· October, 2007

Stories about Ethnicity & Race from October, 2007

Russia: Mikhalkov's “12”

  30 October 2007

Ntalia Anonova reviews Nikita Mikhalkov's “12”: “The movie isn’t some exotic, tourist-y, BBC “country profile”-y jaunt through an ethnic conflict. It crushes you, resuscitates you, crushes you some more.”

Japan: Fingerprinting to Prevent al-Qaida's Friend of Friend

  30 October 2007

Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama explained the need of getting foreigners’ fingerprint was to prevent al-Qaida's “friend of friend” from sneaking into the country with false passports and disguises. However, from what he said, he is also al-Qaida's “friend of friend” as he cited the information from ‘an unidentified “friend of...

Poland: Roman Giertych's Out of Politics

  29 October 2007

The beatroot is wondering who he is going to “write about for the next two years,” now that Roman Giertych has been forced out of politics, along with his party, the League of Polish Families, which “got a miserable 1.3 percent in Sunday’s election.”

Brazil: “Haiti is here, Haiti is not here”

  29 October 2007

Haiti has become a regularly commented on issue on the Brazilian blogosphere. The special connection between Brazil and Haiti was initiated in 2004, when Brazilian troops started to participate in MINUSTAH — the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Last week the UN decided to extend its presence in the...

Jamaica: Slave Mentality

  29 October 2007

“Sometimes I wonder if to be black in this world is to be absolutely unaccountable. For anything.” Marlon James picks apart the slave mentality.

Barbados: Gullah Gullah Island

  29 October 2007

Gallimaufry finds similarities between the language of the Gullah people and the way Barbadians speak: “I am reminded that something as commonplace as the way we talk is, even without our conscious knowledge, powerfully denotive of our national African heritage.”

Japan: Racial profiling in the U.S. and Japan

  27 October 2007

Hasan at hasanhujairi[dot]com writes about his experience being a Middle Eastern foreign student in a post 9/11 world, subject to racial profiling first during his time in the U.S., and then again in Japan.

The Balkans: The Language Issue

  26 October 2007

Balkan Baby writes about the “language issue” in the Balkans: “What language do we speak when we are in the countries that once made up Yugoslavia? In Slovenia and Macedonia the answer is quite simple since these two countries both had their own languages which were recognised by the Yugoslav...

Serbia: Milosevic's Propaganda

  26 October 2007

Srebrenica Genocide Blog explains why Slobodan Milosevic was “a clever mass murderer” whose “attempts to shift blame on the victims failed miserably” – but whose propaganda “is well and alive even today.”

Georgia: Russian Paranoia

  25 October 2007

Steady State posts a link to an article in Russian detailing territorial claims that the Republic of Georgia might have on Russia since medieval times. The blog treats such claims with scorn and sees it more as anti-Georgian paranoia than anything based on historical fact.