying skin tones and mother tongues, there are common attitudes, expectations and ambitions which risk creating a set of clones among the business leaders of the future. A future in which the methods and motivations of hotshots in Bangalore, Beijing and Boston are impossible to tell apart.

Many of the corporations which led us into the current economic mess were also the most enthusiastic hirers of MBAs. Diversity, it seems, has not helped to address fundamental weaknesses in business leadership. So what can be done to create more effective stewards of the commercial world? According to Valerie Gauthier, associate dean at HEC Paris, the key lies in the process by which MBA programmes recruit their students. At the moment candidates are selected on a fairly narrow set of criteria such as prior academic and career performance, analytical and problem solving abilities and numeracy. This is then coupled to a school’s picture of what a diverse class should look like, with the result that passport, ethnic origin and sex can all become influencing factors. But schools rarely dig down to find out what really makes an applicant tick, to create a class which also contains diversity of attitude and approach—arguably the only diversity that, in a business context, really matters.

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