Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Moving des trucs to Blogger

Given that I cannot move, that is myself, my books & my shoes - the housing truc in Geneva continues to be an odyssey and I stopped counting the refusals we got from the oh-so-wonderful regies - I decided to move my blog to this flowery place. Hence I escape the unsolicited ‘my advertisement’ - which bugs me immensely - and the irritating template problems - same… and even more important I spend some time not writing on my thesis. Procrastination is the word of the day (and desperation the one of tomorrow).

 

P.S. I have been told I should stop complaining… average flat hunt in Geneva is ‘normal’ to last 5 months. Next month I’ll start complaining then.

 

Posted by I. at 19:31:00 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

60 years… the same event, 2 souls, 2 realities

Posted by I. at 17:24:28 | Permalink | No Comments »

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Saudi Swissyland

While recently discussing ESC rights violations decomposed on gender, marriage and Swiss politics, I have been told that married women in Switzerland do not receive tax return slips. One might wonder if married women in this country are exempted from paying taxes. It’s true that such affirmative action might wash away ‘some’ of the incommensurate shame brought by the gender record of the Appenzell Innerrhoden canton. This marvel-of-direct-democracy-canton managed to ‘grant’ women the right to vote – only after it was ‘helped’ by a decision of the Federal Supreme Court – as early as in 1990 !!! (I cannot help noticing that the name of the mentioned Canton contains the word ‘[H]oden’ which in German means ‘testicles’… any link to the manly cantonal politics?!)

So, you ignorant wishful thinker, of course we have discrimination but not the positive sort. Sadly, at stake is the continuation of the gendered societal model which requires that a joint tax return be submitted in the name of the husband; thus, a wife has no separate existence as a taxpayer. As pointed out earlier, this is not surprising but it remains disgusting. Some food for thought for women on the point of getting married in this great Saudi Swissyland!

Posted by I. at 17:07:36 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

They do exist…

I am working for some time now and particularly intense this week on economic, social and cultural rights. As a visual intro in my new topic ESC rights trucs see this movie. If it does not challenge you – it should!!! – than at least it’s funny!

Posted by I. at 22:39:36 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Beyond populism: ignorance or mala fide

After the recent elections, one Italian friend was telling me that she is scouting for a new citizenship; another one disappointed uttered ‘Arrivederci Roma’. As Adi discusses – in Romanian – we see a trend towards “an European neo-fascism”. Indeed Mr. Alemanno, the newly elected mayor of Rome confirmed he is a man of honour and will keep his electoral promise by jumpstarting his mandate with the ‘immediate expulsion’ of the 20,000 immigrants in the city with criminal records… a measure intended to make Rome more secure, of course. I do give Mr. Alemanno the benefit of the doubt, he is surely not an ignorant nor is he acting in bad faith he simply is a populist – to be read fascist.

Mr. Frattini’s announced intention to ship back ‘home’ those immigrants that cannot prove they are earning a certain wage left me… thunderstruck. Mr. Frattini – probably the future foreign minister of Italy – although currently on holidays, continues to be the EU Commissioner responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security. I have to assume, given that he acted in this capacity during the last 3 ½ years that he was at least aware if not an expert in EU legislation on the topics covered by his mandate. When we the non EU Commissioners, go on holidays – as Mr. Frattini did for the last month or so – we don’t just become ignorants, we do not forget the job–related knowledge, or do we? Hence, clearly the EU Commissioner responsible not only for Security but also for Justice and Freedom must be familiar with articles 27 and 28 of the EU Citizens’ Directive 2004,  i.e. an EU citizen can only be expelled on “grounds of public policy, public security or public health”. In addition to the rigorous safeguards entailed by the two articles, existent European and national case law interpret this directive in a very strict manner; public security is to be read not merely as petty crime! Even serious crimes are weighed against, for example, the offender’s right to protection of family life.
                                                                                                                     

But, why am I throwing words away on this issue?! Common sense tells me Mr. Frattini is not an ignorant. Well, he must be acting in mala fide. The one of the most disgusting sort: post-electoral mala fide…

Posted by I. at 14:51:36 | Permalink | No Comments »

The current context differs, nonetheless history manuals could help as well…

In highschool during history class we received manuals from a Realschule in Germany. I was absolutely struck by the amount of information, the detailed-morbid modality and exemplar thoroughness in which the Nazi period was discussed in that school manual. True, my Romanian history book discussed communism… maximum 20 pages of complete generalities intended to cover 50 years of ‘events’. I was wondering the other day while reading the news how detailed & serious the discussion on the fascist period in the Italian history manuals is?

My hope, no, in fact my belief is that institutions – be they national or the European ones – will compensate human ‘failure’ and humans themselves will overcome scapegoatish temptations and continue building institutions.

Posted by I. at 10:23:54 | Permalink | No Comments »