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The borders of virtue and power
Closing borders: to refugees, to undocumented migrants, raises questions of virtue and questions of power. The public debate around borders is so fractured, so superficial, so bedevilled with assumption and ritual conflict that it conveys little new meaning. It simply reiterates the existence of a continuing contest – a contest that often is more about power than rights. In this contest we see progressively increasing brutality and violence. Resort to force, implicit or explicit, is the modern day tool of choice underpinning this public debate. Whether in the sophisticated armory and defenses of international borders or the increasing instances of riot of those who assert their freedom. The tiny island of Lampedusa saw such an example this…
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Do Foreigners Have the Same Human Rights as the Rest of Us?
At the core of human rights is the axiomatic truth that human beings have inherent rights: that all human beings are equal and possessed of dignity and that violation of such rights is both morally offensive and legally impermissible. An alternative ordering of human relationships is mandated by exclusive national citizenship. Implicitly and explicitly national citizenship counsels the primacy of the privileged ‘citizen’ over the ‘non-citizen’ ‘other’. Everywhere we see the manifestation of this ordering in gross, systematic and widespread human rights violations: in our laws, practices, attitudes and media. Some of ‘us’ are the privileged beneficiaries of those violations: and we violate the human rights of foreigners as if…
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Lush – cosmetic or real
By Rahila Gupta. The EU is on the point of turning its back on the Schengen agreement. Welcome to the World Passport: ‘this document confirms that its bearer is a human being, and not an alien’. Rahila Gupta reports on the campaign for open borders From 23 May, Lush, the ethical cosmetics business will run a week-long campaign for open borders, distribute a broadsheet on immigration produced by the group No One is Illegal (NOII) and stock the inspiring book Open Borders by Teresa Hayter throughout their network of 90 stores in the UK. The campaign itself will kick off with Aaron Barschak and members of NOII attempting to board…
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Why Global Citizenship?
1. Introduction Plutarch said: … nature has given us no country as it has given us no house or field. … Socrates expressed it … when he said, he was not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world (just as a man calls himself a citizen of Rhodes or Corinth).[1] Plutarch urged his audience to become conscious of a wider reality and to exercise their imagination to overcome a narrow, localised conception of their identity. That is the role of my global citizenship claim too. Plutarch and Socrates did not conceive of the world as a globe,[2] as I do: I have travelled across the world;…
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Abolish Foreignness
Eight million children under the age of five die each year from largely preventable causes. One billion people live in abject poverty. Thousands die crossing international borders while fleeing poverty, war or persecution. Rich countries reinforce barriers, laws and measures to prevent people crossing their borders. Hundreds of thousands are held in migration prisons as if they were criminals. 67 million people live as refugees or are internally displaced as a result of persecution, war, poverty or other causes. Believing that human beings are “foreigners” makes such profound human rights violations possible.
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The Berlin Wall and Barack Obama
In recent days Germans and those affected by the Cold War are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is an anniversary worth celebrating. A chasm between the politics of the west and the communist world dissolved and people that had been kept apart for 40 years were suddenly able to come together. The process has not always been easy and far from perfect, particularly in respect of poverty. Nonetheless walls came down: literally and metaphorically. The White House press release on 6 November leading up to the event says little beyond congratulations: On the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the fall…
