Forums > Social Discussion > Social/ Racial Unrest (???)

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FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
In the recent months we have been facing a number of unrests, or the expression of deep uncomfort with the present situation.

In France - in Australia - just to name the two obvious.

My question that I'd like to put out for discussion is:

What kind of reasons do YOU think, are (currently) fuelling social/racial unrest, under which conditions social/racial unrest is likely to accelerate and what might be the trigger for the outbreak of open violence?

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


Rouge DragonBRONZE Member
Insert Champagne Here
13,215 posts
Location: without class distinction, Australia


Posted:
I thought France's riots and Australia's were for two different reasons.

One was racism (Australia) and the other was living condidtions stemmed from racism (France)

i would have changed ***** to phallus, and claire to petey Petey

Rougie: but that's what I'm doing here
Arnwyn: what letting me adjust myself in your room?..don't you dare quote that on HoP...


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
The riots in France have been sparked by the comment of the ruling gaullists party to: sandblast the “scum” and “gangrene” from the estates...

The riots in Australia started for a very different reason, that's very true and both riots have had two very different motifs and directions.

One was directed straight into the face of the government, resisting and protesting the racial policy of the ruling party, the other was rather assisting the conservative government.

Unfortunately there is no dawning, but strange balancing on the planet...

Still: both riots - having very different causes - will lead (short-term) to the focus of the citizens and government on racist issues inside a western (developed) country, therefore to the same cure.

My question is whether you can notice lowered boundaries for violence inside society and whether all this is somehow predictable?

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


DentrassiGOLD Member
ZORT!
3,045 posts
Location: Brisbane, Australia


Posted:
quite honestly mate, what happened in sydney was a bit more complicated than being caused by pure racism and 'assisting the conservative government'.

that really is a gross generalisation that completely missed the point of what went on down here - but ill go into that in the more relevant thread.



directly answering your question - even including recent events - on a decade scale - racist induced violence is probably at its lowest ever. In Sydney at least we are simply too multicultural generally - but theres alway a few dickheads around. Its far from perfect ill be the first to admit - but considering how attitudes have changed over the past decades its definitely always stepping in the right direction.



Although a possible point is as we become more multicultural, the integration of our multiculturalism doesnt catch up fast enough - thus causing the problems. arrrghhh too late in the night to think straight.

Was the violence predictable - well at Cronulla beach yes- but there more issues that come to play than just racism.

anyway ill go into this more in the morning.
EDITED_BY: Dentrassi (1135090981)

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SethisBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,762 posts
Location: York University, United Kingdom


Posted:
Written by: Dentrassi


Racist induced violence is probably at its lowest ever.





Depends. From one point of view, the "War on Terror" is racist. Muslims are being watched by so many security agencies it's a wonder that the covert ops people don't have to book times to monitor them. An example is of a police team breaking into a suspected "terrorist" home, to find a name written on a piece of paper. The name of a retired soldier. This is apparantly "Information that could be used to aid terrorism" and the person whose house it was in was arrested. Anyone know the name of the last white guy to be accused of terrorism? Probably in Ireland.

Racism is also not the preserve of Euro/American/Australian violence. Anyone heard anything about the situation in Sudan recently? Or Zimbabwe? No? Didn't think so. The lack of media coverage is thoroughly depressing. It's not happening to white people so the public doesn't care. It's that simple.

*thinking ANGRY thoughts*

After much consideration, I find that the view is worth the asphyxiation.
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I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.


StoutBRONZE Member
Pooh-Bah
1,872 posts
Location: Canada


Posted:
The last white guy? How about Peter Reid, the shoe bomber ?

FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
Written by:

In China, it's powerlessness to the people - Sam Crane (UPDATED)
By Sophie Beach :: 2005-12-18

From the Los Angeles Times:

EARLIER THIS month, Chinese police shot and killed as many as 20 protesters (the numbers are in dispute) in Dongzhou village, near Hong Kong. The use of lethal force was unusual, but the underlying grievances were commonplace: powerless townspeople demonstrating against local government practices that endanger their meager existence.

Economic inequality is growing in China. It is fueling an increasing number of desperate attempts by poor farmers and workers to hold on to what little they have. In 2004, there were, by government accounts, about 74,000 public disturbances nationwide, an increase of about 20% from 2003. This year, several instances of government repression of popular protests captured the world media's attention. In Taishi, Guangdong province, villagers exercising their right to recall corrupt local officials were beaten and harassed. In Huankantou, Zhejiang province, two elderly women were killed when police suppressed a demonstration against a polluting factory. In Shengyou, Hebei province, thugs bused in by party bosses set upon townspeople protesting a land grab by an electric power company.




Written by:

Sudan: Dam draws fresh fears of social unrest

One of Africa's largest dams, now under construction in Sudan, carries a hefty price for the environment and threatens intensified social unrest, project critics say.

By Inter Press Service, Emad Mekay | 05.05.2005

The Merowe/Hamadab Dam Project, a 1.5-billion-dollar effort on the fourth cataract of the Nile River, would double the country's energy capacity but in the process would displace more than 50,000 people, mainly small farmers living along the river, they say.

A group representing local groups warned that the project also would destroy archeological sites in the area, where early human and African civilisations evolved and ruled from the Nile Valley to Palestine.

Project planning has been secretive and people who will be directly affected have not had their voices heard, Askouri, a former official in Sudan's water and irrigation ministry, said in an e-mail interview from Sudan.

"If we ignore those issues today, generations in the very near future will find it imperative to go to war due to fatal and unnecessary mistakes committed by these short-sighted politicians," he added. "The project is not sustainable, and it stands completely against all guidelines adopted by the United Nations and other world organisations working in the field of water and environment."

Locals do not stand completely opposed to the project, however. Rather, they have sought a break postponement to allow for public consultation and to satisfy them that the project's likely environmental and social impacts have been thoroughly investigated.

The U.S.-based International Rivers Network (IRN) and British-based Corner House...said the project...already had displaced 10,000 people from fertile land along the Nile to the Nubian Desert where the land is barren with little groundwater supply.

"The re-settlers were promised free services such as water, electricity, and fertilisers for a two-year transition period but are being cheated out of most of these services," the report said.

"In Sudan, large infrastructure projects, pipelines and agricultural schemes have in the past created a serious social and ethnic tensions and fueled conflicts that turned into major humanitarian disasters," said Peter Bosshard of IRN.

In November 2000, the World Commission on Dams, established by the World Bank and The World Conservation Union to assess the merits of the hydro-electric facilities, released a highly critical report saying that dams had generated less power, irrigated less land, and supplied less drinking water than projected.

Germany's Lahmeyer International is carrying out the engineering and project management and the Swiss unit of French-based conglomerate Alstom is in charge of the electro-mechanical works. Officials from both companies were not available for comment.
Chinese construction companies including China International Water and Electric Corporation also are involved, along with local Sudanese companies specialising in civil works, according to project documents from Lahmeyer. Work is scheduled for completion by the end of 2008.
Arab financial institutions, including the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, the Saudi Fund for Development, and The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, are providing 700 million dollars in project financing, according to Lahmeyer.
More than 300 million dollars is coming from The Export-Import Bank of China, which is backed by several Western commercial banks. Sudan's government is covering the remaining 500 million dollars, Lahmeyer said.
The project is drawing fresh interest from groups like IRN as it follows on the heels of pledges by international donors of some 4.5 billion dollars in support for reconstruction and development in war-blighted Sudan over the next three years. These pledges in turn have triggered expectations that new infrastructure investment also will follow, especially in the key electricity sector.
"The Merowe/Hamadab Dam is a test case of whether the basic rights of affected people and the environment will be safeguarded in such investments," said Bosshard. "The generous international support for Sudan's reconstruction is welcome, but donors must ensure that social and environmental standards are respected in the process."




frown

the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink


PyrolificBRONZE Member
Returning to a unique state of Equilibrium
3,289 posts
Location: Adelaide, South Australia


Posted:
The reason that all this is coming up? people have finally realised that what they have been promised by our western society isnt as fun as it looked, the grass is far from greener, and people are getting pissed at being stuck between the rock and the hard place - which is the only choice for the majority of people living in a capitalist society. What do you do when you realise youve been ripped off by your own society?

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Help! My personality got stuck in this signature machine and I cant get it out!


FireTomStargazer
6,650 posts

Posted:
Couldn't agree more

Written by:

Newsweek article "Pain in the middle" Nov.21st

...The picture is clearest when you look at the number and fate of the world's middle- class countries (rather than middle-class individuals, although the story there is not so terrific, either). For all the great progress of the past four decades or so, from the end of colonialism and communism to the birth of the Information Age, only four economies—South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan—have managed to join the ranks of "high income" nations, now defined by the World Bank as countries with a per capita gross national income (GNI) of more than $10,066. That is to say that, by Western standards, on average their citizens are now reasonably comfortable.

Most others have faltered. In fact, writes World Bank economist Branko Milanovic in his recent book, "Worlds Apart," the number of countries in the comfortable zone has fallen from 41 in 1960 to 31 today, and the number of rich non-Western nations has fallen from 19 to nine. At the same time, incomes of the richest countries, which were 16 times higher than those of the poorest countries in the 1960s, grew to be 35 times higher by 1999.

This purging of the ranks of middle-class nations has been accompanied by an unhealthy stability in the ranks of the poorest states. In 1960 there were 25 countries in the Fourth World, the poorest segment of countries, those with a GDP per capita less than $1,067. Only two have escaped: Botswana and Egypt. Downward mobility has been more common worldwide than upward mobility. Among 22 nations that, according to Milanovic, qualified during the 1960s as "contenders," meaning they could have reasonably aspired to join the club of the rich within a generation, more than 90 percent ended up regressing deeper into poverty....


the best smiles are the ones you lead to wink



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