· October, 2006

Stories about Ethnicity & Race from October, 2006

Poland: News and Opinion

  31 October 2006

The beatroot writes about media freedom in the EU, the fear of the Polish plumber (again; 70 comments so far), a Sudanese woman giving birth on a bus in Warsaw, and a few other matters.

Lebanon: Political Uncertainty and Men

  31 October 2006

Many Lebanese blogs are reflecting the internal political bickering that is creating an atmosphere of uncertainty about the future of the country. Most of the posts in this weeks review are bleak with little hope for the future. This is something that is very unusual for a people who take...

Russia: LJ and Politics

  28 October 2006

On October 25, International Herald Tribune published Evgeny Morozov's opinion piece on the recent developments in the Russian blogosphere. On his blog – Sharp & Sound: Perspectives On Modern Politics – Morozov wrote: […] I’ve been surprised how little coverage the story has received in the Western media…Hm, virtually none…...

Sudan: skin-color not the root cause of conflict in Sudan

  27 October 2006

Sudanese Thinker discusses the root causes of the conflict in Sudan, “The CBS documentary is cool but it fails like many other articles to describe the root causes of the conflict correctly. They’ve oversimplified it as a racist genocidal war by Arabs against Africans. While racism is definitely an element...

Lebanon: Communities and Contradictions

  24 October 2006

The Lebanese blogosphere is growing like crazy. This means that the following summary is not all inclusive. And in the attempt to cover as many new blogs or newly discovered blogs as possible, other interesting posts and/or blogs are missed. But you can always find links to worthy blogs in...

Fiji: Building a Traditional Underground Oven

  24 October 2006

Peceli blogs about the tradition of building a “lovo” – the traditional underground oven used to cook communal meals in the South Pacific. “In Australia we can’t make a lovo in your back yard without permission from the local council and the Fire Prevention Officer. The ruling is if we...

South Africa: do you remember the days of Apartheid?

  23 October 2006

Black Looks takes us back to South Africa's Apartheid era with a post about Prison Number 4, where Ghandhi and Robert Sobukwe, the founder of the Pan-African Congress, were jailed: “TAUSER was the process of forcing black prisoners to strip naked, jump in the air in a scissor like move...

Tonga: Tonga and Nationalism

  21 October 2006

Tongan native Samiuela LV Taufa compares the Australians with the Tongans on their respective ideas of nationalism and belonging. “As I understand Tongans, we're only truely nationalistic when it is to contrast/combat another national. Whereas we seem to identify much closer to our inner community (township, school.) Of the Australians...

Laos: Vegetable Garden

  21 October 2006

The blogger at laocuisine.net introduces some vegetables from Laos that the blogger has been growing in her garden.

Barbados: Hair, race & breast cancer

  21 October 2006

A newspaper report on one woman's public hair-shaving in support of breast cancer awareness reminds Titlayo of the extent to which Barbadians are still grappling with issues of race.

Russia: The Second Blog War

  21 October 2006

(more buttons and userpics are here) The Russian-language blogosphere (commonly known as ZheZhe) is on fire: some users are shutting down their blogs, others are emigrating to the virtual Trinidad & Tobago – all because LiveJournal.com's owner Six Apart has decided to team up with the Russian internet company Sup,...

Croatia: Online Discussions Overview

  19 October 2006

Some Croats feel nostalgic when they think about Tito's Yugoslavia, which broke into pieces in 1992. Turbo Kvrcko posts a funny “Wanted” image that depicts why he misses the good old times (HRV): WANTED Josip Broz Tito Beyond reasonable doubt, he has committed the following “criminal acts”: he didn’t allow...