Saswat Blog

Where would one read all this at one point?
1.Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, JF Kennedy, Mother Teresa, Freedom & Unity, You!, and Me!
2.Chicano Power!
3.We did not cross your borders—The border crossed US!
4.Dignidad!
5.Bush is the real criminal. Not us!
6.Bush & Fox Build a North America with Open Borders! Reform USA, Mexico, Canada.
7.All Americans are immigrants to this country—USA! Increase peace and love to all people of color
8.Arnold—Back to Hollywood
9.We are the People
10.My Hands built America Each Day. I am not a Criminal. We are not terrorists
11.You say Immigrants, like it’s a bad thing!

At today’s rally where more than a half a million people took to streets to denounce the HR 4437 (aimed at amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to strengthen enforcement of the immigration laws, to enhance border security, and for other purposes).

What the president says on Thursday as “I urge people who like to comment on this issue to make sure the rhetoric is in accord with our traditions” is being interpreted on Saturday as violating the real American tradition of being a country of immigrants. What’s the real issue then?

Well the issue is actually beyond the rhetoric. The President in 2004 had proposed a change to the existing immigration laws. And this was even way before the polls. He said: “If an American employer is offering a job that American citizens are not willing to take, we ought to welcome into our country a person who will fill that job… We should not give unfair rewards to illegal immigrants in the citizenship process or disadvantage those who came here lawfully, or hope to do so.” He proposed then that the workers should be asked to leave. Not as an entirely ungrateful gesture, the workers should be given incentives. For example, retirement benefits in their land of births.

The heartening thing here is that the highest officials in America realize that there are certain jobs that “American citizens are not willing to take”. Like cleaning the dishes, standing by the fast food counters, handing gas stations, working at 7-Elevens, selling goods to immigrants speaking their language, road constructions, building repairs, or even installing cables for telecom giants.

And yet, these are the strenuous jobs that build any country. Without these works being done by the “illegals” and “aliens” that provide food, clothing and shelter to “American citizens”, this country would not be imaginable. The image of America worldwide is synonymous with huge roads, big buildings, and trendy people. This image would have changed long back if not for the ablest helps coming from the immigrants—legal and otherwise.

Of course, the country is not unequivocal about it. As the post 9/11 experience clearly showed, America was no more the country of the immigrants. It was suddenly a country blessed by God meant for Americans. Large scale distrusts were permitted to flow towards people who did not affix that bumper sticker with “God Bless America” despite the fact that people had to shave their beards so as not to look like followers of different types of Gods.

Today, many immigrants of the earlier generations have been convinced by a rhetoric of “what constitutes an American” that they—who form a majority among the minorities, more than 41 million people—are believing that they are now more Americans than the prospective immigrants. Simply because they have been recognized as thus, and are being rewarded for being thus. In an entire movement which should be directed at understanding the underprivileged 11 million “illegals”, today even their own counterparts are prompt to condemn them. These benefited immigrants now do not consider the issues of the illegals as an “American issue”. For them, it’s just an “immigration issue” which they have overcome already in their life! The common shared struggles of all people of color in this country is now being deliberately wiped off the collective memory by categorizing them into different resident status, thus weakening the already weak further. This divides not just a movement to reclaim what’s due to them, considering the arduous hourly jobs they have done with honesty and in return paid paltry sums, of which 40 per cent goes to unknown quarters, it also defeats any amount of potential discourse that can be held regarding the sensitive issue.

“Guest Worker” is the real rhetoric, and the country should have an understanding of it. If the president wants people to believe that being American is a lifelong experience, not a process of legal naturalization (“An understanding of what it means to be an American is not a formality in the naturalization process, it is essential to full participation in our democracy”), then it is obvious that living in America to tirelessly labor and serve is part of that lifelong experience. 11 million people residing in this country are being considered as illegal, which also means they have been living in a state of despair (low wage, no work benefits). The proposed law merely aims at “legalizing” them, not “Americanizing” them. Years of their cheap labor have always been perpetrated by the employers who have been full American citizens. The onus must not lie so much on the disadvantaged $6/hr worker as it should be on the billion dollars/year profiteering multinationals that have hired them at that. Agreed that’s little more than the minimum wage, but the minimum wage standards in this country have not been revised at par with the profit scales of the monopolists.

There are just two ways of working at it. One, to grant citizenship to the people who are willing to stay in this country and continue to work laboriously—of course after their minimum wages are increased. Or, two, to let them stay and work in their present status quo—where they have at least a liberty of social mobility without being discriminated against by a system that distrusts immigrants to begin with. (How many more Law and Order episodes will show immigrant hookers and how many more awards will Crash movie receive for stereotyping Chinese as “human smugglers”?)

The middle ground, which is being proposed now, is quite fishy. Maybe by documenting the illegals now, it is easy for the administration to keep a track of them. But at the same time, since they are not going to get privileged by their “participation in American democracy” (of casting a vote, basically—-many of which as we know were not even counted at crucial juncture that would have saved all these posts today), they are clearly going to be discriminated against—‘systematically’ this time. Once someone is branded as an entity that’s not going to evolve into higher stages of humanly dignified life of being acknowledged in the country of work, the employers sure know how to throw their weights around. Not that the case is any different now. Now the undocumented ones are clearly facing wrath. The politicians who do not come out of the Hill should take a public transport sometimes just to see the state of those people—standing in a queue for daily wage works at Langley Park squares—15 minutes from the Downtown DC! But if the undocumented ones are allowed to work undocumented, the only difference would be that they keep their money in their own pockets, and not in a bank for direct withdrawals.

Apart from the emotions involved in this issue (which is why it is so sensitive)—and the emotions must be considered while dealing with deprived human beings (oh come on, I know capital, not society that takes precedence here, but with all the talks about God, at least it should be a good ethical try)—there are direct economic issues at stake here. There are no guarantees that once these people go back to their countries, they will receive their ‘incentives’. I mean, not only are there no previous examples of this kind, but there are ample evidence to suggest that not all regimes everywhere in the world actually are friendly with the current Bush administration to agree to its proposal. And certainly not the opposition parties in those countries, who after coming to power will stop recognizing any such deals. Thirdly, if those countries were wealthy and willing enough to accommodate these people, the people would not land up here. Fourthly, and the most basic one, is the rightful claim of the workers. They have so far toiled hard in bettering this country, by managing, repairing, amending this country. They have always tried to learn how to make sense of different accents of American English spoken with variety of tones, often laced with racial slurs, slangs and sexual overtones. The least claim they can make is to get a parity. A full participation in the democratic process of the country, as the President said. The question is if they are made devoid of eventual citizenship, their legal claims to grey areas will still remain inaccessible. Without citizenship, any of their claims can land them in a way that may still lead to their deportation. And now, all the baseball and basketball fans of the land know, that is not fair. Heads they lose, tails they lose?

The movement of more than 500,000 people at LA is a symbolic protest against the long line of unfair treatment. However, it’s not such a Catch22 as it is made out to be. The choice is clear in this case. People, who are already citizens, who are otherwise legal immigrants, and the clearly privileged yet sensitized Americans must realize that the accrued benefits do not need to be at the cost of inflicted injustice. At that point, silence becomes unethical.

A flyer on my table top reads: “We put food on the table and clothing on people’s backs and do the work most Americans don’t want to do for less money than many Americans will work for; and now they want me to say I’m thankful because they’re giving me amnesty, even though most of the people I know won’t get it. Just because I am legal all of a sudden doesn’t mean I’ll forget those who aren’t.”

This should wake the fellow immigrants to make it a 41-million legalized support for another 11 million illegals. And the rest of over 250 million people who realize that we all are immigrants to the country at one point or another (and in not so distant past!) should lend a strong support to either completely naturalize the unfortunates, or let them not pay as taxpayers to prolonged hawkish causes.

And for the fellow jubilated privileged immigrants who every now and then feel they deserved to get the ticket to the polling booths, they should realize it’s merely incidental. So incidental that they cannot even “fully” participate in democracy to challenge a presidential candidate simply on the grounds that they were not born in this land. Now if that’s incidental, why can’t the “illegalities” of the “aliens”? Because it’s written on the wall of a system?

No Worker can be Illegal. Its the ones who do not work and instead live off the labor of others who need be put to test. “First they came for the illegals, but we were not one!...?” Look out!

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.


Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

(Bob Dylan (1963). His anthem for the American Freedom Movement of the 60’s!)

Class societies thrive on racial discriminations. And Europe provides the recent most glaring example.

In November 2005, when a huge number of young people from the minority communities protested in France, it was being called a riot. The race-blindness that afflicts the privileged French exhibited its true color when the Blacks and the Muslims were being systematically deprived of what has been their overdue.

Of course the skepticism was thus because the protestors were immigrant youths who took to the street to register their discomfort against mass-scale discriminations. Although it continued for weeks, there were no signs of organized violence or even sporadic assaults. They could not yet be termed as the so-called “terrorists” for acts they never committed. But they were treated as just short of it. The French government did not care a franc for their demands. The elite people of the mainland France turned their cheeks to the “Other France”—the France which we rarely read about, the France that is suppressed beneath the sleaze and neon of perfumes and Eiffel Tower.

In November, the official statements coming from France dismissed the protests as riots that needed to be controlled by the police state. And control they did. Towing the democratic norms, the country went back to business as normally as possible. The resisting voices were silenced. The media changed headlines and the protestors were detained mass-scale.

I talked to some of my friends from Europe who professed complete ignorance regarding consequences of such vandalism. They claimed it was just a minority work and is probably a race thing, but since the government says France has no race issues, then it must be just some kind of agitation. It will be over very soon, just like the strikes at Charles de Gaulle.

Well, undermining the race factor came easy for the administration the last time. But the embarrassing fact is that Muslims still constitute the largest proportion of unemployed youth in that color-blind country.

This time, more than a million French youths are on the streets! They have actively and vociferously supported the just demands of the “immigrant youths” who took to the streets last November. Not only that, a huge majority of French youths, of all colors have decided to follow the examples of the minority protestors. This must be really awkward for the administrators to know, but historically, every race based conflict has culminated into a larger class warfare where majority of working class people have always lent their support to the discriminated social minorities.

The elites, who are elites both in terms of their inherited race privileges and acquired class privileges must be on guard now, because they are now going to combat not just some small group of disciplined protestors who are too scared to harm anyone, but a huge majority of disenchanted, alienated organized youths who are not scared to topple the power structure.

Hundreds of youths have already been involved in violence that saw bottles and rocks hurled at the police and journalists and left at least two cars burned, three others overturned and dozens damaged. Railways have been blockaded, airports disrupted, and up to two thirds of France’s universities and schools have been occupied or disrupted. Clashes with police have been occurring throughout the country.
Some of the Indymedia pics demonstrate the facets that the mainstream media is gleefully ignoring: That it is a united effort by people of all races who are affected economically. This is a large scale Class war, and it can happen anywhere in today’s world!

The so-called democratic state will obviously not wake up. It has proven what a zilch it cares for labor laws when it proclaims that young people can be fired anytime without any reason! The Union-bias of French administration sounds as shallow as the Liberal-bias of American media. The lip-service has been done for way too long now. The reality is that no law in the world has ever been passed in favor of the working people anywhere until and unless the people have taken to mass demonstration to demand for fair treatment. The French students, just like the American students in the times of Dylan in the 60’s, are demanding for social justice, anti-war stances, pro-minority treatments, and secured pro-labor laws. France is reeling under huge unemployment rates, starting from 10% for the Whites to 50% for the minorities. 80% of all education institutes are under-funded and in even worse shape than the equally less-talked about public schools in Washington DC. Only a small elite population, just like in the days of the royals (not that it has withered away anywhere from the enlightened Europe), keep enjoying the privileges of secured life.

Vilgot Sjöman had created I am Curious-Blue and Yellow, to showcase the class society of Sweden even at the prime of its so-called claim to petty bourgeois socialism. And the film revealed in multi-layers the utter hypocrisy that exists among Swedish society that claims to have socialist pro-labor stances and yet thrives only upon a class society assumption. People everywhere in Swedent were shown justifying why manual workers need to get paid much less than the thinking elites.

In France of today, the situation is no different. All these underfed schools are producing students in an atmosphere that does not respect manual labor works. French government not only projects its elitist biases in promoting the cultures of France as that of a monolithic sophistication, it even looks at the societal unrest issues from that very lens (of elitism). Unfortunately, the governments in such hoax democracies that do not give two hoots even to its future (the young insecure students) will always be run by the elites, for the elites.

Race war, it could have avoided despite Algerian crisis, but the class war is one the whole of Europe will need to watch out for; for the crisis rests not in Africa, its actually nearer home. Right outside the windows.

Now that the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has toned down his rhetoric after a crisis meeting, what should be the alternatives?

Paris riots are the most significant popular revolution taken place in recent times. It is noteworthy because they are violent, yet they are not taking lives of innocent people. In this manner they are indicative that this is symbolic of the oppressed. As for the oppressors we have seen more than 300 arrests already. More will follow. Once the so-called peace is restored by the authorities, the official riots will take place inside the prisons. And the difference between the riots that are caused by the oppressed and those that are caused by oppressors are vast. One is in defense, the other is in authoritarian suppression. However both types of riots have the similar consequences for the oppressed group. Either way, they are arrested and attacked at the slightest or no provocation.

Amnesty International only 7 months ago had declared that the “The French government ministers, judges and senior police officers are allowing members of the police force to use excessive and sometimes lethal force against suspects of Arab and African origin without fear of serious repercussions.”

So much so that, in the case of Ahmed Selmouni, (July 1999), the European Court of Human Rights had to intervene since France had violated the prohibition against torture as well as the right to fair trial within a reasonable time. Despite its intervention, the case only reached the French courts several years after the violations had been committed, and under pressure of the European Court investigation.

And when one French court decided to sentence one police officer to an “exemplary” prison term, owing to the demands of the public, that too failed, when police unions expressed their anger in the streets. Of course in a police state, it is a known fact as to who controls the rule of the jungle. The police officers who were the perpetrators in this case continued merrily in their police careers as their “honor” needed to defended, than their criminal conduct. Institutional racism of France has been well recorded and so are increasing cases of police violence.

Human Rights Watch too has monitored racist and xenophobic violence in Western Europe, including against Arabs and Muslims in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the United States. It has condemned these attacks, which have included verbal abuse, physical assaults and attacks on mosques-and express alarm that they continue.

In wake of these racist process (not some aberrant incidents) the media need to focus on Western Europe’s continuing saga of racism and state-sponsored violence. The next G-8 (including Chechnya-ravaged Russia) meeting should focus on generating a mass apology for the callousness and indifference that the top capitalist countries have so far displayed to a carefully orchestrated exclusionary approach they have chosen when it has come to the so-called immigrants. In addition, France should immediately do the following:

1. Investigate what led to the deaths of two teenagers on Oct 27, that led to riots. They ran for at least one kilometer before taking shelter in a place that got them killed. It obviously was not some english channel race they were upto. They were trying desperately to save their lives. From the police. This time at least, unlike ever before, the government must book the police officers responsible for these two deaths and punish them exemplarily. No matter if the police fraternity gets to streets. They are on the streets everyday anyway. Remember when the lawmakers break laws, common people have no one to turn to than the electrocuted cells.

2. Sack Sarkozy immediately. He has admittedly changed his rhetoric. Highly irresponsible right-wingers like him should be immediately not tolerated by any civic society. Instead of trying to deconstruct his government’s collective apathy, he was fast in his approach to apprehend “hooligans”. Indeed he is the master enactor of the drama just to appease a racist society to elect his likes in coming 2007 elections.

3. Release the rioters: Just the way democracy allows for people to vote, it allows them rights to protest. This protest was long overdue. Yes some vehicles have been burnt. But the rich folks can get it back from the insurance company. Yet they are unaware of the real root cause of violence in a class society where they are instrumental in hundreds of official deaths of the poor and secluded. A dialogue, than arrests, is the need of the hour.

4. Stop official tortures: Police atrocities and flagrant violation in Paris is well recorded. Every step must be taken to stop that. The attacks are done on Arabs and Africans and since they don’t own the media outlets, the news reach very late if some “liberal” La Monde ever publishes such stories. But the statistics even by INSEE demonstrates the racial biases in these tortures.

5. Facilitate immigration and grant due rights in a multicultural society. Just because the demographic profiling are not done properly does not mean France is not a multicultural society. Indeed the growing resentments of the racist society is owing to increasing number of immigrants. Hence the factor of diversity must be acknowledged and different cultural ethos must be respected at any cost. No form of any assimilation or any attempt to do so should be allowed ever. Forced or voluntary propaganda assimilation. People often assimilate to the extent of forgetting their own languages because that is cited as a condition for employment and decent living. The authorities must acknowledge their roles and reverse them for chrissake.

6. Equality, Liberty, Fraternity: Or whatever the statue of liberty ever meant to imply. Whereas there is 5% overall unemployment for university graduates in France, there is 26.5% unemployment for “North African” university graduates. This is indicative of biases in the field of employment for the Muslims and Blacks. This is 21st century slave-owners mindset afflicting the racist France. Everything must be done to ensure affirmative actions to reserve quotas in employment for minorities so that they are at least represented well and compensated well in lieu of all tortures that mainland France has caused and benefited from the Muslims and Blacks so far.

The riddles ghettos are the contradictions of capitalist France and it must do whatever to amend ways or await revolution by the oppressed masses.