Rounding up the Roma in Europe's Arizona

"A disgrace." That's what the European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding called France's continuing deportation of thousands of Roma (part of a group commonly known as Gypsies) to Romania.

France claims the ethnic minority, who mostly live in poverty in more than 300 camps across the country, are disproportionally responsible for a high number of crimes and criminal behavior. France has expelled the Roma before, but the latest wave follows an attack by Roma on a police station, in reaction to a young woman from a local camp being shot and killed by police.

What makes this episode particularly vile, is the leaking of a memorandum that was issued in the beginning of August, calling for a "systematic action to dismantle the illegal camps, in priority those of the Roma." Furthermore, to the EU's dismay, French officials have insisted that they are working "in favor of the Roma population."

"We can improve the situation of the Roma," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, "who are at the heart of our concerns and our action."

So the French are uprooting thousands of individuals, putting them on buses and airplanes back to the discrimination they will face in Bulgaria and Romania in order to "improve the situation" for them.

The French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, defended the action, saying the deportations are happening "not because they are Roma, but because they (the camps) are illegal." Remind you of anything?

The refrain in Arizona, and elsewhere, is that the anger over illegal immigration is over the "illegal" part, and not racism. This despite the fact that the most vocal anti-immigrant groups are the ones worried about White people becoming a minority, those who see the US defined as a nation run by Europeans.

The EU's Reding pegged it Tuesday, when she said, "This is a situation I thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War." In World War Two, Vichy France was notoriously complicit in rounding up Jews and Gypsies and sending them to Nazi death camps.

So what's going on here? The French have decided that because they are French, they cannot possibly be racist. Everything they are doing - expelling the Roma, outlawing the burqa for Muslim women - they are doing for their minority populations, not to them. N'est pas?

-PBG

When the moon says it's Rosh Hashanah and Eid al-Fitr, and the sun says it's 9/11

"Allah is great, Allah is great.
There is no deity but Allah.
Allah is great, Allah is great
And all praises are for Allah."
- Opening Takbir prayer Muslims say when Ramadan is declared over, and Eid al-Fitr begins

"It is true that You alone are the One Who judges,
proves, knows, and bears witness;
Who writes and seats, (counts and calculates);
Who remembers all that was forgotten."
- from the Un'taneh Tokef prayer, recited by Jews on
Rosh Hashanah

"This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day."
- President George W. Bush address to the nation on September 11, 2001

This year marks the first time since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), the Eid (festival) marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and September 11 have all aligned.

It is a poignant reminder that the faith of humanity moves as a clock, and will not be disrupted by angry men, violent weapons, and hateful words.

When this year's Ramadan began, and it became apparent that 9/11 could end up being the first day of Eid al-Fitr, Muslim leaders in America became nervous. It could, after all, appear that the faithful, with parties and carnivals worldwide, were celebrating 9/11, rather than commemorating the end of Ramadan festival in their traditional way.

A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Associated Press when the month began, that he could "sense brewing" hate on the internet, especially with the Manhattan Islamic Center controversy inflaming tensions. "It's getting really scary out there," Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR told the AP.

As it turns out, the Saudi Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Eid will begin in Saudi Arabia on Friday, which is September 10. Most Muslim countries are expected to follow the Saudi lead on this. Although in the U.S., one can expect the traditional Eid celebrations to be more muted than usual in deference to the 9/11 anniversary.

Although both Jews and Muslims follow a lunar calendar - with days and months delineated by the phases of the moon - the Jewish calendar is always adjusted to make certain that the appropriate festivals correspond to the appropriate seasons. Passover, for example, will always be in the spring, Shavuot in the early summer, and Rosh Hashanah in the autumn.

The Muslim calendar, in contrast, is not locked to the seasons. It slips about ten days a year, relative to the secular, Gregorian calendar. That is why Ramadan, a holiday where people fast during daylight hours, can come in the short days of winter or the long, hot days of summer.

A specific Muslim date will align with a specific Jewish date only once every 33 years. Some find the confluence of holy days significant. "Both Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan are opportunities for thauba or teshuvah, improving one's character through introspection, increasing one's commitment to doing good deeds," according to an interfaith dialogue on one Jewish British website.

Some, like Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who just "suspended" his plans to burn Qur'ans on Saturday's anniversary, have drawn brimstone lines in the coal sands of intolerance, hoping to rally the vapid minds of rabid ignorance to their side. Instead, their line has become a circle of light, uniting Muslims and Jews, and all those for whom the insanity of this hateful act was beyond the pale.

The "extended period of soul-searching," as one author put it, present during both Ramadan and the Jewish High Holidays, must, Insha'Allah /Im Yirtza HaShem/God willing, "help bond our communities together."

-PBG

Weeping for Thirty-three: America's Passionate Death Culture

America's Passionate Death Culture

Two Glocks........One Troubled Man.......Thirty-three Dead

The sad rains of a cold April morning chill the Virginia air with a soundless, icy weeping.

Yesterday, needless deaths in the heart of Appalachia numbed a town and a people who undeservingly find themselves in the dark abyss where fate has flung them. The echo from the pit into which a melting Blacksburg has fallen resounds with dying voices screaming, "Why?"

As a nation we cry with them, and tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week, we move on. Half- staff flags will be raised and, as the poet at today's service intoned, even the Hokies will prevail. Let's go Hokies.

But who will answer for the killed? Who will answer for the killer?
Let's go, Hokies.

The fat line of fire goes through Columbine, of course, and the horrors before and since, and stretches back to Austin in 1966.

One rifle....One troubled man...16 Dead

But is that where it started? According to a Washington Post article, historians mark the beginning of what they classify as "spree killing" at Wounded Knee, in 1890.

Four Hotchkiss guns...500 US troops...300 Lakota dead

That doesn't include other Indian massacres, or mob lynchings or KKK killings, all committed with the knowledge or support of local government authorities.

So many people killed. So many times an unconcerned society has turned away, and people who say they care about justice and rights sigh and disappear behind the glowing cloud of their TVs.

But it doesn't really matter when it started. What matters is, when will it end?

They found a receipt for a gun in Cho's backpack, perhaps the same bag where he put his laptop, pens, notebooks and iPod. What was it like, I wonder, for him to feel the butt of a pistol when he reached in to where his computer's mouse usually was? Wasn't that enough to stop him? What if he would have reached in for a gun and pulled out the mouse? Click. You're dead. Scroll to rotate the round. Click.

We kill what bothers us. Cockroaches, mosquitos, BlacksChineseMexicansArabsJewsArmeniansIrishCommiesCatholicsMormons. We don't want them around, so we kill them. You can kill anybody you want to, if your willing to face the consequences, if there are any. The NRA says the Constitution guarantees it.

And murderers. We kill them too. Life is cheap, at least, your life is, if you kill someone. And yes, it is hard not to be cynical when you're American and know that your neighbor or your classmate or your twelve-year-old could shoot you. Life is cheap.

Tell me I am wrong. Prove to me that life is valuable. What's that you say? People are life? We can't replace them? Yes, but we can always sell someone another gun.

-PBG

PS. The Peace Alliance is using this to show how important a Department of Peace would be to this country. Please visit them, if you don't know about them. Kucinich is a big supporter and Marianne Williamson is one of the principals.

PPS. For those of you who haven't seen it, John and Elizabeth Edwards sent a heartfelt letter regarding Monday's tragic events to their supporters. It's currently on the splash page of his website, but in case they take it down, here it is:

"We are simply heartbroken by the deaths and injuries suffered at Virginia Tech. We know what an unspeakable, life-changing moment this is for these families and how, in this moment, it is hard to feel anything but overwhelming grief, much less the love and support around you. But the love and support is there. We pray that these families, these students, and the entire Virginia Tech community know that they are being embraced by a nation. There is a Methodist hymn that gave us solace in such a moment as this, and we repeat its final verse here, in hopes it will help these families, as it helped us:

"In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing, in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

"Our dearest wish is that this day could start again, with the promise of these young people alive. Knowing that cannot be, our prayer is for God’s grace and whatever measure of peace can be reached on this terrible day.


John and Elizabeth Edwards"