The leader of France’s National Front lost her right to legal immunity as a European Parliament deputy on Tuesday, exposing her to possible prosecution over a racism charge.
Marine Le Pen’s loss of immunity came at the request of a Lyon court three years after she was accused of inciting racial hatred for comparing Muslim street prayers to the occupation of France by Nazi Germany.
A majority of parliamentarians voted to ratify the decision, as recommended by a judicial committee, a parliament official said after the hearing at the parliament’s seat in the northern French city of Strasbourg.
A public trial in France would be a setback for the National Front as it seeks to capitalize on her rising popularity to grab territory from the ruling Socialist Party and mainstream right in local and European Parliament elections next year.
Le Pen’s anti-immigrant, anti-EU party is notably gaining support at the expense of President Francois Hollande’s Socialists in a darkening economic context, as high and rising joblessness fuels the spread of her euro-skeptic views.
The National Front has also profited from a tax evasion scandal that prompted the resignation of ex-Budget Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, stealing votes in his former home district during a by-election last month.
It is tipped to make strong gains in May 2014 European elections, with one survey by pollster YouGov in June showing it could reap 18 percent of the vote — ahead of the Socialists but behind the center-right UMP party.
By comparison in 2009, when Le Pen won her EU parliament seat in the North-West France region, the National Front scored a total of just 6.3 percent of the vote, versus 16.4 percent for the Socialists and 27.8 percent for the UMP.
Le Pen was ranked France’s third most popular politician in a web-based poll conducted in May by web site L’Internaute. That placed her one position behind former President Nicolas Sarkozy, and 24 positions ahead of Hollande.
If found guilty of inciting racial hatred, she would face a maximum penalty of one year in prison and 45,000 euros in fines. – Reuters
There is an email joke currently doing the rounds, which contains more than just a grain of truth. A black boy asks his mom: “Mommy, what is democracy?” His mother answers that democracy is something that allows the black majority to elect a government which will use the money provided by the mostly white tax base for all kinds of goodies to black people, including housing, expensive cars for black officials and child grants. The boy then asks his mother whether the mostly white taxpayers don’t complain about this. His mom answers: “Yes, they do, and that’s what we call racism.”
The often-imaginary concept known as racism can mean almost anything. For example, Makaziwe Mandela complains that the extensive media interest in her father’s feared passing away is somehow “racist.” Nobody knows how she arrived at that particular conclusion, but apparently it is racist for Agence France Presse to set up its cameras outside the Pretoria Heart Hospital.
While some may accept that a media frenzy indeed somehow equals racism, it is notable how well Mkaziwe Mandela and the rest of the Mandela gang have done financially by being victims of racism. Were it not for their imaginary victimhood, they would merely have been a bunch of below-average nonentities. And I would certainly include Nelson Mandela in the latter group of mediocrities.
People such as US president Obama continuously refer to the so-called “Madiba legacy”. However, nobody can supply a good definition of exactly what this so-called legacy is supposed to entail. Mandela was jailed for a failed terrorist conspiracy, although it was thought up mostly by white communists. Mandela is nobody’s intellectual, clearly, and did not have much in the way of strategic thinking to contribute to the failed terror plot. He stayed in jail longer than necessary because of his hard-line refusal to renounce violence. Cyril Ramaphosa and Joe Slovo were more important ANC negotiators at Codesa than Mandela was. After only one mediocre term as president, during which Thabo Mbeki was the real power behind the scenes, and during which the country exploded into an orgy of criminal violence, Mandela retired to enjoy his wealth.
(Funny thing that, incidentally. How does a person who’s been in jail for 27 years get to be so filthy rich so quickly? A South African president only earned approximately 200,000 US dollars per annum at the time.)
Let me then repeat my question: What, exactly, is meant by Mandela’s legacy? What did he actually do, except to participate in a failed terrorist plot? The answer is simple. Mandela, once described as somebody of only average intelligence by a black American writer, is really a professional victim of imaginary racism, and this has proven extremely lucrative for both Mandela and the rest of the Mandela gang.
It would not be far-fetched to say that South Africa’s biggest industry is not mining, financial services or agriculture. It is rather extorting money in the name of imaginary white racism, by posing as professional black victims of racism. This, then, is Mandela’s true and only legacy. He is the most famous professional victim of imaginary white racism in the world, a poster boy for white guilt, as another writer put it. He was jailed for plotting to commit violent acts of terror against innocent civilians, white and black, but somehow he has managed to transform himself into the victim of his own conspiracy to commit terror. Perhaps Osama Bin Laden should have taken a cue from Mandela and transformed himself into the actual victim of 9/11, so that he too could be feted by liberal whites, instead of being deservedly eliminated by Seal Team 6.
One sees this phenomenon in all walks of South African life. The entire ANC; all its elected officials and its supporters who have been appointed to the public service after whites, as well as competence, were ethnically cleansed from the civil service, are really making a living by being professional victims of so-called racism. The logic, if that is the right term, is that they may not be competent to run a government or a municipality (or even a brothel), but that the world owes them because they are victims. The civil service and municipalities are, predictably, collapsing because of this mentality.
Exploiting misplaced white guilt is also a highly profitable pursuit. Prior to 1994 Scandinavian donors were lining up to hand over money to fraudsters like the Reverend Allan Boesak, who promptly abused their donations to buy luxury cars and a large home. His black victimhood, incidentally, didn’t prevent him from marrying a white journalist. He clearly didn’t think that one through – he could have doubled the household income if both he and his spouse were both to become professional black victims.
The private sector is by no means immune to this. Black Economic Empowerment of BEE is nothing but a huge and racially-based extortion racket aimed at blackmailing companies into handing over chunks of their equity to connected ANC cadres. Should they resist, they are threatened with being exposed as “racists”, which is the worst crime imaginable these days, worse even than raping and murdering babies.
When one realizes that professional victimhood – of imaginary racism perpetrated by those evil whites – is the biggest growth industry in South Africa, if not also in loony-left universities in the USA, you gain an entirely new perspective on many issues.
For example: the Affirmative-Action rector of the University of the Free State, Jonathan Jansen, is wont to vociferously condemn imaginary white racism, by writing acres of column space shrilly condemning such iniquity, but says nary a word about the endemicm, murderous violence and drug culture amongst his own ethnic group. Perhaps Jansen feels it’s better to be shot to death during a drive-by shooting at a crack house, than it is to suffer an imaginary racial slur. What Jansen is really doing, however, is affirming his credentials as a victim because of the post he currently occupies to the powers that be, because he knows his appointment was political, and not based on academic or managerial merit.
When Makaziwe Mandela draws the ridiculous conclusion that media interest equals racism, it’s not about racism at all. It is really a marketing ploy. She is affirming her status as a professional victim to the world, and naïve white liberals are falling over themselves to further enrich her and the rest of the Mandela gang.
This industry is so pervasive that it even extends into the field of religion. The same Boesak fraudster mentioned above was involved in drawing up a document known as the Confession of Belhar, which is nothing but a sorry political tract pointing the finger at whites, posing as a serious theological document. This document is being forced down the throats of whites belonging to the largest white church grouping in South Africa, the Dutch Reformed Church. In addition to confessing to sinning against God, whites are also now apparently expected to confess to the mortal sin of racism during their Sunday sermons.
It is an open question for how long whites will continue to entertain and endure this absurd situation.
Oh, wait, silly me! Yes, of course!
It would be racist to resist.
This column was first published in Afrikaans earlier today.
I miss journalist Andrew Breitbart. Although he was not a libertarian, he was at least interesting, and certainly courageous. “Go to hell” was the late Mr. Breitbart’s message to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as its bullies prepared to cow the tea party into racial submission by accusing its members of, what else but, racism.
Interesting or courageous is not something your average conservative commentator can be accused of. (Settle down: Using a preposition at the end of a sentence is perfectly fine, not that debates about grammar matter any longer. They’re so white.) This a senior editor at a conservative magazine proved in spades. (No apologies will be forthcoming in the event that the reader construes the last turn-of-phrase to be racially unkosher.)
Celebrity chef Paula Deen has transgressed against America’s many Orwellian Ministries of Truth. While being deposed by a disgruntled employee, in May of 2013, Deen was forced to confess to using the “N-word” decades ago, upon which the Paula Deen Enterprises began to lose revenue.
Now the poor woman is on that familiar, modern-day Via Dolorosa: the apology tour.
To the typical invertebrate conservative pundit, Deen’s sins are self-evident and indisputable. Thus does the aforementioned editor – who simply typifies conservatism’s rigor mortis – noodle on, not about the abject folly, if not sheer wickedness, of waging economic warfare against an upright individual for her infelicitous speech. No! Marching with the media Mafiosi, our editor’s mission here is to contextualize Deen’s transgressions, rather than to dispute their gravity.
Contextualizing Deen’s sins is achieved by alluding to her age, as racism trumps ageism on the pyramid of politically dictated Thou shalt Nots. Deen’s tainted upbringing in the Deep South forms another context. You see, Deen is a 66-year-old white woman who “grew up in a small Georgia town in the Jim Crow South.” Says our author: “If a Southern white person of Deen’s age told me they had never used the N-word, I wouldn’t believe them. The word had not the slightest element of taboo at the time.”
In belaboring the context of Deen’s use of naughty words, the writer has implicitly and unintentionally justified the histrionic reaction to such speech. It is part of “the daintiness of our popular culture in some areas,” a “depressing aspect of modern life,” he demurs meekly.
There is nothing dainty or merely depressing about tyrannical speech codes, whose enforcement by the centrifugal forces in our culture and politics is meant to make malleable clones of each one of us, on pain of boycotts, bankruptcy and excommunication.
Political authority depends on this sort of ritual sacrifice, reflexively coordinated by the country’s Ministries of Truth – the self-anointed “intellectuals” (who aren’t intelligent) in education, academia, the entertainment industry and the churches; among the ruling duopoly and everywhere in the malpracticing media.
A national, media-fanned contagion over bad words is perverse. It must be resisted, not contextualized.
Blaming Old-South culture – as the prototypical knaves of conservatism are doing – is, moreover, unlikely to help exculpate Ms. Deen in the minds of the morons who judge her for her words, rather than for her deeds. The bad Old South macro-narrative is as ineffective in mitigation as is pointing out that Deen misspoke because of a near-death experience. “A black man [once] burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head,” recounted Deen. “I didn’t feel real favorable towards him.”
It is for the same reason that the young mother, seen here in a video gone viral being kicked and punched repetitively and mercilessly by a burly black man, should watch her words in the future. The home of the mom was invaded by the man, who delighted in brutalizing her in front of her toddler.
Instead of sticks and stones that break bones, there can be no doubt that the mother from Millburn, N.J., would have settled during that terrifying attack for the kind of cuss words that “will never hurt me” – “cracker,” to quote Trayvon Martin, RIP.
But those who watched the persecution of the mom from Millburn and the tycoon from Georgia took away a different lesson than the one implied by that wise old adage.
Mind your mouth, mom! The hate crime you endured will not mitigate or explain any future slip-of-the-tongue. You may stereotype an elderly, highly successful white woman, based on her tribe’s past wrongdoing; but you dare not attach statistical significance to the misdeeds of a black man, because of his group’s considerable contribution to crime.
Ms. Deen appears to be a productive person who works hard and leads a good life. The Food Network, Wal-Mart and Caesars Entertainment have purged Paula, but her fans – hungry for the treacle of her voice and cooking – are packing into the “Paula Deen Cruise” liner and buying up her latest cookbook from Amazon.
“Go to hell” is what Ms. Deen should tell her detractors and wishy-washy, condescending defenders alike. The latter, it would seem, are offering up in her defense nothing but mitigating circumstances, the kind that attach to a crime.
A Paarl Gim rugby player has been banned for a year after hurling racial abuse at players from Wynberg Boys’ High earlier this month.
On June 1, Paarl Gim played Wynberg Boy’s in Paarl. The racial slurs included the use of the k-word, directed at one player, and one boy being told by another: “I will slap the coloured off your face”.
The incident was greeted with protests from the Wynberg Boys team, who were trailing 33-0 at the time, and some even resorted to walking off the field while the game was being played.
The under-16 player was found guilty after Paarl Gim held an independent disciplinary hearing, which Wynberg principal Keith Richardson said was handled very professionally.
“Paarl Gim acted professionally and I believe the matter was handled fairly. They called in witnesses, the boy and some of our boys.”
SArugbymagazine.co.za reported that the player could face expulsion if he is found guilty of a similar offence in the future.
Richardson said this was a good learning experience for the players and hopefully others who heard about the story.
“The most important thing is that other boys may also learn from this and hopefully they will learn that they must think before they say anything. There has been so much publicity around this that everyone can learn something from it.”
Paarl Gim head of Rugby Deon Gerber said he was not able to give comment on the matter as a statement had been released by the school.
The headmaster, Eddie Bateman, could not be reached for comment, but shortly after the incident said the school strongly condemned racism.
“Racism is diametrically opposed to the value system of the school,” Bateman said.- iol.co.za
Italy’s first black Cabinet minister is facing Internet death threats before a visit to a region known for its anti-immigrant political base.
But Cecile Kyenge says she’s not afraid and challenged Italians to respond to such intimidation themselves to prove that Italy isn’t racist.
Kyenge, a Congolese-born doctor who has lived in Italy since 1983, has been the target of racist diatribes ever since she was named integration minister in April. She has been called “Congolese monkey,” and a member of a “bonga bonga government.”
Last week, a local politician from the xenophobic Northern League party was expelled from the party after she suggested on Facebook: “Why doesn’t someone rape her (Kyenge), so she can understand what victims of atrocious crimes feel?” The official, Dolores Valandro, was implying that immigrants were responsible for violent crime in Italy.
Kyenge on Wednesday acknowledged “racist episodes,” but declined to brand the country as a whole racist. She has offered a muted response to the attacks against her, saying it’s more for Italy as a nation to respond.
“These actions are directed against all of us, not just me,” Kyenge told reporters. “Surely it hasn’t left me indifferent. But I think the response that the country gives is important.”
Unlike France, Germany or Britain, where second and third generations of immigrants have settled, albeit uneasily, Italy is a relative newcomer to the phenomenon, with the first waves of immigrants coming to Italy’s shores only in the 1980s. The country’s race problem was then largely seen at soccer stadiums, where even today black stars like Mario Balotelli are routinely subjected to racists taunts.
But Kyenge’s emergence onto the political stage has brought the issue to the fore, spurred on in part by her call for Italy to change its citizenship law to allow children born in Italy of legal immigrants to obtain citizenship more easily.
Currently, such children can only apply once they turn 18, and can be denied citizenship for a host of bureaucratic mistakes or omissions. Kyenge says changing the law is a key part of changing Italians’ very concept of citizenship, to take into account the country’s changing demographics.
Foreigners made up about 2 percent of Italy’s population in 1990; currently the figure stands at 7.5 percent.
“It’s a new citizenship that comes about by the meeting of different cultures,” she said.
Her call, however, has been met with stiff resistance by the anti-immigrant Northern League, which isn’t taking part in a parliamentary committee drafting the new citizenship law. Kyenge’s spokesman, Cosimo Torlo, said it’s unclear at what age citizenship could be obtained under the proposed legislation – at age 3, 5 or 10 – but that “Whatever it is, it will be better than the current law.”
The threats against Kyenge are real. She arrived at the Foreign Press Association with a phalanx of bodyguards, two of whom flanked the dais where Kyenge spoke, talking into their shirt cuffs and sending signals to two other colleagues at the back of the room.
Asked about the unusually high security detail, Kyenge noted that all ministers have bodyguards. “But it’s clear that for me, because of the threats I have received, there’s a greater attention on protection.”
This weekend, Kyenge will give the opening address to a multicultural festival in the northern region of Veneto, the political home base of the Northern League. Far-right groups are planning a protest. Isabella Zuliani, vice mayor of the town hosting the event, told newspaper Il Gazzettino that police have already been informed about a new round of Internet death threats directed at Kyenge, including one that exhorted simply: “Kill her.”
“Racist episodes exist, but you can’t say that a country is racist because there are certain episodes in the territory,” Kyenge said.
That said, Kyenge appeared more ready to acknowledge such “racist episodes” than in her first meeting with the media, soon after she was nominated. Then, she said Italy’s problem wasn’t so much racism as ignorance of “the other.”
After two months of taunts directed against her, Kyenge said, “Maybe what is missing in Italy is a culture of immigration: We have to try to know, understand the ‘other,’ and that diversity is a richness.
“As soon as we understand that, we can evaluate whether Italy is racist,” she added. – AP
Equal Education (EE) has issued the following media release:
Equal Education (EE) notes with shock and disappointment the statement released by the Department of Basic Education (DBE) headed “Equal Education is disingenuous: Minister Motshekga”.
Every factual claim about the process needed for the finalisation of Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure is wrong and misleading. EE will issue a full statement explaining this in due course, but it is all explained in this relatively short affidavit:
It was on the basis of this affidavit that Judge Dukada of the Bhisho High Court decided that the matter is urgent, and is to be heard on 11 July 2013.
But the most unfortunate part of the DBE’s statement reads as follows:
“It is interesting to note the sudden interest that Equal Education is taking in the education of the African child. Suddenly the NGO knows all about the challenges that African children face against the privileges they have enjoyed.
“To suddenly see a group of white adults organizing black African children with half-truths can only be opportunistic, patronizing and simply dishonest to say the least.”
As it happens the majority of EE’s leadership went to the very township and rural schools we are fighting to fix. A link to EE’s National Council, of which I am chair, can be found here:
www.equaleducation.org.za/page/national-council. At the same time EE consists of people of every background and we are very proud of this. Any person who commits themself to advancing the daily struggles of poor and working class youth is welcome in EE. That these values exist is something that those responsible for education should celebrate, not attack.
The DBE’s statement is a very serious attack on non-racism, the Constitution and the legacy of Nelson Mandela. That it appears on a government letterhead is shocking. Cabinet will surely be concerned about this.
The statement is issued in the name of Minister Motshekga. We urge the Minister to urgently clarify whether she in fact wrote or had sight of the statement. We would like to give the Minister an opportunity to distance herself from such appalling racism, to retract the statement and to offer an apology to Equal Education.
EE has always engaged with the Minister in a robust but respectful way.
We are not and have never been at war with her personally. EE is currently campaigning for Minimum Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure.
These regulations will create a binding standard to ensure that every school meets an acceptable standard of infrastructure.
In November 2012 Minister Motshekga signed a settlement agreement in which she committed to consult fully and publish binding school infrastructure regulations by 15 May 2013. EE extended this deadline to 15 June to accommodate the Minister. Now, in breach of this settlement agreement, she has requested another six months to accomplish what she agreed would take place between November 2012 and May 2013. After four years of delays EE’s membership cannot accept this.
The point of Norms and Standards is to empower the Minister, communities and civil society to hold provinces and private companies accountable for fixing our schools. We need the Minister to comply with her obligations and to work with us so that we can make progress for the poor and working class, predominantly black, children of South Africa.
Issued by Yoliswa Dwane: Chairperson of Equal Education (18 June 2013)
DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, ‘a person of considerable weight but no stature’
Senior ANC MP John Jeffery formally withdrew his controversial remark about DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko’s weight and apologised to her on Tuesday.
He did so after deputy speaker Nomaindia Mfeketo ruled emphatically that the comment was unparliamentary.
“In the past, many rulings were made on remarks regarding members’ physical appearance, and these have always been found to be insensitive, offensive and a violation of a member’s dignity,” she said.
“I have no intention to depart from this precedent, and I accordingly find that remark not only insensitive, but unparliamentary. It is indeed the responsibility of every one of us to ensure that we exercise the right to freedom of speech in a considerate and responsible manner.”
ANC MP John Jeffery
Jeffery then rose and said: “I withdraw, and I would also like to take the opportunity to apologise. The statement was not intended to be sexist.”
Last week, during the debate on the presidency’s budget vote, Jeffery said: “While the honourable Mazibuko may be a person of substantial weight, her stature is questionable.”
The Democratic Alliance subsequently called on African National Congress chief whip Mathole Motshekga to discipline Jeffery, and fellow ANC MP Buti Manamela, who had criticised Mazibuko’s dress.
The ANC said Jeffery would withdraw his remark, but that Manamela would not be ordered to do the same as the party agreed she was dressed inappropriately.
Mfeketo’s ruling came after Speaker Max Sisulu ruled other recent remarks describing MPs as racist, “clowns” and “darkies” out of order, and appealed to members to choose their words carefully.
“Remarks of a personal, racist or sexist nature are out of order, completely out of order. I therefore appeal to members, as public representatives, to refrain from course, uncouth, or unbecoming language that detracts from the dignity or decorum of the house.” – Sapa
A DA councillor in the Eastern Cape has been suspended for circulating a racist email, The New Age reported on Monday.
Stanford Slabbert had reportedly sent an email saying President Jacob Zuma had more wives than brain cells.
The email also slammed the African National Congress for producing “dumb idiots who wait for handouts”, according to the report.
The email said Zuma had led a country where a quarter of schoolgirls were HIV-positive because South Africans had “spread the disease more than anyone else in the world”.
Hong Kong’s football authority announced a slew of measures to punish and prevent racist behaviour at games, after Philippine football chiefs complained to FIFA about racist abuse of its players and fans.
The moves could see home and away supporters being segregated and will impose bans on abusive fans.
Hong Kong supporters hurled rubbish and insults at rival players and fans during a June 4 friendly won by the visiting Philippine team, according to the Philippine Sports Commission.
Sections of the home crowd called the Philippines a “slave nation” during the game and booed the Philippines national anthem when it was played, media reports from the southern Chinese city and the Philippines said.
The Hong Kong Football Association said late Friday that it will ban fans who are being racist and discriminatory for two years in accordance with FIFA Statutes and will consider formal segregation of seating for opposing spectators on a match-by-match basis.
The association also said it will make public announcements to warn fans of the consequences of using racist language and will work with the police in apprehending “spectators engaged in racist activity”.
“The allegation of disrespectful and discriminatory behaviour by home fans is the first incident of this nature at a football match in Hong Kong,” the association said, adding the accusations were levelled against “a small minority of people”.
“No amount of political tension or provocation or frustration can justify any incidence of racist or discriminatory behaviour,” it added.
Tensions between the Philippines and Hong Kong, which employs tens of thousands of Filipina maids, have simmered since a bungled rescue attempt by Filipino police of Hong Kong tourists taken hostage by a rogue police officer in 2010.
The fiasco left eight Hong Kong tourists and the hostage-taker dead.
The city’s administration has maintained a black “outbound travel alert” for the Philippines since the incident, telling residents to “avoid all travel” to the island nation. The only other country listed in the category is Syria. – AFP
Sergio Garcia struggled with hecklers and poor shotmaking on Thursday at the US Open, opening with a three-over par 73 and being chided by some spectators over a racism row involving Tiger Woods.
After Garcia’s comment last month that he would serve Woods “fried chicken” should they dine together, considered an insult by African-Americans, the Spaniard was taunted by a few spectators.
One clucked like a chicken when Garcia was near. Another yelled the Spanish words for fried chicken. Yet another was the lone boo during polite applause as Garcia was introduced ahead of his opening tee shot.
“There were a couple here and there, but I felt the people were very nice for the whole day,” Garcia said. “I think that almost all of them were behind me and that was nice to see.”
Garcia’s troubled round, getting himself into trouble and trying to get out, proved an apt metaphor for his off-the-course issues with Woods.
The 33-year-old Spaniard, still seeking his first major title, fired a double-bogey 6 at the 14th hole and a quadruple-bogey 8 at the 15th, but played the rest of Merion in three-under par, including an eagle at the par-5 second.
“Unfortunately two really bad holes, but that’s the way it is,” Garcia said. “The US Open doesn’t give you much room. At 14, I slipped and obviously out of bounds and then I hit a bad tee shot on the next and went out of bounds.
“I guess I was just making my week a little bit tougher, but I tried to battle as much as I could coming in and I was able to shoot a decent score after being 7-over through eight.”
Garcia responded with a birdie at the first, then eagled, and after a bogey at the par-5 fourth answered with birdies at the eighth and 10th, the latter being his last hole of the day due to Merion’s unorthodox layout.
“I was able to make a nice recovery, I guess, so that was nice, but obviously I put myself in a tough situation,” Garcia said of his round.
It was Garcia’s first round in a major since his comment last month before the BMW PGA Championship when Garcia attempted a joke over what to serve Woods, saying, “We will have him round every night. We will serve fried chicken.”
The fried chicken remark sparked a racism furore much the same way that Fuzzy Zoeller had in 1997 when he suggested Woods serve fried chicken at a Masters champions dinner.
Garcia has apologized publically for the mistake and left an apologetic note for Woods in the locker at the US Open after exchanging a brief handshake on the practice range Monday at Merion.
World number one Woods had tweeted in response to the “fried chicken” remarks: “The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate … it’s long past time to move on and talk about golf.” -AFP
On June 5, 18-year-old anti-fascist activist Clement Meric was walking with his friends in Paris when he encountered a group of far-right militants and a fight broke out. At the end of the skirmish, Meric lay on the ground. He was hit twice in the head, declared brain-dead at the hospital and died the next day.
His attackers are believed to have links with the far-right Revolutionary Nationalist Youth. The French government has not only arrested the perpetrators, but has also gone one step further by announcing plans to dissolve the group. Painting on an even larger canvas, the government declared that this ban will take place in the context of a review of “extreme right groups that provoke racial, anti-Semitic, xenophobic and homophobic hatred”.
French law allows the government to ban groups without oversight from courts or the legislature. This procedure dates back to the 1930s, when far-right militias roamed the streets and undermined the stability of the French state. As of 1972, the government has also been able to disband groups that provoke discrimination, hatred, or violence against people because of their origin, race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.
From an American perspective, this law and the current steps against the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth are difficult to understand. The US has long had active racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan whose members have been associated with violent acts. However, Americans believe that one should punish the criminals, not criminalise freedom of association, no matter how outrageous the group’s ideas may be.
Americans are fairly unusual in this respect. Many countries permit authorities to outlaw racist groups. Some, like France and Italy, have provisions for the dissolution of private groups. Others, like Germany and the Netherlands, also allow political parties to be banned – a highly contentious step for any self-declared liberal democracy.
Why do these countries endorse such a controversial infringement on freedom of association? Most places that allow it have had first-hand experiences as non-democracies – experiences they are keen not to repeat. France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, for example, go much further than the US, Britain and Australia in permitting their states to outlaw racist groups and parties.
History matters, and it continues to motivate French leaders to this day. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault declared in vivid fashion last week that he was ready to “cut to pieces… fascist and Nazi-inspired movements”. For his part, Interior Minister Manuel Valls stated, “We will be merciless with those that deny the values of the Republic”, and asserted that France has to “attack the foul ideas that remind us of the worst hours of our history”.
For some, these steps are not as much about history as they are about symbolic politics. When extreme hatred and violence spills out into the streets, citizens want action. Banning a group sends an immediate signal that the government is doing something.
As sceptics are quick to argue, though, simply declaring a racist group or party defunct is not always effective. Sometimes the leaders of these associations simply recreate the group under another name. Or activists may go underground and meet in secret.
This can happen, but France has the power to punish the revival of a banned racist group with seven years in jail and a 100,000-euro ($132,819) fine. Evidence from Germany demonstrates that following waves of bans, the number of racist groups drops over the short-term (but not the long-term), and that the total number of people willing to affiliate with racist right-wing groups also declines over the long-term.
In short, bans can be effective tools for inhibiting rabid racist groups.
The greater concern involves the frequency with which states apply the bans. Happily, so far, they have tended to use these laws sparingly. Since 1936, France has outlawed fewer than 100 groups. Many of the highest-profile bans occurred in the 1930s, during the Algerian war, and surrounding the events of May 1968, because the groups involved were identified as dangerous militias. In recent decades, the bans have been used quite infrequently, with only a handful of groups dissolved in the past decade.
Since the 1972 amendment to the law, however, provocation to racial or religious hatred has played a greater role in decisions about which groups to ban. In 2006, France dissolved the Tribu Ka, a small anti-Semitic group with a goal of “putting the people called ‘black’ at the top of humanity”. In 2012, the state disbanded an association dedicated to establishing sharia law in France.
These groups, like the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, are ethno-centric and associated with violence. Governments have the right to enforce laws enacted by elected legislatures to dissolve groups that are a pressing threat to social and political stability.
But there is always a risk that states will turn to these laws for a seemingly quick solution to racist violence. These provisions serve a useful purpose, but they come at a cost. They infringe the core liberal democratic norm of allowing people to express their values.
So if France is going to ban the Revolutionary Nationalist Youth, it has to show its citizens and its neighbours that the group deserves to be banned. France must remember its history, but it must also preserve its liberal democratic credentials for the future.
Erik Bleich is a professor of political science and the director of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College, and is the author of The Freedom to Be Racist? How the United States and Europe Struggle to Preserve Freedom and Combat Racism, published by Oxford University Press.
Sergio Garcia received a warm welcome from US Open spectators on Thursday despite his recent racist remark toward Tiger Woods, but US star Phil Mickelson was the clear fan favorite.
Philadelphia sports fans have a reputation for toughness across the United States, notoriously having booed Santa Claus at an American football game, and their reaction to the Spaniard after his “fried chicken” remark was uncertain.
But when Garcia was introduced to start his opening round at Merion in the 113th US Open, there was only one lone, loud, clear boo to be heard amid polite applause from hundreds of spectators.
Garcia arrived at the 11th tee, used as a starting spot due to course logistics at the 6,996-yard layout, alongside 2009 British Open winner Stewart Cink, both men greeted warmly ahead of a 7:44 a.m. start.
Ireland’s Padraig Harrington received a louder ovation upon his arrival and Garcia quietly made some final practice swings, two policemen behind nearby pine trees to the right of the tee a noticable sign of extra security.
After the trio teed off and began walking down the first fairway, the fans yelled some words of encouragement to Garica, “Go Sergio” and “Go get ’em Sergio.”
The 11th tee area, which features a large rock with the plaque honoring Bobby Jones for his 1930 US Amateur victory that completed a sweep of that year’s US and British Opens and Amateurs, also saw the crowd produce yells of “Kooch” for Matt Kuchar and “Oooost” for South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen.
A simmering dispute between Woods and Garcia took a cruder tone last month before the BMW PGA Championship when Garcia attempted a joke about what he might serve Woods should they have dinner together.
“We will have him round every night. We will serve fried chicken,” Garcia said.
The reference to fried chicken, seen as an insult to African-Americans, sparked a racism furore much the same way that Fuzzy Zoeller had in 1997 when he suggested Woods serve fried chicken at a Masters champions dinner.
Garcia has apologized publically for the mistake and left an apologetic note for Woods in the locker at the US Open after exchanging a brief handshake on the practice range Monday at Merion.
World number one Woods had tweeted in response to the “fried chicken” remarks: “The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate … it’s long past time to move on and talk about golf.”
Woods, scheduled to begin his quest for a record-tying fourth US Open title and 15th major crown in the afternoon, said again on Tuesday that it was time to move on and put the comment in the past.
Hundreds were waiting in line for the grandstand at the 11th tee to open at 7 in the morning for the first group were wondering if Mickelson, a five-time US Open runner-up, would arrive on time.
Mickelson flew home Monday to Southern California to attend his daughter Amanda’s eighth-grade graduation ceremony and caught an overnight flight across the nation back to Merion in time to make it to the tee for his 7:11 start.
“Your week Phil” and “You made it” were among the yells of encouragement for the black-clad US left-hander who turns 43 on Sunday under overcast skies. – AFP
Recent acts of racism in the country should be strongly condemned, Minister in the Presidency Collins Chabane said on Thursday.
In a statement following Wednesday’s fortnightly Cabinet meeting, Chabane said this should especially be stamped out in school classrooms.
“There is no room for racism in our country and democracy, let alone in our schools, where the values of our Constitution ought to be promoted and defended.”
He called on South Africans to work with government to deal with racism.
“Cabinet commends the department of basic education for its quick action in dealing with racism in schools and encourages all parents, pupils, and teachers to report racism and abuse at schools.”
In a Grade Seven classroom at the Wilgehof Primary School, in Bloemfontein, the old South African flag was reportedly on display, along with a picture of expelled ANCYL leader Julius Malema alongside that of a monkey.
The history and life orientation teacher allegedly responsible for the display and for making racist remarks, as well as the principal, have been suspended.
One of the white parents at the school had also laid a complaint with the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) — who had already been to the school for an on-site inspection.
While investigating, the SAHRC learnt that some pupils had been called derogatory names. – Sapa
Dr. Hage Geingob, prime minister of Namibia (ex-South West Africa)
Windhoek — The days are numbered for Buffalo’s bar in Gobabis, the latest flashpoint in an alleged racist attack, warned Prime Minister Dr Hage Geingob.
He said “undesirable establishments like Buffalo’s bar and similar places which are scattered all over the country,” should be closed down for being racist outposts. Geingob made the remarks on Tuesday in the National Assembly when he launched a strong denunciation of the alleged act of racism in which Levi Katire was allegedly assaulted by Nico Kotze and Frederick ‘Boeta’ du Plessis who now face charges of assault and racial discrimination.
“The heinous actions of a group of racist criminals in the town of Gobabis took the entire nation back to a dark past from which we have all so dearly wanted to emerge. It seems there are some people living within our borders who are intent on continuing the sinister legacy of racial discrimination and brutal violence of the past,” said the Prime Minister who joined the growing chorus of voices condemning the barbaric attack.
Geingob went on to say the two suspects are amongst a large number of “so-called Namibian citizens” who look upon the country’s policy of national reconciliation as a “policy of weakness”. The policy of national reconciliation was adopted to heal a nation, which was emerging from a dark history of racial discrimination, and to mitigate acts of revenge following the attainment of independence, Geingob said.
He condemned in the strongest terms the attack on Katire and promised that no stone would be left unturned until “we uproot and expose each and every one of these racist elements, who participated in this act of barbarism.” According to Geingob there are people who still think they can establish “pseudo republics and homelands” on the territory of an independent Namibia that courageously fought and triumphed over a discriminatory system.
He said it is high time that the government awakens racially intolerant individuals from “their absurd dreams and remind them that the apartheid republic is now nothing but a relic of psychosis”. He further warned that Namibia is a free and sovereign state and any individual who cannot comprehend that after 23 years should do him or herself a favour to “pack and go”.
“If you cannot pack yourself fast enough we will assist you. Make no mistake. The days are numbered for undesirable establishments like Buffalo’s bar and similar places which are scattered all over the country.”
He said so-called private establishments should be outlawed in public areas and implored the Attorney-General to find ways of closing down such places and to conduct a thorough investigation into the Gobabis incident.
“We need to identify the nationality of these perpetrators and if they are not Namibians, they should be shipped off immediately. I am aware that there is a criminal investigation which is ongoing, but we must ensure that a place such as Buffalo’s bar is permanently shut down,” he urged the Attorney-General.
The two men were denied bail on Friday in the Gobabis Magistrate’s Court and their quest to secure bail resumed on Wednesday and continues today. – New Era
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