“Dear Elders, You may already know that I am legally required to send my sons to school because we live in Germany and home education is not permitted here. In this country, all children are taught a curriculum designed with only white children in mind. A quick flick through most standard school atlases will reveal… Read More »
It is somewhat depressing to have to say this, but in the light of the reaction to the Woolwich attack (see this article, contains today’s Guardian frontpage), and the fact that the attackers were promptly tagged as Islamic terrorists, it probably needs to be said over and over again: There are more than a billion… Read More »
My friend Hani Yousuf: A few weeks ago I met a pleasant Austrian woman at a party in a bar in Prenzlauerberg, the formerly East Berlin area now home to the young, professional and cool. It was a weeknight, lights in the bar were violet and dim and conversation was possible. We were celebrating a… Read More »
This is a pet peeve of mine. Why are European and North American media houses willing to splash pictures of dead and/or mutilated bodies of Africans on newspapers and on-air? I really have to find the time to do a proper post on the subject. But while you are waiting, see this, from G. Pascal… Read More »
As you’ve probably heard, the Pirate Party got elected into the Berlin state parliament late last year. They got 8.9% of the votes, which gave them 15 seats. Last month in local elections in another state, Saarland, they got 7.4% of the votes, but more importantly, they got 25% of the first-time voters and about… Read More »
Elizabeth Grant at Open Democracy: … so long as the narrative of a tolerant Germany is more important than the experience of those who are testing that dream, the country will be condemned to repeating these traumas and disgraces. Racism has much to do with accepting what you don’t understand, and, as such, the fight… Read More »
Robert Frisk writes in The Independent: The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become… Read More »
1.Immigrant networks are a rare bright spark in the world economy. Rich countries should welcome them – The Economist 2. What’s your flavour? Italian or Spanish? – BBC Business Editor 3. Black France – Africa is a country 4. The dangerous cocktail of global money and local politics – Moisés Naím 5. On Nigeria’s Petroleum… Read More »
I’d been waiting for the first major newspaper columnist to write something about this. Here it is, from Evans-Pritchard of The Telegraph: As I long feared, the flood of cheap credit into Southern Europe and the slow death of Club Med industry by currency asphyxiation have together created such a dangerous situation for world finance… Read More »
I have sadly never visited the Oktoberfest, and it seems that the longer I stay in Germany the more difficult it is to find any of my Berliner friends who thinks it is worth visiting. Something about it being too touristy and the beer being ridiculously overpriced. Plus there is some distance between Munich and… Read More »