By Paul Schmutz Schaller for The Saker Blog
There were a number of protest marches and rallies in Switzerland, in different cities and with a quite impressive number of participants. Most of the rallies were unauthorized – due to Covid-19 restrictions – but tolerated by the authorities. Apparently, the participants were young, many were „non-white“, but „genuine“ Swiss. The rallies were non-aggressive and I have seen no voices who were frightened by these protest marches.
I see three main points in these rallies. The first is the protest against the discrimination in daily live of „non-white“ people. This discrimination Is obvious for everybody. It is very understandable that „non-white“ young people, who – I think – have been in Switzerland since birth or most of their live, are very much frustrated that they are not respected in the same manner as their „white“ friends. This discrimination in daily live is a real problem. It is not easy to resolve, but I would say that the Swiss society is entirely able to improve the situation. The rallies may certainly help to accelerate this tendency.
The second point is the fact that these rallies go under the slogan of „anti-racism“. In my eyes, this is thoroughly wrong. The discrimination in daily live of „non-white“ people is not racism. Racism has no base in Switzerland. There are no racist laws, even no laws at all which make a difference between „white“ and „non-white“ people. There is no racist political party. The police in Switzerland is not racist. Moreover, there are a lot of efforts in Switzerland in order to integrate a great part of the population
There are however strong feelings of supremacy in Switzerland as part of the Western world. This again is not racism, but – in my eyes – this is nearer to racism, than the discrimination in daily live of „non-white“ people. I have seen no sign in the „Black lives matter“ rallies against Western supremacy. Quite the contrary. The rallies were very much related to the USA and to US culture. And this is the third main point. In these rallies, the USA was by far the most „important“ country, apart from Switzerland. By the way, a great number of banners were written in English – which is very unusual in Switzerland. Generally speaking, these rallies are rather in favor of Western hegemonism, than against.
Obviously, as a consequence of the second and the third point, I cannot support these rallies, even if I agree that there is this problem of discrimination in daily live of „non-white“ people. But the careless use of the terms „racism“ and „racist“ is also a serious discrimination. And this fixation on the USA is of course unacceptable for me. So, as a conclusion, these rallies have more negative than positive aspects.
As a Swiss, I disagree with you that “non-whites” are being discriminated against, in fact, I would say it’s the exact opposite.
Switzerland has a very generous system that helps political refugees “for free”. It also has a social help system that pays all expenses to anyone that cannot work (for example because one doesn’t have qualifications) “for free” as well.
When I write “for free”, it’s people like me who pay for them with our taxes. 22% of taxes are allocated for “social cohesion”, a nice word for “foreigners”. To give an idea of the importance, 24% is allocated for the education system.
So, it’s a lot. This would be fine if these people weren’t numerous or would all try to integrate and work but I see way too many of them who barely speak the local language spend the day at the local bar or taking the sun, while the rest of the Swiss people work for them. I don’t blame them, I would probably do the same in their position. But what annoys me is that I have to work a lot and they have a higher quality of life than me. There’s always more and more of them. And now they complain?
Dave
I commend you for consciously avoiding to mention the skin pigmentation whilst clearly articulating your points. We need more of the “human first, color never” approach when talking about people. This approach is a good tool for separating the stereotype from objective talk
It seams your country, has immigrants, challenges .This is a global phenomena, we are facing it too. I think Yanis Varoufakis and the Democracy in Europe organization( DiEM25) offers the best program for addressing broad issues like economic, migration, labor, etc…
“human first, color never” approach – Not !
The real focus is how decision making takes place with short hand generalizations for “everything” until you get to specific data – called the sorting process.
As all things get more complicated and time consuming – people focus less on the specific and move to generalizations to get thru the data relying on experience, before you even get to the individual to value.
People are no different than other variables being sorted – the idea that somehow they deserve more is ridiculous – in the …..extreme.
There is no racism.
There is only discrimination among variables – people making decisions consciously or unconsciously are sorting for two primary values over their life time = Risk and Reward
Obviously Asians are an easily identified group and then race and easily categorized – for risk and reward.
Asians have higher IQ’s than the average Caucasian. Because of their High IQ, they potentially have higher culture which produces also higher work ethic. So judgments are made as to risk and reward in the general sense – so they get an “audience” for potential interaction with Caucasians and then transactions and then relationships, which if they produce solid positive results, the positive energy grows into a …..generalization for the group. This is the key master.
you do business with them because they are not “threatening” (risk) and can increase mutual value (reward) tangible and intangible.
and so it goes
the opposite is obvious – substantial low IQ – 58 to 84 – produces reactive emotional decision makers incapable of analytical thought and therefore = uneducable – and high RISK – low Reward.
The patents issued in the last 100 years for intellectual novelty – have all been to Caucasian and Asians by 99% !
that’s for a reason – IQ is Destiny !
this game we are currently involved in is called politics – nothing to do with minority race – it is based upon Marxism being imposed by another means and the Trotsky end of Marxism which is objectively – chaos – the rules for decision making for millions of years are being changed.
The low IQ imposition as having value and should have a seat at the table is insane.
It is destruction of rational decision making that is NOT based upon the best and the brightest yielding a higher level of civilization but in facts a means to destroy the advance of civilization as – valuable – short – resources – are allocated to the low IQ to retard rational decision making in pursuit of politically based decisions as the norm. Affirmative Action Agenda personnel policies are the classic example of this.
The fact is – people don’t matter – what matters is the innate resource that yields value.
People are a product of FUN. Free unfettered FUN in the form of recreational or procreational sex. The process of Sex being FUN is the motivation for the FUN for many people especially the low IQ. If there is no third party involved in the FUN, why would there be any “responsibility” created for a third party for the result of private free FUN?
The point is mere – existence – due to / from – FUN – is no license or title or entitlement to……. anything.
……………………everything else is B.S.!
It is refreshing to have someone point out the obvious truth of the manner and not be cowered by the thought police. Well articulated David!
Dave, Do you think you may be on shaky ground, pointing to IQ as a basis for handling the current and ongoing issues between White, i.e. Caucasian peoples, and those of mainly Negro genetic origin [ and although I know Saker disputes the idea of “race”, that’s pretty much what we are talking about; culture, mindset, consciousness come after genotype] ?
There are so many problems with handing the idea of Intelligence, and few can even define what it is. The thing is, there are many different ways of thinking, of processing the sensory input we have to handle, and of our ways of seeing the world.
Different people are “intelligent” in different ways. There was an experiment conducted in Australia a few years back now [these days it would be deemed wrong by PC and therefor no-one would dare to do it].
They administered an IQ test [the WISC-R from memory] to a mixed group of school-kids, Caucasian and Aboriginal. The Aboriginals failed it dismally, as expected. Then they took them all out to the bush, and set them practical problems to solve. The Caucasians kids failed horribly [in a real “wild” situation they would have died]. The Aboriginal kids were a flying success.
The problem is our entire world now has been designed by Caucasians, and therefor it fits Caucasians. What is interesting from an archeological / human history point of view, is how like Orientals we are. Because as you point out – the Orientals handle this Caucasian made world very well, often better than we do.
But the huge difference is that between Caucasian + Orientals, and Negro’s. Negros do not fit – they cannot fit. There was a lady in Australia in the 1800’s who studied Aboriginals, lived among them and who wrote of them “the Aboriginal can handle just about any issue thrown at them; wildfires, the environment, how to live, create art, storms and floods, food shortages – anything except “civilisation” [although I do not consider the AngloSaxon hordes as a “civilisation”, but a horde of savages who have achieved a technological brilliance].
It’s the same I think with the Negro. We now have clear data for about 400 yrs; although they started off well behind the 8 ball as slaves, all opportunities to “be like us” have been given, and have done nothing. Many very poor whites are much the same as them, but many can use the opportunity to access the free libraries, free courses, attend schools, take on apprenticeships. Few Negro’s it seems do. As Dave said “I see way too many of them who barely speak the local language spend the day at the local bar or taking the sun,” – the Australian Aboriginals call the Government money “sit down money” with a delightful logic.
The problem we have is that we are not allowed these days to say that people are different, when all observation every day points to the contrary. We are all the same in that we are human beings – as the Bard put it “if you cut me, do I not bleed?”. But our minds, even our physiques and metabolisms, are different. Our consciousness is in many ways very different.
And it is this difference we need to address. Whilst a percentage of Negro people can adapt to the CaucasianOriental mindset civilisation[people like Thomas Sowell, for example] many cannot and never will – so they need their own type of civilisation, somewhere and somehow. But we are never going to get that as long as Governments the world over think it’s [a] evil to point out that Negro’s and those of pronounced Negro genotype are different and [b] that theres no other way than trying to force “integration”.
@Wrong Button
As a nation with roughly 35% non native Swiss, NO WE have no challenge with the Immigrants, instead a very severe challenge by being headed by Globalist’s who’s written goal is to destroy any ethnicity in Europe to plain the path for a fundamentalist totally synthetic religious Theocracy where unjustness is the just – another fascist Europe. THAT is our challenge !
In some way it mirrors the hundreds year old challenge Africa and middle East faces, being throdden down and now hookwinded on credit for eternity to give it’s raw materials to the Masters, different setup same end purpose – cattle to be harvested.
Under this circumstances delibilitations about colors and identity politics is just bizarre and grotesque……directed, orchestrated diversions, divisions, in short stupid !
Yes, there are no anti imperialist or class slogan like: Stop the war on Venezuela: Black Lives Matter or Spend the military budget rebuilding the slums of America: Black Lives Matter!
This Antifa and Brat Lives Matter is a psy-op of the Democratic Party/deep state against Trump. And they plan to steal the election by padding the ballots with the votes of non-citizen immigrants.
As for the two young cops in Atlanta who murdered a man for being drunk and acting like a drunk, what the F? Who trained these bozos? Ok. let me put my word in for more women ( armed and trained, of course) on special community mental health liaison teams–for domestic disturbances, drunks, ODs, mental breakdowns, unruly kids at school. Once male cops get into chase mode it is like a dog triggered by prey response—there is no stopping them. Testosterone: the good, the bad, the ugly. There have been numerous studies by spectacle wearing academics dealing with this as well as on the more mediating effects of having women interfacing with the community.
@teranam13
I saw the videos of the incident. The cops didn’t kill him for being drunk. They ARRESTED him for being drunk. Up to that point the cops, and the drunk, had been polite, courteous with each other. After failing the breathalyzer test, which is on the main video, the perp was told he failed the test, that he was drunk, and to turn around. When the supervisor put the first cuff against his wrist, the drunk man got violent and there was a free-for-all, resulting in one cop getting punched, having his taser taken from him, and then in the chase, getting tased, before neutralizing the perp before he could himself be neutralized by his own taser! This was justified police action, self-defense, and is probably why the chief resigned, because the shooter was fired immediately by the mayor, I believe.
This perp’s violence against police performing a legal arrest is SOP for black people. They simply do not submit to arrest. It is not police violence against blacks, it is exactly the opposite: black violence against police. BLM can shout it from the rooftops all they want – it doesn’t change the facts. Watch the videos of this suicide-by-cop.By the way, the majority of black deaths at the hands of police are also suicide-by-cop. Not all, but most of them.
Patrick
Removed. Mod. Always the same trope, obey the law. whose law? So black man can obey one more and one more until there’s nothing left to obey? what about his rights being stolen every day in one covert form or the other? you call it implementing the law they call it implementing your law. MLK and the last 70 years of work was not so they can obey and obey something written without their input for them. I call it a polite version of slavery. Removed. Mod.
@Anonymous
People who do not obey the law are a menace to society. Crime has consequences, and it is always the choice of each of us to make choices that have the best consequences for ourselves. I think you are saying that black people do not want to obey the law, and BLM wants them to be able to do so without the consequences, but that’s all make-believe. It’s not gonna happen. However, if it does, it’s going to be a jungle on the streets, and there will be blood. Lots of blood. People who want this are haters, destroyers, dangerous to both themselves and to others. And not very smart.
Patrick
Patrick, you misviewed the video. There was no risk of the neutralizing cop being “neutralized by his own taser” since it was the fellow cop’s taser in the perp’s hand; the video shows the comical scene of a taser-versus-taser chase. Then, after the perp shot the taser at the cop, the cop decided to exchange his taser for his pistol. We do not know why the cop did not find that to be advantage enough for himself. He could call out to the perp that his pistol was in hand. He could shoot the pistol into the air. We do not know why the cop instead shot at the running perp’s back.
You neutralize your message by your use of the word “neutralize”. You write “neutralizing the perp before he could himself be neutralized” instead of saying what you mean. There is justification in A neutralizing B before B neutralizes A when both words neutralize mean kill. But they don’t both mean kill when the cop has a gun and perp has a taser. Face it, the cop killed the perp before the perp could sting the cop. The cop killed the perp either because the cop was afraid to be stung, or because the cop was infuriated by the perp’s attempt to sting him, or because it was the cop’s duty to prevent the perp’s escape, especially with police property.
@dcouzin, if a perp has a taser, he can use it to paralyze the cop, take his firearm, and kill him. This is why police are trained to shoot perps who do this. This is not about being “stung”. It’s about being incapacitated, then killed.
This incident is black violence against a cop, and the death is suicide-by-cop.
Black deaths are – in the majority of these cases – suicide-by-cop.
If Rayshard had not attacked these two policemen, he could have slept it off in the drunk tank and then gone to his daughter’s birthday party the next day.
Being violent with police has serious consequences!
Patrick
Patrick, now you revise your original “neutralizing the perp before he could himself be neutralized by his own taser” to neutralizing the perp before he could himself be neutralized by his own pistol. Make up your mind! You imagine that every cop with a pistol facing anyone with a hand is actually facing someone with a deadly weapon, the cop’s own pistol. Then that hapless cop, who will do prison time for shooting the man with a hand in the back, should have thrown away his pistol and continued the chase.
I watched the video-it was a bit disjointed, but since we are doing trial by video which is all the rage these days, it looked to me that the Black man was drunker than a skunk (supposedly, previously passed out in his car.) yeah, drunks are belligerent often times and not thinking clearly goes along with that condition. So, who is the adult in the room? Two armed men against a drunk guy? –it would be funny if it weren’t so terribly tragic and if there were not dark forces twisting this all-too-human tragedy to their own foul purposes.
And, yes, the cops probably would have shot a white drunk guy doing the same thing especially if he were running off with police property the loss of which would have caused great merriment among their fellow officers and severe reprimand from their precinct Captain. That is another Testosterone thing although having a blot recorded on your record is something no one wants.
“When the supervisor put the first cuff against his wrist, the drunk man got violent “
And there you have it. As soon as I saw that part I thought “why the blazes are you doing that; how stupid, how provocative is that? No wonder the guy went berserk – who wouldn’t? ”
The minute you put a persons hands behind their backs, and lock them there, you induce a terrible feeling of utter helplessness, fear of loss of life, and in very many this will lead to wild panic. It’s an excessive use of force – which is exactly the entire problem, traced back to it’s roots.
In Australia, I’ve been around a few times when a person in charge and possession of a motor car was deemed DUI and unfit to drive. The first thing the police do is remove the car keys – quickly – and the car is put to the side of the road, preparatory to being towed away. The driver is put into a police wagon – heavy duty and barred “just in case”,- being spoken to with firm courtesy the entire time. S/he is then driven to the Police station for a blood test, given a cell for the night to sleep it off, and charged.
As far as I am aware, it’s the case in Britain too.
At no time is fear invoked nor dominance expressed. And no-one ends up dead.
Of course the guy went off his head at that point. So would I, I would imagine, and many other people. In civilised countries, a person in jail charged with a serious offence still goes to court in a suit of clothes and walks in freely, if with armed guards around them. In America, they are chained, feet and hands and in a bright orange suit – which all scream “guilty” before any hearing is conducted. Moreover, can you imagine how it must feel, to be chained so you can’t walk, like that?.
My taxi driver friend here made it over the border into US, trying to meet up with his brother to get work for money to send home. He was caught and put in prison and charged. They marched him around like that he said. They put chains on his feet so he could only shuffle, a kid trying to enter illegally, unarmed, unprotected. Why? Why do that?
Because it invokes fear, it says “you are nothing and I am mighty, I control you completely”.
It’s this point US police need a complete overhaul of training.
I saw a body cam video of an event in England, where a couple of ordinary “coppers” – a man and woman,- got involved in having to deal with a furious man in a mentally deranged state. He was wielding a nasty looking knife. The woman PC spoke calmly and pleasantly to him, engaged him in the closest to conversation she could, while her male counterpart got quietly and slowly behind the man, and then quickly whipped his arm around the perp and disarmed him, with support help from the lady
The man was kept held in restraint and calmed down while back up arrived. No-one was hurt, no-one went crazy, the one crazy to start with calmed down.
In the US the first thing they would have done is pull out their guns and emptied them into him.
There was a video put out last year I t think, dont know where it came from, of various times a lone Police Officer in Russia had tackled being attacked, and had to tackle a violent offender. One I remember, a big guy was running at the smaller officer with spade ready to jam into him. The officer calmly waited for a perfect moment, grabbed the handle, swung it around while taking the running attacker out with a foot swing to his ankle and brining him down, and having him cuffed in no time.
No guns, no killing. Just a highly competent and trained true police officer.
The first is police work, done properly. The other which is done in US is dominance by violence.
One method is that of a civilised people the other is that of a thugocracy of massive hierarchical dominance. There’s the difference.
Pamela,
I think that the overwhelming majority of Australians would agree with you. I have spent a lot of time in South East Asia, in areas deemed “dangerous” by the DEA and the US. At no time have I ever felt threatened or frightened. Compare this to the two months that I spent in the US, across several states, where the air of repressed violence was physically palpable. The atmosphere of entrenched racism permeates every aspect of US society and is evidenced by the behaviour of gangs, brought up in, and intoxicated by, a culture of narcissism, greed, ignorance, xenophobia and outright violence. it’s no wonder that the disadvantaged attack the police, who are a highly militarised and poorly trained adjunct of the prison industrial system that extorts billions of dollars from the federal government annually with its fraudulent “War on Drugs”.
The irony of this oligarchy, masquerading as a democracy, labelling itself the “bastion of democracy” with its record of war, slavery, oppression and colonialism is astounding; and as much as I understand why the police in the US are nervous, given the psychopathic nature of the gangs that they face, America must look inward and address its own longstanding human rights abuses.
The chances of this happening without a Revolution 2.0 are precisely zero, so don’t hold your breath. America is another Empire in decline and its sordid future is already ordained. Perhaps Margaret Atwood was a visionary or prophet, I guess time will tell…
Dear Pamela,
Each police Farce is made up of individuals, who each have different capabilities and actions.
At Maryborough, I worked with S/C Maurie Moore. Maurie was on nightshift one night and came upon a group of bucks trying to steal a motor car. They all ran off when they saw the Divvy Van except for a one-legged man, who Maurie arrested. Now Maurie knew the one-legged man and took pity on him and let him sit in the front of the Divvy Van instead of being in the cage at the rear. We buried Maurie a week later.
Then there was a little policewoman at Shepparton who got called to a park where an Aboriginal woman was chopping a park bench with a tomahawk. The policewoman told the Aboriginal to put the tomahawk down, but the Aboriginal simply looked at her as if she was stupid, and so the policewoman shot and killed her. This policewoman was then sent back to Melbourne where on a nightshift she, along with another crew were called to a ‘Domestic’. The drunken male ended up coming out of the house and was pepper sprayed by a couple of policemen, but the drunk kept on coming and so the policewoman shot and killed him. After that episode Victoria Police were forced to completely rewrite their manual on the use of firearms.
Then whilst I was at Greensborough there was a siege situation with a male armed with a rifle, until Det S/Sgt Noel Murphy from Eltham arrived, walked up to the front door, and knocked. When the armed male answered the door, Noel simply grabbed the barrel of the rifle and pulled it away from the male, and then chucked the rifle onto the front lawn and said to the uniformed members, “He’s yours.”
Sgt Frank Harris from the Preston Police Station did a similar act one night shift when the Divvy Van crew spotted a lone male seated in a stationary car in Bell Street, with a rifle on the front passenger seat. When they reported the situation they were ordered to retreat to a safe distance and await the SOG’s. However Frank drove to the spot walked up to the car, opened the front passenger seat and grabbed the rifle off the seat. End of problem.
Det/S/Sgt Noel Murphy and Peter Hester were called to a noisy party on the Bank of the Yarra River at Jumping Creek Road, Warrandyte one night. They attended a found a group of about twenty bikies having a drink, and the bikies told them where to go, as they weren’t breaking any law. And so Noel and Peter left, but strangely enough about 15 motorbikes somehow fell into the river. I can’t understand how that happened!
Policemen and I suppose policewomen each have their own method of dealing with various situations they come upon, some legal, some common sense and some suicidal, and I have met a couple of policemen who have frightened me. When Det/Sgt Brian Murphy of the Port Melbourne CIB was charged with murder, and suspended from duty without pay, he worked on the Port Melbourne docks amongst the Painters and Dockers, who were notorious criminals, and they all called him ‘Sir’ as Brian was that dangerous.
Speaking from personal experience I would not place the Australian Police above the behaviour of the American Police as it is the individual that is required to perform, not the organisation as such, and there are good bad and indifferent in all such services.
Dear pdb,
May I tell you a true story? Back in 1972 I was working at the Fitzroy police Station, an inner city suburb with a large problem with vagrants and drunks. On one Sunday morning whilst rostered for ‘Divisional Van duty I was sent to a vacant house where a group of vagrants had been drinking and partying, and I went alone, which was not the normal thing, but that does not matter.
I attended the address and found about six male vagrants, all happy and mostly intoxicated. The normal charge would have been something like unlawfully on the premises, but this was Fitzroy, and virtually always we simply used the Drunk and Disorderly as per the Summary Offences Act 7405, section 13,
So I invited them all to get into the back of the divisional Van, which they did, and then there was Nancy King. Now Nancy was a full-blood aborigine and she was not small, but I arrested her as well and then returned to the Police Station, and put them through the Watch-house all being charged with D&D. And then they saw Nancy, and they asked me how I arrested her by myself. I replied that it was easy; all I did was say to Nancy, would you please kindly get into the back of the Van, and she did..
The next time I saw Nancy was a couple of years later at Fairlea Women’s Prison. A government Social Worker had taken on Nancy King’s case and decided to help Nancy and ended up getting her a job as a nurse for a retired farmer. So Nancy had this job of caring for a retired farmer, but in true Aborigine manner the two had a dispute, and Nancy ended up rocking him to sleep with a rather large bluestone rock. Subsequently Nancy was charged and convicted of the murder of the retired farmer; and I have always felt that the Social Worker should have received the same sentence.
It is strange when you stop to think about it, that different peoples look differently act differently and have different customs and values, and it helps if you can understand that. What I found was that when you spoke to a Pom, you spoke English, or in addressing an Italian, you spoke a bit of Italian, and to a Greek, you spoke a bit of Greek and to a Thug, you spoke Thuggee normally behind a shed, because that was the manner in which all these various people would understand you better
Now Australia is completely different to America, but I believe that the main weapons of a policeman are basically the same in both countries. A policeman’s lot is normally based on his honesty, his integrity, and his never giving up the higher ground. Thus to me, seeing the American policemen bending the knee and kneeling to the opposition is committing outright suicide.
I agree – that difference between people is there throughout, and has to be taken into account. One thing I found is that trying to counter fear, aggression, anger, with the same emotion is a recipe for disaster. Like trying to put out a fire with kerosene.
I attended one of my mandatory annual Registration refresher classes once – at Northam in W.A. The session on safety in ER was initiated by asking “who has had to deal with any aggressive patients ” – mine was the only hand NOT put up. On surprise being expressed, I said, I could only speak as I found, and no, I hadn’t. Someone said I had a very calm demeanour, maybe that helped.
Maybe.
What I could say is, from the way I have seen so many nurses speak to slightly agitated people in ER, I wasn’t surprised many had come close to getting “clocked”.
One thing taught by this person – with which I publicly disagreed – was that a method of handling an angry, frustrated man, was to firmly – with raised voice – instruct him he had to sit down, and then stand over him and lecture him. I said, if I was in ER, terrified for the well being of loved one, desperate to get information I wasn’t getting, pleading for help quickly, and someone did that to me, I’d be tempted to lash out too.
Luckily, that’s not in my make up, but for so many it is, and that behaviour provokes it.
I suggested you speak calmly as well as firmly, ask what was the problem, assure a quick first move, point out the others that had to be dealt with, but let that person see you, hear you, on the phone calling up for information, telling an Aide to get him a tea, doing whatever to let him know you had heard him, and hadn’t forgotten. I think that’s the only reason I never had anyone get nasty with me.
In other worlds, the nurses who drew the most aggression were the ones whose first reaction was to be dictatorial and bossy.
Just like the US policemen.
You have to treat people with some respect and pleasantness.
Of course, I was talking of arresting a DUI, for clearly off the wall people, armed, things will probably be different, but I think the principle still applies. Things are different among Aboriginal people – I agree with your feelings about that Social Worker, but so many of them are like that – completely lacking any sense of reality.
I had contemplated once, taking a job on one of the stations in F.N.Queensland. On learning that nurses spent most of their time stitching up and fixing up Aboriginals from the last drunken fight, to send them out to repeat the behaviour, I withdrew. I went into Nursing to care for those who got sick and hurt from no fault of their own, and just wanted to get back to a decent life, not to play nursemaid to aggressive no-hopers, even if the fact that they ended up like that wasn’t their fault.
I nursed, briefly, a young Aussie, nice young man. Driving outside Adelaide, he had passed a group of Aboriginal men beside a broken down car. He stopped and went across to see if he could help them. Someone smashed him across the back of his head. He regained consciousness to discover he was permanently blind. !!
So – I dont have any rose coloured glasses about how these people can be. I still hold the best method of dealing with the majority by Aussie police shows its success rate in the figures of the outcomes of arrest, compared to US.
Yes, there are differences among people and how they handle things, but there is an over-arching meme, a policy, a mind-set, and commonality of acceptable behaviour derived from your culture.
Which is why I cant agree with Andrew MacGregor, that Aussie police are no different to US ones.
When we see stats for “Death by Cop – using a gun” in Aus that equal those of US, then I might agree, but so far we do not.,
In fact, after a brief stay of a few yrs in New Zealand, one of the major reasons I headed back to Aus as fast as I could, was the NZ police; and once back in Aus, I felt safe again!!!
Dear Pamela,
When I was touring with Wendy Scurr on the Port Arthur Event, we did one tour with her former boss at Port Arthur, Robyn Cooper. Later both couples, Wendy and Graeme Scurr and Robyn and Paul Cooper moved to FNQ, where Robyn took a job at an Aboriginal Mission. Robyn found the exact same problems you mentioned.
In regard to stopping in South Australia at any event where aborigines were present, we were warned back in the 70’s that it was a No-No! I take it that you forgot to mention in your case that the Aborigines also stole the young man’s car.
Again, in the late 70’s I heard of the Richmond police, an inner Melbourne suburb, stopped a car being driven by an American, and the Yank must have thought that because they were so polite to him, they must have had a weak case, and so he became abusive and aggressive, and ended up in real trouble.
Remember that Australian female who got shot by police a couple of years ago. The mistake she made was to thump the roof of the police car. You can do that in Sydney, but not in the USA.
I could relate a couple more incidents, but the basic message is the same. The reality is that there is very little difference between police in Australia and in the US; what is different, and it is a major difference is the culture.
Herr Schaller, I applaud your third point. The USA fixation is even greater here in Germany. “Country western” music floods the radio. Of course, the defeated Germans needed the myth that they were “liberated” in 1945. USA occupiers fed that myth better than the other three occupiers, and still do.
Europe is most susceptible to USA cultural hegemony because Europe was the USA’s cultural source and the USA is especially skilled at obsoleting old ideas. Europeans need to pause and re-weigh the USA cultural contributions of the past 150 years. In science, philosophy, politics, literature, art, music, etc., what did that noisy land really add to what Europe started and is ready to resume once the USA nuisance backs off?
In the middle of those years, European crises gifted the USA with the cream of European talent — Einstein, Carnap, Arendt, Nabokov, Mondrian, Stravinsky (to illustrate the previous list). Some were past their prime, but more important, the talents had mostly small traction in the already thin USA culture. Think Carnap vs. Quine. Think Stravinsky vs. Disney. You should be pleased that Nabokov, after rocking the USA with Lolita, retired to Switzerland.
Europe: resist USA cultural hegemony not for Europe’s sake but for culture’s sake!
I once maintained that continental Europe, culturally speaking, has more in common with Russia than with the Anglosphere. Until proven otherwise, I still stand by the notion even if Russia isn’t considered “European”.
If this example is as good as any, Russian, like most other languages spoken in continental Europe (notable examples being German, French, Spanish and Italian), has grammatical gender, unlike English.
Moreover, it makes less sense for Europe to rely on the USA when they’re separated from each other by a whole ocean, whereas Russia is relatively nearby – and connected by land to boot.
I agree. Put sarcastically, Russia and continental Europe have culture, the US have civilisaton.
In the old days I learned that Europe goes to the Urals, so Russia is partially European.
No, it isn’t – European. That’s a meme put about by the “softly softly catchee Monkey” crowd of “soft invasion via Cultural Hegemony and mind control” wing of the aggressive Empire.
At no time has Russia officially conceded part of her nation to anyone, in fact very much the reverse. It’s this way it is being stolen from her – or they are trying to.
For years and years there was “the Russian Steppes”. Great grassland and woodlands which were called Taiga. As a child at school in the 1960’s I learned of them as that. In the 1920’s the great humorous English author P.G.Wodehouse referred to them as such.
A few years ago in a Q & A President Putin addressed a questioner, with a small fond smile, as “Ah. The Children of the Steppes”.
But now more and more Westerners are depriving Russia of her symbols of identity. Recently the supposedly pro-Russian allegedly “Russian expert” writer Deena Stryker, wrote of “immigrants from the Eurasian Steppes to Western European”. Where, exactly, are these “Eurasian Steppes” because I’ve never heard of them.
Russia doesn’t “go to the Urals”. Russia extends from the Northern Pacific Ocean in the East to the Gulf of Finland and the Border with the Balkans in the West. And that’s it. Thats Russia, all of her and she is a Northern civilisation. Not Eastern. Not Western. Not European.
Northern – North of 50 deg Lat Nth and up to 80 deg Nth lat bordering the Arctic Circle at 80 degs — and of herself.
https://themungbeanpatch2019.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-russia-europe-paradox.html
As did Roman Polinski
I think you’ve touched upon a really interesting point here and that is, protests that pertain to the U.S. have been ‘franchised’ out to various parts of the world.
Like franchises they add a bit of the local culture to the mix in order to make themselves palatable to a new market.
My view on the Atlanta situation where a police officer committed unnecessary manslaughter.
This happened because of the police doctrine of, “pursue fleeing arrestee and apprehend.” Why do the police always find it necessary to take the hardest road to affect an arrest of someone who resists and escapes?
This situation was difficult because it happened at night and the two officers did not have the right equipment or training to handle a man who was physically very strong. Neither officer has a police baton, which is more effective than a Taser to virtually take any large man to the ground at the knees in many scenarios. At that point it became a wrestling match and the guy was too hefty to subdue.
The police had possession of his vehicle, they knew who the guy was and where he lived. Because the two officers are the principal witnesses to the DWI, an arrest warrant is not required. Just go to his home and wait for him to show up, preferably the next day during daylight hours where hands can easily be seen.
Here we see the typical inner conflict between brute force and intellectual thought and muscle overruled brain in this case. It is not to say this approach applies to all instances of an escape from custody but in this matter the choices made by the officers were poor and costly in human life, their personal reputations and the loss of their profession as police officers.
Hello,
Last Saturday I happened to be at the demonstration site in Lucerne. This demonstration was organized by the Antifascist Action under the leadership of a certain Mr. M. In the past, he had often organized demonstrations against the Circus Royal in Emmenbrücke and elsewhere. 3 weeks ago he tried to disturb the demo against the Corona – Lockdown. He did the same thing 6 years ago at an authorized signature collection of the movement “Citizens for Citizens” at Schwanenplatz. The police were not visibly present among the 1000 or so people. When 20 people demonstrated against the Corona Lockdown a week ago, 8 police officers were visibly present. Despite inquiries with the police and the city administration, it was not allowed to know WHO was the owner of the demonstration. So you can also buy people for demonstration organization in Switzerland, as for example in the past, when the demonstrators against the Circus Royal of Zurich were brought there by busses and received money at the end. I have seen that with my own eyes. It is sad to see how far Switzerland has sunk to the bottom. Everybody in Switzerland should be able to demonstrate for everything, but we do not need demonstrations sponsored by third parties with English signs, which only a few people here understand correctly.
Burger,
similar things happened in Germany.
Only for early Corona measure protests there was more out-of-town police relative to protesters.
The mass media placated anti corona measure protests as bad and organized BLM protests as good.
Funny thing, when the “Antifa” got called to state their point at a local “corona” protest nobody came to take the micro.
The local police did their job and protected the peaceful corona protest from the “Antifa.”
These protests might be justified in the US but in Switzerland and Western Europe in general there is absolutely no reasons for minorities to claim that their lives are ruined by racism and inequalities. In countries like the UK, Sweden, France, Germany etc… minorities (if they are citizens) get exactly the same rights and privileges as the indigenous white population if not more.
Free education, cheap higher education, free healthcare, unemployment benefits, public housing, quotas and anti-discrimination laws, passport which allows you to travel and work freely anywhere etc… A friend of mine from Tanzania rightly told me that these kids protesting have all the benefits and opportunities African children could only dream of yet they spend their time complaining, burning and looting.
The only problem is that minorities, manipulated by neoliberal ideologues and identity politics, prefer to feel sorry for themselves and resign themselves to living as social outcasts instead of making the effort of finishing higher education and integrating into society. I’m sorry but using poverty and the colour of your skin as an excuse for your own laziness and social failure is ludicrous.
The black youths are plagued by the rap and thug culture they choose to live by which turns them into social parias and outcasts from an early age. If you chose to talk, dress, think and act like a thug then expect to be treated like one by the police and society as a whole.
Same for certain muslim minorities who prefer to live apart from the rest of society all the while imposing their way of life on the locals and then complain of the backlash.
I’m not from a white privileged background but apart from some heavy handed questioning at certain airports or some name calling by white drunk youths, i never felt any racism or discrimination.
Maybe it’s because like many, i decided to take the incentives given to me by my adoptive country, made the extra effort, got a good education, a good job, traveled around and decided to integrate fully into society without having to feel sorry for myself and resign myself to live like an outcast and criminal.
For the love of God, just read what BLM wrote about themselves. They have no place in any civil society
@Paul Schmutz Schaller – Lets have a straight talk.
I understand your concerns and there is a part of me that feels the same as you do, particularly with regard to the adverse effects forced on a locality (community) by overwhelming influence of foreign entities. Every locality does not take kindly towards anything that disrupts it’s way of doing things (the norms, culture,history,composition, economy….?) Now lets take South Africa as a case study.
The case study is about the impact of foreign entities on local RSA communities from 1652 to present. I shall start with the present time. The RSA economy is capitalist with staggering inequality, exemplified by the customary 1% vs 99% distribution ratio. The 1% being large multinational corporations & their local vassals.The 99% is where majority of local RSA citizens plus the foreigners ( >6 million from all continents), are competing on the principle of dog eat dog. The situation has turned into a war zone, known by occasional flare-ups, wrongly called acts of “Xenophobia” by the media & those ignorant of the situation. I think you get the picture.
Back in 1652 a Dutch settler ship landed in the cost of RSA & established a settlement. Over centuries the settler colonialist expanded by taking more land and resources from locals by use of force,stealing & lying.Over time more settlers from Europe (England, France & Germany) and Slaves from India & Malay joined . Eventually the whole country was violently colonized, the locals relegated to the state of non-human labor force. it is difficult for a person not directly involved to understand the level of disenfranchisement & dehumanization locals went through. By 1900 the imperialist Cecil John Rhodes took control and set the country on the path it finds itself today – a corporate state. After WW2, Union of South Africa was renamed RSA and apartheid was adopted together with the symbolic terms; “Black/White replacing European/Bantu (African). Racial discrimination worsened, with Europeans still failing to realize that Africans are human beings . In 1994, a new political dispensation began, but economic power remained with the corporations (1%). Disadvantaged indigenous people & the poor European settler colonialists found themselves battling for the 99% space. After the 2008 capitalism collapse, the 99% was invaded by the influx of a new foreigner – the economic immigrant. “Xenophobia”
In conclusion I say that it is very important for one as an individual to conduct an inquiry on the questions:(1)”What does it mean to be human”?. (2) ” What do I mean by I/me/myself .These are serous questions, that cannot be escaped at some point in life or at the point of death.
There is discrimination in America, no doubt. But it is based on behavior, not race. How many rattlesnakes have ever actually bitten a human? Not many. But you still avoid them, don’t you? Black people are treated differently in America not because they have black skin but because their behavior is so markedly divergent from the average American’s. In short, the solution to discrimination against black people in America is for black people to start behaving and stop believing that rules and laws are optional for them.
Ezra – may you please clarify something about your point below;
” In short, the solution to discrimination against black people in America is for black people to start behaving and stop believing that rules and laws are optional for them.”
The statement above is equally true for Hillary Clinton & her benefactors.Why aren’t they discriminated against on basis of ‘wrong behavior’ ?. Exceptionalism is a thing the USA is known for throughout the world. What’s wrong with darkies enjoying a moment of it like everybody does. It is trivial compered to >6 trillion$ exceptionalism of the super rich. Ezra, do not let petty things make you loose site of the principles.
If you don’t know why elites like Hillary Clinton are protected system assets then I would suggest you need some remedial education before being able to understand the discussions taking place on this blog.
That said, I don’t think Hillary Clinton would resist arrest if she happened to be caught doing a petty crime. Once again, it is not race that makes black people more likely to experience poor outcomes in police encounters, it is their disproportionate propensity to resist arrest.
To whom it may concern:
These “Swiss” Bureau of Land Management-(lol)-marches were a Zoo. We still prefer genuine Swiss manifestations of political will. Please don’t import foreign crap here. Thank you for your understanding and have a nice day.
It’s political correct nowadays to blame everything on white people …. From colonialism to global poverty ….
This is a form of racism based on people’s colour & origins. Just because you are white/European etc , you are racist ….
And this logic views European people as the same monolithic entity even though they have great cultural linguistic ethic variety, different opinions & political beliefs
& let’s not forget that respective European countries were at war with each other or do not get along even today
In 21st century, there are cases of negative sentiment, animosity or dislike between neighbouring European people (polish Vs Russians, croats Vs Serbs etc) or even between people of the same countries (northern Vs southern Italians, Catalans Vs Spaniards etc)
The fact is colonialism was propagated by elites, not by common folk. The common people of Europe were living in poverty or were farmers living in the land. Many millions of European workers are impoverished, unemployed or suffering in the era of globalization but we only hear the same things about “white privilege”
One example, is that most british people were living in poverty & exploited by working in slave like conditions in the British factories during industrial revolution. These people did not gain anything from colonialism
But nevertheless they get blamed for the evils of colonialism.
Parts of Europe were also colonised by non European entities/people & suffered tremendously.
Slavery, mass slaughter, executions, rapes,
forced conversions to Islam, excessive taxation, discrimination, destruction of cities, land & property theft and many more….
Spain was under Muslim occupation for nearly 600 years. Yet, Spaniards get blamed for the evils of colonialism in Americas but the descendants of moors do no get any blame for colonizing Spain.
Ottomans occupied parts of Europe for centuries and caused many evils to native people as well as practising genocide to people who revolted or resisted their rule.
Yet, no one blames Turkish people for all these.
Spaniards get blamed, Turks not. Even there is attempt to whitewash ottoman brutality so as to promote Turkey as a partner for Europe & West. Ottoman empire is promoted as a supposedly multicultural multiethnic haven. Thing is people were not equal. Non Muslim subjects were heavily taxed & discriminated, exploited & regularly slaughtered.
Numerous southern European people were also abducted and sold as slaves in middle East and elsewhere by Barbary pirates or other Slavic people bought and sold by slave traders of the khanate of Crimea
All these facts are being omitted by the media
Because it is political correct to blame only European people.
Racism or dislike / fear of someone of a different background seems to be part of human nature ….
Probably it’s a relic of the ancient tribal period. People lived secluded in small groups and viewed other tribes or “strangers” as competitors or a threat to their existence or livelihood
Now we live in a globalised world but human brains were evolved during other periods of time
Same with our diets. We are not supposed to eat sugar, processed foods and many farm products. We were evolved to be hunter gatherers. Yet we eat processed food and spend our lives sitting in desks instead of hunting or doing tasks that involve physical exercise
The issue of racism is also prevalent in
non European people or countries. It’s part of human nature
There is hatred that is racist in nature between Asian people. Vietnamese dislike chinese & vice versa, Koreans dislike chinese, Chinese Vs Japanese Vs Koreans etc there is no end to it….
Asian people also view westerners or Africans as completely alien people, usually making comments that could seem very insensitive to modern western standards
Africans too exhibit racist tendencies towards other African people (cases of ethnic tribal conflicts or the demonstrations against illegal immigration in south Africa etc ). Also there are cases with Africans who view westerners or Asians in a negative way .
“Racism or dislike / fear of someone of a different background seems to be part of human nature ….”
Cant agree that it’s racism, nor that it’s a part of “human nature” – whatever that is. We are all different, and not all individuals exhibit “racism”. What is “racism”?
It’s a dislike of a person; a willingness to hold them responsible for acts they haven’t committed; a belief that they must hold certain character traits, all based purely and solely on their genetic makeup as exhibited in their phenotype.
It’s a belief that if you are known to be “Russian”, i.e. born and brought up there, of Russian / Slavic parentage, and therefor a Slav person, then you are…xyz. List the prejudiced beliefs. No proof that you have ever exhibited such traits is sought or required.
But we do observe that certain traits do get expressed by a huge majority of certain populations. So for example, if I see a “news” report of a riot in, say, America, France, and that the crowd were setting fire to buildings, cars, throwing stones at ambulances, burning and looting big stores and lugging out TV’s etc, and I say to myself “African American; North African immigrants”, am I being “racist”,? – or am I making an inductive reasoned conclusion; inductive as in “Induction is a process where individual arguments and premises are used to develop a generalisation or a conclusion that can be attributed to much more than the initial subjects”
We all use both forms of reasoning, and we have to, because they perform different functions applicable to different situations. If I am aware of certain signs that, say, a building is about to collapse, and I pick up a couple of those signs, I will then react quickly reasoning from them that a building is going to fall. I dont stop to examine the logic of my reaction, or look for proof – for I haven’t time. I must act to save my life. If I’m wrong, – it wont matter.
Same thing, in a way here – if I see certain attributes of a group of people which i know can be dangerous to me as an individual, then I react to protect my life.
There is something that is indeed inbred in the vast majority of us, because it’s a Law of the Universe. Demonstrated and proven over and over again, this derives from Complexity Theory, a sub-set of Chaos Theory. It says that [a] ALL complex entities, from molecules up to human societies, are driven to self organise and [b] that principle of organisation is that like / similar are attracted to like/similar and form the strongest bonds with them.
Thus we are driven to be with and among those most like us; it explains why some people of a non-Russian nation want to live in Russia – because we feel more “like” with it than the people we were born amongst. But most people not only feel the most comfortable and happy being with their own kind, they feel a sense of discomfort which is psychological and emotional, being among those who are radically different.
Why those who forced this “multiculturalism” on to whole nations couldn’t see this and realise what was likely to happen is beyond me.
What you are calling “racism as part of human nature” is simply the expression of this basic law. It’s wrong to tell everyone that this feeling is wrong – it’s a Law of the Universe. But to instantly decide that a quietly spoken man, for example, with good academic credentials and no history of violence, shouldn’t be allowed a certain job “because he’s a “Black” and might go mad and knife us” is being racist – and that should be fought.
But we also have to accept that trying to force people totally at odds with another culture, another phenotype, another behaviour pattern, to live together, and then blame them when things go wrong, is just insanity; defy reality if you will but dont be surprised when it turns around and bites your bum.