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Female Freedom Fighter or Suburban, Affluent Mother?
A recent article, which I first read on a mailing list without knowing its source, starts very promising, is very informative, at times sad, and in many ways, to me, reads as a good introduction to why people become freedom fighters. In the end, however, unsurprisingly given the publisher of the article, the article turns into an advocacy for a middle-class, affluent, surburban existence in a foreign, stable country, “with firm, positive views, but without the blind idealism“, in other words, against the ideals of youth that lead people to take affirmative action to change the world. All youthfulness written off as “blind idealism” with suburbia as the only alternative?
The article is about the Tamil Tigers, which began as a movement against the genocide that the Sinhalese controlled state of Sri Lanka is committing on the Tamil minority. They were freedom fighters that the state – and now the international community – condemn as terrorists. Perhaps they have become terroristic rather than freedom fighting, but being the underdog, the minority and the victims of genocide, who have not been heard, it is difficult to see how the Tamil people in Sri Lanka could escape their lose-lose scenario.
Just roll over and die as a people and as a culture? Die fighting? Or perhaps keep fighting in the hope that you can gain the rights and recognition required to live in “peace”?
Is an existence as a suburban, affluent mother more worthy, a better morally choice, than being a freedom fighter for your people? Direct, intentional violence – or indirect, ignorant violence? Shop or fight? Is that really all there is to it?
Violent Racism in the Duck Pond: Danish Anti-Racist Viciously Attacked
Colonos recently brought tidings from a little country in Scandinavia called Denmark, which is undergoing a cultural revolution orchestrated by a neo-liberal government in cahoots with the far right in a political climate that thus provide fertile grounds for extremism, such as racism and various fascist tendencies.
The Saga continues: what happened last night in the little Duck Pond is no surprise, really, and all the more sad for it. An anti-racist organiser was viciously attacked by the far-right extremists whose mushrooming is encouraged by a warmongering, anti-social state of affairs.
This is what “democracy” in Denmark looks like:
Then, and here comes the punch line, if you allow a little word play, the Danish equivalent-ish of the English Guardian, a filthy rag called Politiken writes:
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