Racist rioters in Czech Republic(links)

[ritaxis]

Frank sends me snippets of news from time to time, usually about the US and not about Czech Republic. But he sent me links about this thing.

Briefly, about 600 people joined a demonstration by the "Worker's Party" which is a right-wing nativist outfit to march into a housing area populated by Roma. They carried signs, rocks, and "petrol bombs" (by which I assume is meant Molotov cocktails). They were met, to the credit of the Czech people, by 1000 counter-protestors and also 1000 riot police, though when you click through to here you might be a bit concerned, as I was, about their methods. But they were engaged in stopping a mob which proposed to firebomb a neighborhood where people actually live.

There are some terrible details. There were, apparently, some people from the town who were not in the demonstration but were chanting for the police to let the people with firebombs into the neighborhood. Yes. They were calling for the police -- whose job it is to protect people -- to allow thugs to stone and bomb and burn their neighbors. Frank thinks they were local Worker's Party members, and not additional racists just popping out of the woodwork. I hope so.

Roma are the scapegoats of Europe.

On another front, I have decided on the colors for my house. Currently it is sort of pale brown: too yummy a color to be beige, but otherwise sort of beige. I call it the color of hazelnut mousse. The roof is reddish.

The roof will continue to be reddish. The walls will be a creamy butter color on the horizontal siding part and a light ochre on the plywood sheathing part and the corner reinforcements. The gutters and window trim will be a light dusty blue with roof-colored accents on the windows, and the door will be roof-colored with blue and possibly ochre accents.

There you are. None of the colors are gaudy by themselves, but when you combine them, you have the epitome of gaudy: all the primary colors together.

Comments

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I read about this - I don't even precisely remember where - and what I heard is that they're national socialists (y'know, neo-Nazis) who are attacking the Roma communities for all the crazy, old world, screwball reasons. But I also read that the national socialists don't have a lot of traction in government - that they're outsiders because of their crazy, fascist views of things. I'm sure that Frank could tell you more, what with him being there and all, but my understanding is that the march was by a fringe group looking to create press for their racist, backwards agenda by doing something outrageous.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

That's all true. But there are a large number of these guys and they march around a lot, and they are actively threatening with words and actions to harm the Roma and other "not native" people.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

*shakes head* Which is so crazy. I sometimes want to really know what's going on in these peoples' heads so I could find the combination of words that would make them realize how very much whatever problems they have, or think they have, simply can't be because of these few brutally oppressed people.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

They think these people are the tools of a larger machine of the rich and powerful, who use them to wreck their lives by taking their jobs, their homes, and their women, and introducing impure culture.

They think if they remove these cancerous cells from their midst, they will grow a healthy body politic and be able to resist the machine.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

On some level I realize something like that must be the case - and is the case with almost all racists. Oppressed people are used as scapegoats by the powerful to justify a lesser oppression against the poor. Or that's how it looks to me. The poor go to the rich and complain, and the rich say, "Oh, it's the Gypsies fault, not ours", and in the absence of any additional information - in the absence of a paradigm of life not based on lies and distortion - they believe it.

But I still don't feel the truth of these bigots. No matter the intellectual rationalizations, no matter how accurate, I fail to comprehend how virulent racism can reach the pitch of wanting to fire bomb some of the most vulnerable people in the world. The obviousness of how little the Roma simply cannot be responsible for Czech problems, or Austrian problems, or Hungarian problems or whatever seems so evidentially true that attacking them means a sort of willful ignorance I can't quite grasp.

So, it's probably a failing of imagination on my part. ;)

[sciamanna.livejournal.com]

Yes, petrol bomb is what molotov cocktails are called in Ireland, so I suppose it's the same here.

Awful. And you're entirely right about the Roma. So much so that a lot of the Roma who come to Ireland say they're Romanian, not Roma -- which for once works against them, since as Roma they could get asylum. (I assume they're unaware of that, but I'm not sure).

The Irish are plenty xenophobic, but don't seem to have a special prejudice against the Roma (as compared to "Eastern immigrants" in general); but Ireland has its own nomads (Travellers -- aka Tinkers, the equivalent of the N-word), who fill the same space in popular prejudice (even when they are in fact settled).

Hazelnut mousse sounds like a great colour :-)

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Here, it's the police going after the Hispanics.

I want pictures of the house when you're done! And how is pension-thing going?

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I will take pictures, yes.

We have gotten the rejection and the instructions for appealing. Brother in law David has gotten all the information on which he thinks we shojuld base the appeal, and is trying to get the local Chancellor's office to put in a good word. We'll be sending all that to the correct office and they have sixty days in which to turn us down or not. And then there's another layer of appeal after that. At some point we'll be getting the Assemblyman (the one who went to school with Ted is being term-limited out, but his successor is a good guy too) and State Senator involved, too, probably.

Meanwhile, I have a job to apply to that would have its own benefits. Though retiring from that would not give me benefits, I think, even if I could work in it long enough to be vested.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

So the pension business is on-going and you have more appeals. That's good.

What kind of a job might you apply for?

[katiekin.livejournal.com]

Hi Sweetie! I am off to Sweden this Sunday. If I get a chance I'll call before but if not, have a Happy Thanksgiving and I will call when I get back and report.

I am teaching a course on Feminist Methodologies in Stockholm. I am jazzed. It is a great time to go someplace else. It is a terrible time to have lots of extra work to do! But I am glad anyway.

I hold you in my heart. I am wearing the clothes of a dear person who has died too....

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I will talk to you when you get back. It's really very cool that you are teaching this course in Sweden. Be sure to enjoy the alien landscape while you are there!