Stories about Ethnicity & Race from April, 2009
Kyrgyzstan: Elections and Ethnic Tensions
Elena tells who will be the single presidential candidate from the opposition in Kyrgyzstan and reports on the inter-ethnic conflict in the country.
Israel: ‘Slumdog’ Star Films Movie About Palestinians and Israelis
Frieda Pinto, the female star of Slumdog Millionaires, is in Israel preparing for a film about the interconnected lives of Palestinian and Israeli women from the founding of Israel through modern times. Checkpoint Jerusalem has the story.
Israel: Arab and Jew Represent Israel at Eurovision Contest
Israeli Arab Mira Awad and Israeli Jew Avinoam Nini will represent Israel in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest with “There Must Be Another Way,” sung in Hebrew and Arabic. Awad's performance will be the first time an Israeli Arab has represented Israel in the Eurovision contest. Daniel Lubetsky of the...
UAE: Torture video sends shock waves around the world
Last week, a grainy video from 2005 made headlines, shaking up viewers around the globe. The video, first shown on U.S.-based ABC News, showed Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan - brother of UAE's crown prince torturing an Afghan grain farmer, attacking him with a cattle prod then literally pouring salt on his wounds. Jillian C. York brings us reports from the blogosphere.
Egypt: “Egyptians are not Arabs”
Mathilda wrote her thoughts in a scientific research that believes Egyptians are not Arabs; it focused mainly on the Egyptians around Luxor, where old upper Egypt was located.
Armenia: Shooting the Messenger
Security, in the Caucasus and beyond…. comments on the tendency for nationalist voices in Armenia and the Diaspora to shoot down any proposals intended to promote peace and reconciliation with Turkey by discrediting them and preventing any open discussion or independent thought.
Hungary, Bolivia: Eduardo Rózsa-Flores
Hungarian Spectrum writes about Eduardo Rózsa-Flores and the alleged plot to kill Bolivia's president – here, here, and here. (An earlier GV post on Rózsa-Flores, by Eduardo Avila, is here.)
Armenia: Joke of the Day
Unzipped says joke of the day in Armenia is news that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) are now calling themselves an opposition political party. Having left the ruling coalition government yesterday in protest at talk of possible reconciliation between estranged neighbors Armenia and Turkey, the blog says that...
Peru: Newspaper Mocks Indigenous Congresswoman's Spanish Language Proficiency
Isabel Guerra writing at Living in Peru provides an overview of a recent case of discrimination and racism by the local newspaper “Correo” for mocking the the indigenous congresswomen Hilaria Supa for her poor proficiency of Spanish. When in fact, she never attended school and Spanish is her second language. Others...
Central & Eastern Europe: Racism Roundup
The beatroot writes about Poland's boycott of the UN conference on fighting racism; Hungarian Spectrum writes about the Hungarian Guard and Holocaust denial; coverage of Slovenia's neo-Nazis – here and here, by Sleeping With Pengovsky, as well as here, by Piran Cafe; Borut Peterlin posts photos from an anti-fascist rally...
Hungary: NY Times’ Coverage
Pestiside.hu writes about the New York Times’ coverage of Hungary.
Czech Republic: Blog Roundup
A Czech roundup: Czechmatediary – on the new translation of the Bible into contemporary Czech and on Albert Einstein's Prague connection; CzechFolks.com – on xenophobia, job market, and the Brno Expats Forum online community; The Journeys of Captain Oddsocks – on bone churches and the liberation of Plzeň 64 years...
Macedonia: Celebrating Sakura Becomes a Tradition
Sakura, the annual celebration of cherry blossoms through display of elements of Japanese culture, took place in Skopje, Macedonia, this weekend: somewhat later than last year, because the organizers did not want it to overlap with the Catholic and Orthodox Easter celebrations during the previous two weekends.
U.K.: London Armenian commemorative march
Unzipped posts photos of yesterday's commemorative march held on the occasion of the 94th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
Russia: Baymurat (aka Jimmy) Singing Bollywood Song
Videos of a rendition of a Bollywood song by Baymurat (aka Jimmy) – an ethnic Uzbek from Tajikistan, a gastarbeiter in a town near Moscow, and a YouTube celebrity: one of the earlier versions is here, and the performance at Asian Dub Foundation's April 4 gig in St. Petersburg, Russia...
Afghanistan: The Tricycle Theater hosts Afghan actors
Colla writes that the London’s Tricycle Theatre organised one of the most comprehensive and challenging arts festivals ever mounted on the subject of Afghanistan.
Russia: Union of Repressed Peoples
Window on Eurasia reports that “six of the more than a dozen nations Stalin deported during World War II – the Kalmyks, the Chechens, the Ingush, the Balkars, the Karachays, and the Volga Germans — have formed a Union of Repressed Peoples to demand an apology from Moscow and the...
Armenia: Debate over campaign promise overshadows 94th anniversary of WWI killings
Yesterday marked the 94th anniversary of the massacre and deportation of as many as 1.5 million ethnic Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Bloggers react to a statement made by U.S. President Barack Obama marking the occasion, but which avoided directly referring to the WWI events as genocide.
Belarus: LiveJournal Blogosphere
Andrei Khrapavitski writes about the Belarusian LiveJournal blogosphere: “Do you know that the Belarusian population of Livejournal is bigger than that of a mid-sized regional town? Oh, yeah, there are MANY of us out there. And we do like to argue. Flipping through my Livejournal friends’ feed is so much...
Kosovo: The Language Issue
The Unforgiving Minute writes about “the language issue” in Kosovo.
Russia, Turkey: Circassian Diaspora
Window on Eurasia writes about the Circassian diaspora in Turkey and Russo-Turkish relations.
