> >> The summer camp with around 500 activists of the campaign "No one
> >> is illegal" was launched on Saturday, 8 August, with a music parade
> >> and a concert.
Elena wrote:
> Nothing wrong with a party, especially in symmer, yet aren't there
more
> effective places to protest and draw attention to the problem? That
same
> Spiegel, at least.
cross the border/hack the borderline hold winter and summer camps, as a way of focussing ongoing actions around specific issues/deportations/etc. more info can be found through http://www.contrast.org/borders/camp also, see http://www.ecn.org/finlandia/tampere/
and, there are always places to conduct protests, aren't there? what makes one place better than another? in many countries, including the US and here in australia, there is little in the way of _any_ action that brings together the issues of border controls beyond this or that particular policy or this or that particular infringment of free movement. the cross the border camp looks to me like an advance. but perhaps you should take up your concerns directly with the organisers, and make suggestions as to how to make the campaign more effective. they can be contacted via there web site.
> The use of "Europe" here is a point in itself: the Czech republic,
Poland,
> Bulgaria, the Ukrain ARE, and have always been in Europe. To place
them
> outside it is to reinforce the very argument the protesters are
opposing.
the line that marks 'europe' from 'non-europe' is indeed drawn by restrictions on movements. eastern europe only becomes 'europe' by virtue of a line drawn against 'non-europe' further east. arguing that these countries are 'really europe' must imply that there is another line elsewhere. the same predicament that you raise (of repeating the ideolgical definitions of words like 'europe'), which is an important one, merely gets displaced rather than confronted by any claim that this or that country is 'really europe'...
and, this process is something that you nicely pointed to when you wrote: "the epochal sign that Bg is finally becoming civilised"; which after all is the working of this border between 'europe' and 'non-europe', and certainly a way in which calls to include bulgaria in 'europe' leads to some pretty appalling positions.
> If "border control" stands for entrance restrictions policies, then
that's
> an acceptable formulation. Otherwise, it's just a part of the story,
and
> coupled with ONLY the problem of people "forced into illegality" it
shifts
> attention, again, to the effect rather than the cause of this
situation -
> the European apartheid (don't like the expression but can't think of
> better).
> Because many more people are denied in a most humiliating way the
right to
> move freely, being incriminated as "potential violators".
i'm not sure what you're saying here. border restriction policies are the most stark way of giving effect to an ideological definition of 'europe'. and, the criminalisation and regulation of movement is exactly the meaning of apartheid is it not? apartheid was (is) marked by pass laws, bantustans, enclosures... all geared toward criminalising movement which was (is) deemed not functional to labour market policies, or rather, the specific mode of exploitation... neither apartheid nor border restrictions are a cause, but they do make possible the benefits -- which flow from exclusion, segmentation, informal work and national bonding -- for capitalism.
but on the der spiegel article, i don't see that there's a comparison between a fairly flat piece of journalism on the decision of the Italian govt to refuse refugee status to roma fleeing from kosovo and a thoroughly racist piece of drivel on the presumed criminality of albanians. the latter doesn't offer anything 'for the first time', since stories about the predisposition of albanians to criminality have been floating around since before the NATO bombing, some of which were delivered as 'analysis' by sections of the ostensible left eager to clothe their criticisms of the KLA in the easy mantras of racism and progressivism. nothing new there.
> Just a couple of notes before switching back to lurking.
no reason to go back to lurking, every reason to post, including elaborating a little on this: "To oppose war/NATO was to acknowledge you are "red" (dirty word)." does this mean there's no links between oppositional groupings in bulgaria and the ones in italy/greece/etc that john refered to?
Angela _________