Categoria: contemporary socio-economic situation

the new winter

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, works, projects, publications

Sure, much can be said about the reform that is known under the title

La buona scuola
and there may well be some positive aspects.
However, there is definitely a very good reason to populate today the squares and streets of Italy, in protest against the reforms.
Without going into detail, one aspect of the government measures is the precarisation of the position of teachers as the law
 prevede tra le altre cose l’assunzione di circa 100mila insegnanti precari
Interestingly precari translates easily into temporary.
  • if I hear teachers, talking about the situation at schools
  • if I listen to young people, talking about the situation after having left school or university and
  • if if I look at the various aspects of my current work, preparing the workshop on precarity, organised by TRANSFORM,
I can only hope that the protest reaches a level that urges politicians (and actually not only here in Italy) to move beyond temporary measures.
One point that is frightening: starting with precarisation of the teachers’ positions at school has the “side effect” of normalisation, of brainwashing, making young people think and accept that the lack of security is the only thing that can be taken for granted …
… Much remains to be done, though it may well be that it is not the reestablishment of old securities within societies that are characterised by extrem inequality. Instead …

She sang the heavenly lullaby,
The old song of abnegation,
By which the people, this giant fool,
Is lulled from its lamentation.

I know the tune, I know the words,
I also know every author;
I know they secretly drank wine,
While publicly preaching water.

A new song, a better song,
My friends will be my aim!
We should, right now on earth,

A kingdom of heaven proclaim.
Truth not only to be considered in Heine’s Germany

Migration – aren’t there any ways to stop criminals?

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general

Yes, it is a heading that can easily be mistaken, but reading about EU-policy and referring “being criminal” to various policy makers, and the new Foreign Office minister, Lady Anelay, will hopefully easily get you there.

It is a disgrace, reading in yesterday’s Guardian

British policy was quietly spelled out in a recent House of Lords written answer by the new Foreign Office minister, Lady Anelay: “We do not support planned search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean,” she said, adding that the government believed there was “an unintended ‘pull factor’, encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths”.

What we currently see as anti-migrant policies is unbearably when considering the human tragedy and it leaves only one demand: If we are serious about human rights people like Anelay should be immediately convicted.

(For the original reference click here)

Disappointments

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation

Following up on the recent post, here is something more on the issue of the European Fortress

Press Release from Watch the Med/the Alarm Phone

On April 20, the Joint Foreign and Home Affairs Council of the EU released a ten-​point action plan outlining their response to the recent deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. Many other proposals have also been made over the last few days. We are activists who have been involved in the struggles against the European border regime for several years and who have been in touch on a daily basis with hundreds of people who have crossed the Mediterranean through Watch The Med and the Alarm Phone project. Faced with the hypocrisy of the “solutions” that have been proposed so far, we feel compelled to undermine their falsity and attempt to open up an alternative space for reflection and action.

  1. We are shocked and angered at the recent tragedies that have claimed at least 1200 lives in the Mediterranean Sea in the last week. We are shocked, although not surprised, by the unprecedented number of deaths in merely a few days. We are angered because we know that without a radical change these are just the first of many more deaths to come in 2015.
  1. We are also angered because we know that what is proposed to us as a “solution” to this unbearable situation only amounts to more of the same: violence and death. The EU has called for the reinforcement of Frontex’ Triton mission. Frontex is a migration deterrence agency and Triton has been created with the clear mandate to protect borders, not to save lives.
  1. However, even if saving lives was to be its core task, as it was the case for the military-​humanitarian operation Mare Nostrum in 2014, it is clear that this would not bring dying at sea to an end. Those who suggest a European Mare Nostrum should be reminded that even during its mission, the most grandiose rescue operation in the Mediterranean to date, more than 3.400 people died. Is this figure acceptable to the European public?
  1. Others have called for an international military operation in Libya, a naval blockade or the further enlisting of African countries for the policing of their own land borders. The history of the last 20 years in the Mediterranean shows that stepping up the militarization of migration routes is only cause to more death. Each and every time a route into Europe has been blocked by new surveillance technologies and increasing policing, migrants have not stopped arriving. They have simply been forced to take longer and more dangerous routes. The recent deaths in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean are the result of the militarization of the Gibraltar Strait, of the Canary Islands, of the land border between Greece and Turkey, and of several land borders in the Sahara. The “successes” of Frontex mean death to thousands of people.
  1. International organisations as well politicians from across the whole political spectrum have denounced smugglers as the main cause of death in the Mediterranean Sea. Several prominent politicians have compared the smuggling of migrants to the transatlantic slave trade. There seems no limit to hypocrisy: those who uphold the slave regime condemning the slave traders! We know very well that smugglers operating in the context of the Libyan civil war are often ruthless criminals. But we also know that the only reason why migrants have to resort to them is the European border regime. Smuggling networks would be history in no time if those who now die at sea could instead reach Europe legally. The visa regime that prevents them from doing so was introduced only 25 years ago.
  1. Those who have called, once again, for the creation of asylum processing centres in Northern Africa should be reminded of two examples that are the most accurate examples of what these centres would actually mean. First, the Tunisian Choucha camp managed by the UNHCR, which abandoned those who sought refuge there from the Libyan conflict. Even those who were recognized as needing international protections were left behind in the Tunisian desert, often without any other choice than trying to cross the sea. Second, the creation by Australia of offshore processing centres on remote “prison-​islands”, which is now hailed by many as a role model for Europe, only shows how hideous the forceful confinement of asylum seekers can be. These “solutions” serve only to displace the violence of the European border regime away from the eyes of Western publics.
  1. Faced with this situation, what is to be done? Comrades and friends with whom we have shared common struggles in the past years have been calling for freedom of movement as the only viable response to this situation. We too make this demand ours, as it is the only one that has managed to open up a space of political imagination in an otherwise suffocating debate. Only unconditional legal access to the EU can end the death of migrants at sea. And yet we think that a general call for the freedom of movement is not enough in the current context. We want to consider the freedom of movement not as a distant utopia but as a practice – enacted by migrants on a daily basis often at the cost of their lives — that should guide our political struggles here and now.
  1. These are the reasons why we call for the institution of a humanitarian ferry, that should travel to Libya and evacuate as many people as possible. These people should be brought to Europe and granted unconditional protection in Europe, without undergoing an asylum process which has lost its original purpose to protect and has de facto become yet another tool of exclusion.
  1. Is the idea of a ferry unrealistic? In 2011, at the height of the Libyan civil war, humanitarian ferries evacuated thousands of stranded migrants from Misrata to Bengasi, overcoming obstacles such as shelling, constant fire and sea mines. This shows that even in the current volatile situation of Libya, considering such an action is possible. Moreover, ferries would certainly be immensely cheaper than the prospect of a massive rescue mission at sea and of any military solution.
  1. The only reality we know is that any solution short of this will continue to lead to more deaths at sea. We know that no process of externalisation of asylum procedures and border control, no amount of compliance with the legal obligations to rescue, no increase in surveillance and militarization will stop the mass dying at sea. In the immediate terms, all we need is legal access and ferries. Will the EU and international agencies be ready to take these steps, or will civil society have to do it for them?

The Alarm Phone

wtm-​alarm-​phone@​ antira.​info

http:// ​www​.watchthemed​.net/​i​n​d​e​x​.​p​h​p​/​p​a​g​e​/​i​n​d​e​x​ /12
http://criticallegalthinking.com/2015/04/23/ferries-not-frontex-10-points-to-really-end-the-deaths-of-migrants-at-sea/

humiliation?

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, works, projects, publications

It may be that, it is worse: an inhumane strategic orientation when it comes to the EU’s understanding and defining of  problems.

The dramatic developments in the south of the European Union are obvious – the signals of humans drowning tine sea cannot be overlooked, even if the European Commissions website is not too impressed by the problem. Today (21/42015) presents news under the headlines of
  • EU acts on illegal fishing
  • TTIP to boost small enterprises
  • Commission opens google antitrust proceedings
And the priorities are named as
  • Jobs, Growth and Investment
  • Digital Single Market
  • Energy Union and Climate
Something is leading from the main page to the topic migration – and we read
Objectives

• Ensuring that all EU countries apply asylum rules in the same manner, by fully implementing the common European asylum system (CEAS).
• Enforcing EU laws penalising human traffickers vigorously.
• Protecting our external borders better by increasing the budget of the European border agency Frontex.
• Cooperating more closely with non EU countries to smooth repatriation of irregular migrants.
• Promoting the legal migration of persons with skills needed in Europe, through a review of the ‘Blue Card’ legislation.
And all this is stated:
  • while the threat for people who are desperately struggle to survive are actually running into a death trap
  • after just one day ago the walls of the fortress Europe had been strengthened, and we find the outline of what we can expect:
Ten points
• Reinforce the Joint Operations in the Mediterranean, namely Triton and Poseidon, by increasing the financial resources and the number of assets. We will also extend their operational area, allowing us to intervene further, within the mandate of Frontex;
• A systematic effort to capture and destroy vessels used by the smugglers. The positive results obtained with the Atalanta operation should inspire us to similar operations against smugglers in the Mediterranean;
• EUROPOL, FRONTEX, EASO and EUROJUST will meet regularly and work closely to gather information on smugglers modus operandi, to trace their funds and to assist in their investigation;
• EASO to deploy teams in Italy and Greece for joint processing of asylum applications;
• Member States to ensure fingerprinting of all migrants;
• Consider options for an emergency relocation mechanism;
• A EU wide voluntary pilot project on resettlement, offering a number of places to persons in need of protection;
• Establish a new return programme for rapid return of irregular migrants coordinated by Frontex from frontline Member States;
• Engagement with countries surrounding Libya through a joined effort between the Commission and the EEAS; initiatives in Niger have to be stepped up.
• Deploy Immigration Liaison Officers (ILO) in key third countries, to gather intelligence on migratory flows and strengthen the role of the EU Delegations.
It is a kind of war – and though there is no easy solution at hand, there is surely the need to think more thoroughly in terms of opening borders and minds instead of opening the routes to war.
I wrote a small piece (in German language) on this topic in the book that is currently released:

“Kriege im 21. Jahrhundert.
Neue Herausforderungen der Friedensbewegung”,
herausgegeben von Rudolph Bauer,
mit Beiträgen von der Antikriegskonferenz Berlin2014
Annweiler am Trifels: Sonnenberg Verlag 2015
(= Friedenspolitische Reihe: Bd. 01)
ISBN 978-3-933264-77-0
374 Seiten, Euro 19.80
Bestelllink:
http://sonnenbergverlag.de/index.php?section=buecher&menulinks=buecher&menuauswahl=5

Comparison, differences and how do we find out where we want to go together

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in academic life - living in academia, contemporary socio-economic situation, joys - what we usually take for it, Peter's Log, social quality, works, projects, publications

What comes first to your mind when you compare Berlin with Moscow?

This had been the question asked by a Dutch colleague – and my prompt reply had been something like:

How can I and why should I compare apples and a piece of furniture?

These two places are really so hugely different that any comparison must end up in misunderstandings, wrong formulations and misleading prompts.

Sure, it is about two settlements and they are located in two different nation states. But in actual fact, even these general placeholders are somewhat misleading.

From the Grundrisse we know that

[t]he concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse. It appears in the process of thinking, therefore, as a process of concentration, as a result, not as a point of departure, even though it is the point of departure in reality and hence also the point of departure for observation [Anschauung] and conception. Along the first path the full conception was evaporated to yield an abstract determination; along the second, the abstract determinations lead towards a reproduction of the concrete by way of thought.

It is worthwhile to think another time about this statement in the context of comparing different cities, places as diverse as Amsterdam, Berlin and Moscow.

And it is worthwhile too to briefly mention that the colleague also said during the short time we could talk about the misleading perception: not individual people make history, but complex settings and arrangements are constitutive – providing, sharing spaces within which individuals act, but even then they do not act as mere individuals, even if they are outstanding figures of history”.

Travelling to and through different cities has frequently a bit of the déjà-vu experience: one thinks one knows and is still not entirely sure. In such a case of returning to in any case large cities – even if the figures are quite different:[1]

Amsterdam

Population (municipality, May 2014; urban and metro, May 2014; Randstad, 2011)

Municipality 813.562

Density 4,908/km2 (12,710/sq mi)

Berlin

Population (December 2014)[1]

City 3,562,166

Density 4,000/km2 (10,000/sq mi)

Moscow

Population (2010 Census)

Total 11,503,501

Rank 1st

Density 4,581.24/km2 (11,865.4/sq mi)

Urban 100%

Rural 0

– the likelihood of coming to different areas is quite high. And also the likelihood of perceiving the areas, one visited before, in different ways is remarkable: with the time one can go deeper into things, can explore the details one overlooked on earlier occasions.

Leaving aside that these are so different cities, the one point springing to my mind is that these are not only spaces, settlements but histories – and as much as history does not repeat itself, histories cannot be compared. The concrete is still entailed in the generalisation.

Berlin – a city which had been the platform for an black-haired Austrian gnome to start his March to secure global rule of the “Arian race”, starting racing with tanks towards east, after conquering the submissive west.

Amsterdam, giving in and accepting the new ruler more or less like several other European countries.

Moscow, the at that time blossoming metropolis, developing its own identity, to some extent against the former zarist complement – and with this the new identity of an entirely new state.

The one still refusing the responsibility of the predecessors, refusing to pay their debts, still not completely accepting the fact that many knew about the human dramas their “government” caused in the concentration camps, while the other is still thinking about the loss of most likely nearly 30,000,000 people in the Great Patriotic War.

The one morning, while leaving the hotel to a short walk I see the wires, spanning between the large buildings, offering accommodation for so many: they remind of the efforts of the electrification and industrialisation of a country that – at the time – only recently got rid of the joke of the zarist regime, standing against the old metropolis: in the one case the administrative centre of a “hegemone of the past and the future”: the old Prussian power, aiming on gaining superiority in and over Europe, and the claimant of the thousand year long empire. In the other case the old trade metropolis, which surely lost its glamour of the colonial times (sure, Auke know well about some strange places that still do exist as witnesses of those times…., though it managed well to rescue part of it and translate it into some kind of sedated modernity in the most amiable way.

This kind of light and likely drowsiness (I know, a pardox)  is surely difficult to find in a city with a population of over ten million, though the walk along the river, or large lake in the middle of the still dormant city is most pleasant, and the large alleys offer some compensation for the otherwise densely populated “sleep-cities”.

Marks of orientation – it is always catching my consideration how we actually find the ways – something that surely changed fundamentally, first with the common use of street maps, then again with the common use of the GPS. But it changed also in another way: the marks are something that is remarkable.

Looking at Berlin, it is surely relevant that it is (as nearly all larger conglomerations) a merger of different villages but also a place that still carries its marks from having been a city of two countries.

And Amsterdam is still characterised by the way it integrated socio-natural conditions (the channels) and the social hierarchy (going from the central “Single” over the “Herengracht”, positioning the Keizer to the margin, and the Princes even further out – the latter surely a specific form of translating the words:

give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God

– the nobility left in some memorable places of history, and god outside …

Moscow then, somewhat torn between the two dimensions: height and width: the height needed for the permanently increasing population and the width not least accepted to maintain some spaces.

These spaces consist of some of the old areas, and of the parks and park-like areas as for instance the one I mentioned a bit earlier or the area around the Moscow State University Lomonosov , reaching to sparrows hill – I remember well the time of an earlier stay when I lived in the old Lomonosov building and enjoyed the area every morning while I had been jogging.

There is something special when it comes to Moscow though it may be special just for me as some years ago, when I had been collected from the university building, from where we walked to the All Russian Centre, the driver said:

Things changed so much. Several years ago we could find our orientation by holding on to enterprises, chimneys, industrial sites – today these orientation marks are shopping centres, usually all with the same names of international chain stores …

And there is something else I am getting aware every day now, when leaving the metro on the way home at the Домодедовская – it has its name from Domodedovo International Airport. And there is a metal relief pointing this out … – and there are huge posters, telling us what to buy, which shops are close …, hardly allowing us to remain attentive for the reliefs …

We do not recognise many of these areas on the first occasion – not least after a long drive from the airport which directs our thinking towards seize, i.e. quantity, but time allows switching to quality: the small details we usually miss while dashing across airports, over the highways and along the alleys, the quantity that occurs with “pure reproduction”, which seems to be more a matter of being reproduced, pushing aside considerations about where we want to move and how we actively produce, even if this is, when seen relationally, also very much a matter of reproduction.

The Auchan, media market, Electrolux and bmercuditoydas – BMW, MERCEDES, AUDI, TOYOTA, SCODA, MERCEDES, AUDI, TOYOTA, SCODA – gained already dominance.

***************

TV in the background, a song, or better to say a singers-competition. May be it is politically incorrect saying children instead of young women: girls singing about love and longing, though it is more about sexual lust and seduction, staring in the spotlight – though thoroughly enjoying it, incited by members of the jury and parents to compete – who is the best … . At least many of the songs are in English language – does it matter? Or in which way does it matter – indicating to be part of … well …

… another world. It is not least a bit about redefining participation: the socialisation of hyper-individualism: staring, competing, so different to singing in a choir, something many cannot do as it conflicts with the schedules of work, with the requirements of competitive thinking that harshly stands against just the joyfulness of both, the “aimless” singing of people gathering to express themselves with others, and the obliviousness of enjoying oneself as somebody who is content, content while feeling being part of the universe, not in a metaphysical sense, but in the understanding of appropriateness of the old fisherman who resisted accepting the Irony of the Rat as unavoidable rule of life.

The TV had been silent since some time – we had been sitting around the fire, looking up to the stars. Three people, academics, usually talking about development economics, globalisation and labour market policies – and frequently forgetting that all this is so much about such details as the joy of singing in a choir and gaining for oneself and for others – even if it is possibly “only” the gain of not burning out, not being tempted by drugs, not feeling alone when it comes to the point of needing somebody …, and not being open to fundamentalisms that comes along under so many different headscarves and varieties of temptations, replacing apples by Easter eggs and playing other tricks …

***************

– Surely, all this is something that, being stated with the full awareness of the ambiguity, especially on such a day where we celebrate here orthodox Easter and Gagarin-day ….

***************

Part of the points are elaborated in notes written in preparation of presentations here in Moscow at the Plekhanov university in cooperation with the All Russian Center for the analysis of Living Standards

  • Employment Crisis or Crisis of Employment
  • Eurasia – Potentials for taking a strategic role for sustainable sociability

 ******************************

[1]            In the following taken from Wikipedia – 12/04/15

law versus justice

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, works, projects, publications

Part of the report presented yesterday:

The day after he formed a government, Kenny cut his own pay by 6.6 per cent from €214,187 to €200,000 along with the pay of the Tánaiste and all other ministers.

Under the Haddington Road Agreement in July 2013, Kenny’s pay dropped to €185,350 under the wide-ranging public sector pay cuts for higher earners.
…

Enda Kenny was speaking at the launch of the government’s Low Pay Commission which will examine the scope for increasing the current minimum wage of €8.65.
(O’Connell, Hugh, February 26th, 2015: Enda Kenny thinks he’s ‘very much’ worth his €185k salary; in: TheJournal dot ie; 05.03.15)

Just a reminder

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general, social quality

Pensions do not exist to increase national savings or to provide jobs for actuaries, tax lawyers, accountants, fund managers and regulators. Their purpose is to allow the elderly and disabled to retire from work with dignity

Willmore, Larry: Three Pillars of Pensions: Is there a need for mandatory contributions? in: OECD, Private Pensions Series OECD 2000 Private Pensions Conference 2000. Insurance and Pensions; Paris 2001: 385-397; here 385

So Slow ….

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, general
A recent press release from the Irish Minister for Justice states
Dáil to debate Bill to provide free access to health services for Magdalen survivors
• Government is committed to full implementation of the Quirke Report
• Bill provides for an enhanced medical card for Magdalen survivors
• To date a decision has been made in 87% of cases. 495 applicants have received payments totalling €18 million.

22nd January, 2015 Frances Fitzgerald, T.D., Minister for Justice and Equality, today stated that the Dáil is scheduled next week to commence consideration of the Bill (the Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions Bill 2014) to provide free access to health services for Magdalen survivors. …

Nothing wrong with such a law. Still, there is something about speed.
Sure, the one side is
Fai di fretta e male – act fast, without thinking and do not worry about bad results.
– this seems to be too often the rule under which we live, the rat race in which we are caught. But there is another side, where the lack of speed is a bit worrying:
The Catholic Church needed until 1992 to fully acknowledge that they had been wrong in the case of Galileo Galilei – though even in 1990 the then still Cardinal Ratzinger actually condemned him when speaking at La Sapienza, the university in Rome.
And it took a long time for the Irish government not only to rebuke morally what happened but to provide a committed answer — even worse: to think about it with the debate on the bill.
And there is still a further dimension to it:
The Irish government — and all other governments — should finally acknowledge that free and qualitatively appropriate health care is a fundamental human right. This is what we may call the required rule of the day, instead of continued austerity policies in Europe and elsewhere.
And there is surely urgency in this!!!
I just finalized two papers,
  • Developing a Social Quality Perspective in relation to the Debates on Ethical Economy and De-Growth (elaborated in connection with a recent event in collaboration with the Angelicum, EURISPES and the European Academy of Science and Arts
and
  • Employment Crisis or Crisis of Employment, notes in preparation of a conference next month in Moscow.

Both documents can be obtained on request.

Truth and Salt

da Peter Herrmann's Blog, posted in contemporary socio-economic situation, works, projects, publications

It is good – only human beings as such are relevant …. — … at least this is what the statistics suggest.

I am just working on a report about recent developments in Ireland and looking at the CSO-figures for migrants. The table on the Components of the annual population change, 1987 – 2014 provides the figures for
  • Births
  • Deaths
  • Natural increase
  • Immigrants
  • Emigrants
  • Net migration
  • Population change
  • Population
Now, if it would be really this way
ONLY HUMAN BEINGS COUNT
 
independent of their status, religion … etc. it would be great.
If, as in reality there is surely a difference between well-off immigrants obtaining secure jobs, migrants who are desperately searching for work and refugees who are ending up in so-called Direct Provision (see on the latter for instance Herrmann, Peter/Dorrity, Claire: Racism – the State’s Fear of Loosing Control Over the Own Citizens; in: Okyayuz, Mehmet /Herrmann, Peter (eds.): Migration – Global Processes Caught in National Answers; Vienna: WVFS, 2014). And it surely would be honest though not to include but at least it make directly visible those who are refused entry before they even arrive – as we learn from the INIS-website
Deportations/Removals from the State. Approximately, 2,360 persons were deported/removed from the State in 2014. This figure comprises some 2,147 persons who were refused entry into the State at ports of entry and were returned to the place from where they had come. In addition, 111 failed asylum seekers and illegal migrants were deported from the State, 87 EU nationals were returned to their countries of origin on foot of an EU Removal Order and 17 asylum seekers were transferred under the Dublin Regulation to the EU member stated in which they first applied for asylum.
And with the famous grain of truth the same can be applied for emigrants: there is a difference between those who are – for different reasons – “forced” and those who leave voluntary – and in both cases the question is again: where do they end up.
The grain of truth – the Latin expression reads cum grano salis, the grain of salt. And this salt is what gives the special taste to the soup. That may also be applied when it comes to statistics …. Leaving the details out, means denying the colour and taste: be it the adventurous and exotic pleasures of the privileged or the blood and mordant sweat of those who loose their freedom and possibly lifes.