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"No lines sector off the sky so high above, though all the nations of the Earth be bound about with borders."

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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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    Seeing With New Eyes: Ibn Al Haytham, Optics and Foreignness

    March 12, 2015
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    We Are One – Bahá’u’lláh’s Teachings Against Violence

    April 29, 2017

    Equal Pay for Equal Work

    December 28, 2011
  • On the nose: perfumer sparks racism furore

    Last month, I discussed a problem of foreignness emerging from France. This month, coincidentally, I again turn to a controversy from France that has gripped the world’s attention—one that reveals how language can create and perpetuate notions of Otherness and foreignness. Jean-Paul Guerlain, who once worked for the famous high-end cosmetics line that shares his last name as its name, has fallen under the media spotlight for racist remarks he recently made in an interview on French television. Out of decency, I will not reproduce his remarks on this blog, but major news media sources across the world such as The Guardian are reporting them. There is no question that…

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    February 13, 2011
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    October 5, 2016

    The Duty of Kindness and Sympathy Towards Strangers and Foreigners

    October 18, 2011
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