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Post by valpomike on Oct 22, 2009 20:05:05 GMT 1
Thank you, and if we move, I will E-mail with the results, from Poland.
Mike
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Post by Bonobo on Oct 31, 2009 21:22:39 GMT 1
African immigrants face racism in Poland
People of African descent in Poland say many Poles still have negative ideas about the African continent and are too accepting of racist jokes
DPA
Thursday, Oct 22, 2009
WARSAW - African immigrants may no longer draw stares in Poland's bigger cities, but problems remain for the tiny community as it strives to make its voice heard and combat stereotypes in the largely white former Soviet bloc.
While today many people of African descent say they are treated well in the deeply Catholic nation, they add that Poles still have negative ideas about the African continent and are too accepting of racist jokes.
Pawel Sredzinski was the brains behind a recent photo exhibit in Warsaw that featured African immigrants living in the capital, titled "We Varsovians."
Sredzinski estimates some 3,000 to 4,000 Africans live in Poland. While a black man no longer draws attention on a Warsaw street, things are different in smaller cities.
"I wanted to show that alongside white Varsovians, there are blacks who also come here and that our daily life looks the same," Sredzinski said.
"I think Warsaw is ready for multiculturalism, but we want to take this [exhibit] into smaller towns where they might not be ready," he said.
EXCHANGE STUDENTS
Poland has come a long way since the decades of communism, when it was home to few immigrants and virtually no blacks.
Mamadou Wague, of the Friends of Africa Association, remembers his first days at Warsaw's University of Life Sciences in 1979.
He recalled with a laugh how fingers were pointed at him and a curious crowd gathered in his dormitory room. Wague, who comes from Guinea in West Africa, was the first black man many of the Polish students had ever seen.
He estimates that around 60,000 Africans came to Poland to study from 1958 to 1980 under the communist regime's exchange programs with socialist countries in Africa.
Most returned home on graduation. These days, some 200 immigrants arrive annually from sub-Saharan Africa, Wague said. Many Africans prefer countries like France or Britain, where many migrants from former colonies face no language barriers.
While there is no shortage of prominent Africans with Polish nationality, the media tends to focus exclusively on the illegal African immigrants who work in Warsaw bazaars.
OFFENSIVE COMMENTS
Mamadou Diouf, founder of the Africa Another Way Foundation, said nobody monitors the racial situation in Poland, where people use expressions like, "a hundred years behind the blacks," and shrug off similar comments as jokes.
In June, Polish priest Tadeusz Rydzyk said to a black missionary during a pilgrimage: "Look, he hasn't washed at all."
Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski is on record as having joked to colleagues that US President Barack Obama had a Polish connection because "his grandfather ate a Polish missionary."
"It's high time someone keeps track when someone makes a comment like this," Diouf said. "That's the problem in this country. I'm not even talking about racism, but there's no critique when someone says these things."
But as more immigrants begin to arrive, their tiny community is increasingly being heard and forming organizations that unite Africans and reach out to Poles.
Engineer Alioune Diop, who came to Poland in 1990 from Senegal, said things are changing as the African community becomes increasingly organized.
Diop runs the Polish-Senegal Association and aims to create an African center that would help new immigrants and give Africans in Poland a chance to network and socialize.
"In the 1990s there were very few of us, and they came mainly to study, and it was impossible to meet an African who wasn't a student," Diop said. "There's still a lot missing, and we could be better organized."
While some make a stop in Poland before moving elsewhere, those who settle say they are just as Polish as their white-skinned compatriots.
Wague decided to make Poland his home after years spent as researcher with professors who treated him like family.
"I sat with them on the same school bench, I know their families, I was witness at their weddings, their divorces," he says. "I'm here in Poland because I spent my youth here and have many friends — not because I want to earn money."
He lectures at the Department of Economic Development at Warsaw University. He was granted Polish citizenship in 2005.
"I picked Poland," Wague said, "because I love this country."
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 11, 2010 22:16:15 GMT 1
Guys from advertising business will do everything for profit. Sad.
Skate ad investigation called off
23.03.2010 16:01
The Torun Prosecutor’s Office has decided not to launch an investigation into the controversial advert for an urban street wear firm in which a teenage skateboarder holds a gun to a policeman’s head.
The advertisement, which depicts a man in police uniform on his knees and a skateboarder holding a gun to his head declaring, ‘On your knees, pig,” sparked controversy over the past few weeks, as its launch was unfortunately timed, following an outbreak of hooligan violence against police, which resulted in the death a Warsaw police officer.
“We have decided not to investigate the matter as it does not actually involve any criminal activity,” says Mariusz Rosinski, head prosecutor for the Torun region, in central-western Poland.
The ad, for the Szczecin-based firm Guru Gomez, was published in the January-February issue of Info Magazine Skateboard, and immediately caught the attention of police nationwide.
“After the murder of the policeman in Warsaw, it’s natural that such an ad would be particularly controversial,” says Mariusz Sokolowski, press spokesman for National Police Headquarters.
The Torun Prosecutor’s Office has turned the case file over to the Council of Media Ethics and Advertising Council in Poland to determine if it breaches the Council’s code of ethics.
 proto.pl/PR/Images/na_kolana_psie.jpg |
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Post by jeanne on Apr 11, 2010 23:19:17 GMT 1
I don't think the ad is criminal, but it is in really, really, really poor taste.
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 12, 2010 20:56:45 GMT 1
I don't think the ad is criminal, but it is in really, really, really poor taste. Well, you know, sth may be not or just on the verge of being criminal in the view of law, but in practise it may lead to distorted thinking and produce criminal acts in future. Guys responsible for such things don`t realise one day their son may become a policeman and he will be shot by a mad skater. |
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Post by justjohn on Apr 13, 2010 13:01:51 GMT 1
I don't think the ad is criminal, but it is in really, really, really poor taste. Well, you know, sth may be not or just on the verge of being criminal in the view of law, but in practise it may lead to distorted thinking and produce criminal acts in future. Guys responsible for such things don`t realise one day their son may become a policeman and he will be shot by a mad skater. You are correct. This is totally misleading advertisements. It does create the wrong impression and we all know how easily our youth is influenced. In my personal opinion, it should not be allowed.   |
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 13, 2010 22:01:28 GMT 1
Well, you know, sth may be not directly criminal or just on the verge of it in the view of law, but in practise it may lead to distorted thinking and produce criminal acts in future. Guys responsible for such things don`t realise one day their son may become a policeman and he will be shot by a mad skater. You are correct. This is totally misleading advertisements. It does create the wrong impression and we all know how easily our youth is influenced. In my personal opinion, it should not be allowed. The store which was responsible for the ad has withdrawn it. Even skaters protested against it. |
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Post by Bonobo on May 15, 2010 20:48:51 GMT 1
Teams punished after anti-Semitic banners at football match
14.05.2010 14:29
Two football clubs from the south-east city of Rzeszow have been penalized and two people detained after an anti-Semitic banner was held aloft by fans during a local second division derby in southern Poland on May 8.
The banner was spotted among fans of Resovia Rzeszow during a match against local rivals Stal Rzeszow.
The fans chanted the “Arian horde is coming” and displayed a huge banner showing a caricatured hook-nosed Jew with a stripped blue and white yarmulke under the slogan: “Death to the Crooked Noses.”
Colours of the banner corresponded with the flag of Israel, costumes of Auschwitz camp prisoners but also the colour’s of the opposing Stal team’s strip.
Police from Rzeszow has already detained two 18-year-old Resovia fans responsible for putting up the anti-Semitic banner. They will be charged for violence against people of a different nationality, ethnic background, race, political views or faith, for which they may face up to five years in prison.
“The charges are serious because the banner calls for death,” says a prosecutor Ewa Lotczyk. Twenty more football fans, who held the banner during the match, are expected to be detained in relation to the case.
The Polish Football Association (PZPN) has also punished the two rival football clubs from Rzeszow. In the coming month Resovia and Stal will play matches behind locked doors with no crowd and the latter will also have to pay a 2,500 zloty fine (627 euro) as it was the host of the match.
Polish Football Association (PZPN) representatives, who were present at the stadium, failed to react to the offensive banners at the time, however.
“It’s a scandal!” Resovia’s chairman and former Justice Minister Aleksander Bentkowski told the PAP news agency.
Police have already opened an investigation into the case.
The Anti-Defamation League has called on Andrzej Rusko, president of the Polish football league, to penalize the Resovia team.
“This sickening display of crude anti-Semitism is an alarming manifestation of a continuing problem in Polish society, where our opinion surveys and other polls have found disturbing levels of anti-Semitic sentiment,” said Abraham Foxman, ADL's national director quoted by the JTA agnecy.
Foxman pointed out only 700 of Rzeszow’s 15,000 Jews survived the Holocaust.
“We call on the league’s president to sanction Resovia Rzeszow and to apply the anti-racism practices of the European football authority, UEFA,” Foxman demanded, adding that “an equally important measure of society is how authorities react to such incidents.” www.thenews.pl/sport/artykul131629_teams-punished-after-anti-semitic-banners-at-football-match.html  
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Post by Bonobo on Sept 21, 2010 21:34:57 GMT 1
Finnish neo-fascist at martial arts show in Poland
21.09.2010 12:38
Niko Puhakka, a neo-fascist from Finland was allowed to fight at a martial arts show in Lodz, central Poland and show off his Nazi tattoos.
During bouts organized by KSW, the premiere mixed martial arts organization in Poland, Puhakka showed off his a naked chest with the neo-Nazi organization Blood&Honour tattooed on his chest.
The fascist organization, which calls for violence against “the enemies of the race”, is illegal in Poland.
“It’s a scandal that a neo-Nazi was allowed to participate in the show,” Marcin Kornak from “Never Again” association which fights against racism, xenophobia and intolerance told Polish Radio.
“Niko Puhakka is known for his neo-fascist views and for exposing his tattoos showing Celtic crosses, a racist symbol of “white power”. Yet, nobody, not even Polsat TV, which broadcast the show, asked him to cover them up,” said Kornak, adding that until recently Puhakka was sponsored by a clothing company which produces clothes with Nazi symbols. 
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Post by Bonobo on Dec 30, 2010 15:11:26 GMT 1
Ruski meaning Russian has two shades in Poland. One contemptuous, suggesting primitive and inferior, e.g., Ruski wynalazek, Russian invention. Another one is neutrally colloquial, being a shortened version of full adjective Rosyjski. Both meanings interlap very easily, that is why I never use Ruski, because it might be received as negative one by my audience.
‘Ruska’ offence verdict postponed
29.12.2010 08:53
A verdict in the trial to decide whether ‘Ruski’ is a nationally insulting term for Russians in Poland was postponed till 4 January.
Russian woman Lyubov Dziubinska says she was insulted by locals in the small village of Stąporków, who called her “Ruska” and her son, whose father is Polish, a “Ruski”.
Dziubinska went to police in April 2009 after a row with Teresa, her sister-in-law, where the Russian woman, who has lived in Poland for 20 years, says offensive language intended to offend was used.
“I just wanted Teresa to apologized in the courtroom and do not want any money. But she refused, has demanded money for a lawyer. My ex-husband pays child support irregularly and I have nothing to live on,” Dziubinska told reporters after leaving the hearing yesterday.
The two woman will be back in court on 4 January.
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Post by Bonobo on Nov 27, 2011 16:20:48 GMT 1
Court allows far-right party to use 'shocking' anti-gay symbol
25.11.2011 06:30
A Warsaw prosecutor has appealed against a court's decision allowing what a human rights organization has called a “shocking” and anti-gay symbol to be used as an official emblem of fringe far-right party, the National Rebirth of Poland (NOP).
The symbol shows two matchstick men having anal intercourse, under the slogan “Zakaz Pedalowania”, a slang expression that translates as “Outlaw Queers” or “Ban Buggery”.
The symbol has been used by far-right and nationalists groups for some years during anti-gay protests in Poland.
Another symbol which the court also allowed was a Celtic cross, a motif widely used by fascist and white supremacist groups.
Having consulted with legal experts, the court in Warsaw acknowledged the potential connotations of the symbols, but ruled that in terms of the law, the emblems could not be described as “unequivocally” promoting totalitarianism, Nazism or racist hatred, actions which are illegal in Poland.
However, Warsaw-based academic Dr Radoslaw Muniak told the Polish Press Agency that he opposes the court's decision.
“This is a scandal on a global scale,” he argued.
“No democratic country would approve something like this,” he said.
The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights has also said that it was “surprised” and “shocked” by the court's decision.
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Post by Bonobo on Apr 6, 2012 10:17:13 GMT 1
Euro 2012 - Police draw up list of national football fan stereotypes
05.04.2012 10:41
English football fans can be vulgar, the Italians “energetic” and lots of women are included in support for Dutch and Danish teams, according to Polish police.
Police in the Krakow region have reportedly drawn up a list of characteristics of national football supporters to help deal with crowd control during the Euro 2012 football championships, which are being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine.
The English are seen as being capable of being “vulgar” and noisy, boisterously invading bars and pubs.
Italians, on the other hand, are lively but not aggressive, and lots of female supporters follow teams from the Netherlands and Denmark.
The report on national characteristics of different football fans has been compiled by the Malopolska district police, a region which includes the city of Krakow, where the England team will be based this summer.
According to the TVN 24 news station, the police have also drawn up a list of which fans prefer which alcoholic drinks.
The England and Germans prefer beer, while Russians opt for something stronger, such as vodka.
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Post by pjotr on Apr 19, 2012 22:23:35 GMT 1
Bo,
I fear that the worst scum from Great-Britain (they really have viking like white trash masses of Londons East-end, Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton and other cities), Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Russia, Czech republic (AC Sparta Praha Ultras) Serbia and Croatia will come to Poland and the Ukraine. And ofcourse we don't have to forget the Polish Ultra's. The Polish Hooligans will love to hunt down, confront, attack or clash with foreign hooligans.
Here an example of a confrontation between Czech and Polish Hooligans in Katowice
Will we experiance such scenes again?
If the Hooligans can't clash in the stadiums or city centres they will find other places to meet and confront eachother.
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Post by pjotr on Apr 21, 2012 11:17:57 GMT 1
These kind of people from all over Europe will come to Poland. In the Dutch news: Police caught Ajax hooligan Rick H. The police publiced this image of Rick H. because they consider him very dangerous. They were searching for him fort months.The notorious Ajax hooligan Rick H. was arrested. He was arrested by a SWAT team last night around 01.00 pm in a house in Hilversum. H. sat there hiding in a darkened room. Rick H. was on the National Investigation List. He is suspected of shoting dead a 24-year-old man in the Amsterdam neighbourhood the Pijp. Furthermore, he was involved in the murder of Ajax fan Sven Westendorp, also a member of the hard core of Ajax Hooligans. Machine gunThe police searched for months looking for the Ajax hooligan. In mid November the police raided a house in the Kinkerstraat in Amsterdam. On the basis of clothing that was lying there, it became clear that H. had lived there for a while. In the house were also a machine gun, more than 13,000 Ecstasy pills, almost three kilograms of amphetamine and an amount of 30,000 euros were found. The trail eventually leads to the house in Hilversum. And a half years ago, a photo with name of H. brought out. This happens only in very exceptional cases and only after permission of the Chief Prosecutor and the President of the National Platform Detection Coverage. |
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Post by Bonobo on Aug 8, 2012 21:43:25 GMT 1
Polish celebrities can be hopeless assholes too. I sometimes listen to the programme while I drive to work - yes, it is satirical, they make fun of ebrything and everybody but in that case they went too far. Radio station fined after xenophobic remarks on breakfast show
01.08.2012 08:33
Commercial radio station Eska Rock has been fined 75,000 zloty (18,000 euro) after two of its morning presenters made xenophobic remarks about Ukrainians.
Kuba
www.thenews.pl/50499edd-0029-45a6-bebc-bdcba4534a6e.file
Kuba Wojewodzki: photo - wikipedia
Popular radio hosts Kuba Wojewodzki and Michal Figurski made the controversial remarks in the wake of Ukraine's 2-1 victory against Sweden on 11 June in the Euro 2012 tournament.
Wojewodzki, who also presents a TV show on the TVN channel, 'joked' to his co-host after the game that he “behaved like a true Pole and chucked out his Ukrainian cleaner.”
Figurski replied that this was “a good idea,” and that “out of spite, I won't pay her today,”
Wojewodzki went on to say that if his [Ukrainian cleaner] had been “a bit prettier he would have raped her anyway.”
Poland's National Radio and Television Council found the remarks “offensive to Ukrainians and women in general”.
The radio hosts have defended themselves by claiming the remarks were “satirical”.
Wojewodzki has a history of making racist jokes in his TV and radio work.
When co-hosting an episode of the Polish edition of the X-Factor talent-show, the presenter made comments about cannibalism to a contestant of Nigerian background.
In October 2011, Radio Eska was again fined 50,000 zloty (11,700 euro) in connection with remarks made during an edition of his show from earlier that year.
“Let's call the black man,” it was announced on the show, prior to interviewing a spokesman for Poland's Main Road Transport Inspectorate who was half-Indian. |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 23, 2013 22:18:52 GMT 1
Outrage after '3 throws at a Jew' football fan game
20.02.2013 09:45
Local government in Lodz, central Poland, says that a game played by fans of first division football club LKS Lodz, where objects were thrown at 'a Jew', is “offensive and anti-Semitic”.
LKS Lodz fans held an indoor football tournament in a sports hall adjoining their stadium at the weekend, but as was noted on fan web site LKSfans.pl, “another attraction provided for people not playing football was a humorous game in which you could throw various objects (including a ninja star) at a model dressed in the players' strip of our neighbour [and arch rivals Widzew Lodz]".
Daubed onto the wall next to the model was a slogan asking fans to pay 2 zloty for “three throws at the Jew.”
A video (which was removed on Wednesday morning) uploaded onto the web site LKSfans.pl shows a fan landing a ninja star in the face of the 'Jew.'
The sports hall where last weekend's tournament took place is run by the Lodz's Municipal Sport and Recreation Centre (MOSiR).
“The anti-Semitic and offensive behaviour of participants in the tournament leads MOSiR to make the decision to never rent out the the hall again for this type of event,” Marcin Maslowski, a press spokesman for Lodz's mayor told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Local prosecutors are looking into whether the football fans' game is prosecutable under Poland's hate laws, according to the PAP news agency.
Lodz, Poland's third biggest city, had one of the country's largest Jewish communities prior to World War II.
Widzew Lodz has a history of being labelled as a “Jewish side” - in much the same way as Ajax Amsterdam or London's Tottenham Hotspurs do - and the club is frequently referred to by fans from some rival sides as Zydzew (using the Polish word Zyd, which means 'Jew').
Matches involving Widzew Lodz were among those filmed in the BBC's controversial Panorama documentary Stadiums of Hate, which was aired prior to Poland and Ukraine's hosting of Euro 2012
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Post by pjotr on Feb 23, 2013 23:56:10 GMT 1
A surprising Pollack joke commercial was produced by Agata Podedworny, a Pole born in the USA. She owns the Alchemy vodka brand. See the commercial: www.snotr.com/video/638I wonder what you think about it. First remark: the music they play in the background isn`t Polish. It is some Russian war song. The heavy accent of the English speaker is also Russian. What the heck? Second remark: I read that American Polonia is outraged. It reminds me of the stereotypes of Dutch people in many American movies and sitcoms, they are always a sort of simplistic dumb half Germans. There is a tendency in America to make simplistic versions of Europeans. For Dutch people it is not nice to see the stereotype of Dutch people as being a mix of blunt vulgar racist Afrikaner South-Africans and Germans who speak bad German and are shown as Dutch people. But, ofcourse the Polish-Americans are a larger victim. because there are more Polak-American jokes. |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 24, 2013 0:01:59 GMT 1
Outrage after '3 throws at a Jew' football fan game
20.02.2013 09:45
Local government in Lodz, central Poland, says that a game played by fans of first division football club LKS Lodz, where objects were thrown at 'a Jew', is “offensive and anti-Semitic”.
LKS Lodz fans held an indoor football tournament in a sports hall adjoining their stadium at the weekend, but as was noted on fan web site LKSfans.pl, “another attraction provided for people not playing football was a humorous game in which you could throw various objects (including a ninja star) at a model dressed in the players' strip of our neighbour [and arch rivals Widzew Lodz]".
Daubed onto the wall next to the model was a slogan asking fans to pay 2 zloty for “three throws at the Jew.”
A video (which was removed on Wednesday morning) uploaded onto the web site LKSfans.pl shows a fan landing a ninja star in the face of the 'Jew.'
The sports hall where last weekend's tournament took place is run by the Lodz's Municipal Sport and Recreation Centre (MOSiR).
“The anti-Semitic and offensive behaviour of participants in the tournament leads MOSiR to make the decision to never rent out the the hall again for this type of event,” Marcin Maslowski, a press spokesman for Lodz's mayor told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Local prosecutors are looking into whether the football fans' game is prosecutable under Poland's hate laws, according to the PAP news agency.
Lodz, Poland's third biggest city, had one of the country's largest Jewish communities prior to World War II.
Widzew Lodz has a history of being labelled as a “Jewish side” - in much the same way as Ajax Amsterdam or London's Tottenham Hotspurs do - and the club is frequently referred to by fans from some rival sides as Zydzew (using the Polish word Zyd, which means 'Jew').
Matches involving Widzew Lodz were among those filmed in the BBC's controversial Panorama documentary Stadiums of Hate, which was aired prior to Poland and Ukraine's hosting of Euro 2012 Do the fans of use the word "Jew" as a reappropriation? Polish jews, Polish judaism made of 10% of the Polish population and they contributed a lot to Poland. Like Tufta, correctly said during the centuries there was a lot of mixing between the Catholic Poles and jews. Maybe the fans of Widzew Lodz should be proud Zyds.   Something like this? Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 24, 2013 0:03:37 GMT 1
It reminds me of the stereotypes of Dutch people in many American movies and sitcoms, they are always a sort of simplistic dumb half Germans. There is a tendency in America to make simplistic versions of Europeans. For Dutch people it is not nice to see the stereotype of Dutch people as being a mix of blunt vulgar racist Afrikaner South-Africans and Germans who speak bad German and are shown as Dutch people. It means national derision is global. |
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Post by Bonobo on Feb 24, 2013 0:07:53 GMT 1
Maybe the fans of Widzew Lodz should be proud Zyds. Something like this? Cheers, Pieter Peter, I don`t know about £ód¼ but we, Jews from Krakow, are proud of our Polish Jewish heritage.  |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 24, 2013 0:46:37 GMT 1
Polish celebrities can be hopeless not a very nice persons too. I sometimes listen to the programme while I drive to work - yes, it is satirical, they make fun of ebrything and everybody but in that case they went too far. Radio station fined after xenophobic remarks on breakfast show
01.08.2012 08:33
Commercial radio station Eska Rock has been fined 75,000 zloty (18,000 euro) after two of its morning presenters made xenophobic remarks about Ukrainians.
Kuba
www.thenews.pl/50499edd-0029-45a6-bebc-bdcba4534a6e.file
Kuba Wojewodzki: photo - wikipedia
Popular radio hosts Kuba Wojewodzki and Michal Figurski made the controversial remarks in the wake of Ukraine's 2-1 victory against Sweden on 11 June in the Euro 2012 tournament.
Wojewodzki, who also presents a TV show on the TVN channel, 'joked' to his co-host after the game that he “behaved like a true Pole and chucked out his Ukrainian cleaner.”
Figurski replied that this was “a good idea,” and that “out of spite, I won't pay her today,”
Wojewodzki went on to say that if his [Ukrainian cleaner] had been “a bit prettier he would have raped her anyway.”
Poland's National Radio and Television Council found the remarks “offensive to Ukrainians and women in general”.
The radio hosts have defended themselves by claiming the remarks were “satirical”.
Wojewodzki has a history of making racist jokes in his TV and radio work.
When co-hosting an episode of the Polish edition of the X-Factor talent-show, the presenter made comments about cannibalism to a contestant of Nigerian background.
In October 2011, Radio Eska was again fined 50,000 zloty (11,700 euro) in connection with remarks made during an edition of his show from earlier that year.
“Let's call the black man,” it was announced on the show, prior to interviewing a spokesman for Poland's Main Road Transport Inspectorate who was half-Indian.It is good that they are punished, I am always disgusted by racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and targeting vulnerable minorities in general. Unfortunately everywhere where you have a white mjoritiy and a black and colored minority, these minorities will be the victim of racism, discrimination and xenophobia. It exists in Poland, The Netherlands (yes, Holland too), Belgium, Germany, France, Great-Britain, Italy (I have seen the racist behavior of Italian police towards black people who did nothing offensive.), Scandinavian countries (in Copenhagen one evening I was sitting on a terrace of a pub next to Danish Neo-Nazi's ofcourse. I don't understand Danish, but due to some English and Dutch/German words in Danish I witnessed or understood that they made racist and xenophobe remarks. In Arnhem one evening a large group of German neo-nazi's entered our pub. A friend of mine had to calm me down, and I felt uncomfortable in their intimidating presence). The same with groups of Dutch Hooligans from other groups than Ajax, who shout: " Hamas-Hamas, jews to the Gas". But there lately was also a racist incident when supporters of a Southern soccer club shouted racist monkey slogans to black players of a Northern club. A black friend of mine said that during his life he developped a thick skin for direct and indirect racist behavior. He lives in the Netherlands since 1960. He is a Black Dutch man who speaks Duch exellent, without an accent, with good grammar and orthography. He is a cultural intellectual, studied and graduated at the Rotterdam Art Academy, worked in an Art gallery and he collects fine art, paintings, graphical art and Ethnographic artifacts like maskes, shields, furniture and sculptures from Africa, New Guinea and Southern-America (Native Indian cultures). He has African, European and Native Indian ancesters. But this intelligent man experianced several times in his life that white compatriots see him as less qualified or primitive due to his skin color. That is very humiliating. He is also discriminated by Muslim migrants like Turks and Moroccans, of whom some look down on the Black Dutch people. He hates that, and had conflicts with these people. Fact is that sometimes amongst a group of 100 % white Caucacian people sometimes suddenly racist or xenophobic remarks can occur. Because what is easier to make fun of the "Other" who is black, Muslim, non-European, brown, Yellow (Asian), Jewish or of a clearly different European background (Slavic, Rumanian, Hungarian, Turkish, Greek, Portuges or Spanish -they have often black hair, dark eyes and darker skin colors than the North-West-Europeans. But also Germans or Belgians (due to their Dutch accent) can be seen as different and targets of jokes, like the sick jokes about the Ukrainian. That jokes about the Ukrainian cleaning lady reminds me of a book I read of the former speaker of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg told in this book how his German jewish father discriminated East-Jews (Ostjuden) and that he had difficulties with the French (Jewish) wife of his son, until he found out that she came from Stassbourg, Elsas-Lotharingen, the former German part of France. His father made 'racist' remarks about Georgian jews, and hos son confronted his father with that. You could compare this with racism and discrimination amongst Colonial powers. The Roman-Catholics Belgians opressed the Black Catholics of Congo on a brutal manner. German and Austrian Roman-Catholic nazi's destroyed, tortured and murdered Roman-Catholic Polish 'brethern' and 'sisters'. But that Roman-Catholicism also rescued my babcia's life, who was helped with food, water and warmth and sympathy by Austrian Roman-Catholics, who helped a fellow Roman-Catholic in Nazi Austria. French Roman-Catholics were not so nice to Italian Roman-Catholics, and probably there are some tensions between Irish-Americans. Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans, who make up the majority of Roman-Catholic Americans as well. I can't prove it, but ethnic and cultural tensions exist. Maybe Jeanne can tell us something about that? Do for instance Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans make Polak jokes? Cheers, Pieter |
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Post by pjotr on Feb 24, 2013 0:55:15 GMT 1
Maybe the fans of Widzew Lodz should be proud Zyds. Something like this? Cheers, Pieter Peter, I don`t know about £ód¼ but we, Jews from Krakow, are proud of our Polish Jewish heritage. That is good Bo, it is the same as the true Amsterdam people, with their typical Amsterdam dialect (colored by Yiddish and Flemish influences merged with Northern-Holland regional dialects) are proud of their Yiddish accent dialect, jewish past and thus Dutch jewish heritage (which ofcourse for a large part is Polish-Jewish, Russian-jewish, German Ashkenaz Jewish and Portugese -Sephardic jewish- in it's core roots) |
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Post by Bonobo on Jun 1, 2013 19:49:06 GMT 1
Another act of racism against immigrants in Poland. Pity.
Interior minister vows to tackle racist crime
23.05.2013 12:02
Interior minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz has pledged to treat the north eastern city of Bialystok as “a training ground” for combating racism, after a series of hate crimes there.
Interior
“In my opinion the situation has got so bad there that we have to treat it as a training ground,” he told the Krytyka Polityczna web site.
“We are preparing a programme with the Minister of Administration,” he affirmed, adding that the regional governor will also be working with local authorities.
In recent weeks, a mixed Polish and Indian couple and two Chechen families came under attack in separate incidents at a housing estate in the city.
Unidentified assailants set the flats of the families alight by nightfall.
In the wake of the third crime, Sienkiewicz said that the perpetrators were “moral degenerates”, adding that “as far as skinhead circles are concerned – we're coming after you.”
Sienkiewicz told Krytyka Polityczna that he made such comments “so that the perpetrators of racist violence start to be afraid, and not the victims, as unfortunately, it's the latter scenario that we have in Bialystok at the moment.”
The minister has appointed a special team to find the perpetrators of the crimes.
The search will see cooperation between the Internal Security Agency (ABW) and local police. A reward of 10,000 zloty (2400 euro) has been set up for information that might lead to the capture of the assailant.
Meanwhile, echoing a pledge by the mayor of Bialystok, Tadeusz Truskolaski, plans are afoot to introduce social, educational programmes to combat racism.
The Bialystok region has witnessed many highly publicised racist incidents over the last two years, including an arson attack on a Muslim Cultural Centre, vandalism of Jewish graveyards and monuments, and the defacement of 28 Lithuanian road signs (there is a significant Lithuanian minority in the region).  |
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Post by Bonobo on Jun 1, 2013 20:07:56 GMT 1
Roma take legal action over 'racist' pop song
21.05.2013 11:08
The Association of Roma in Poland has filed a complaint with a public prosecutor's office in Poznan, western Poland, over an allegedly 'racist' pop song.
Roman Kwiatkowski, chairman of the association, was drawn attention to lyrics by the Bracia Figo Fagot group, after discovering that the pop band was due to perform at an annual student festival in Poznan this Thursday.
The song in question includes the lines: “Darling, please abort that Gypsy/ The Gypsy is a thief and always will be,” ("Kochana, wyskrob prosze tego Cygana. Cygan to zlodziej i tak juz zostanie").
“It is degrading, and below any form of human dignity,” Kwiatkowski told Polish Radio.
“There are Roma among the students, how do you think they feel?”
Bracia Figo Fagot are known for sending up the so-called Disco Polo pop genre (a thumping, unpretentious type of Polish pop).
However, Kwiatkowski said he was unimpressed by any of the band's supposed irony.
“In my opinion, every joke has its limits,” he said.
Kwiatkowski has appealed for Bracia Figo Fagot to drop the offending song from its repertoire on Thursday, and has suggested that a Roma group should also play at the event.Polish gypsies: 
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Post by pjotr on Jun 1, 2013 23:58:14 GMT 1
Bonobo,
This reminds me of Solingen in Germany in the early ninetees where far right extremists attacked an apartment building with asylum seekers or foreigners and set them alight, cheered by the local population. In Germany, with strict anti-nazi legislation, this could happen. After that in the Ninetees a special anti-Neo-Nazi police unit was formed to fight far right extremism under German youth.
Pieter
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