· April, 2008

Stories about Ethnicity & Race from April, 2008

Armenia: Alternative Genocide Action

  24 April 2008

Hrag Vartanian remembers an unconventional action staged thirty-nine years ago by American-Armenian artist Kardash Onnig outside an Armenian Church in New York. The protest which called on ethnic Armenians to “Un-hate a Turk” was held on 24 April, the day Armenians worldwide remember the 1915 Armenian Genocide.

Brazil: Making a child murder into a media show

  24 April 2008

A child dies under mysterious circumstances. Her father and stepmother are the prime suspects chosen by the media and general public since the beginning, but the official investigations are still under way. Is it fair to lead 160 million people to believe someone is guilty of killing his own daughter before the final official pronunciation on the matter? What is around, and behind, the full time reality-show coverage made by the Brazilian media in cases like this? The Brazilian blogosphere talks.

Ukraine, Russia: “Hitler Toy” Story

  23 April 2008

Ukrainiana writes about the “Hitler toy” story that first appeared on the Russian TV and was later picked up by BBC: “To the extent that the Western media often cite Russian sources as an authority on Ukraine, they also partake in this smorgasbord of Soviet-style propaganda.”

Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad & Tobago: Lighting the Way

  21 April 2008

Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp is still processing the news of Aimé Césaire's death: “For if the goal of any life is freedom, then Aimé Césaire was a light”…while Caribbean Free Radio remembers a podcast she did with “Césaire intoning, in his impeccably enunciated French, against a musical background, the first...

Turkey: Armenian Sportsmen

  20 April 2008

Unzipped posts an entry on an online exhibition which depicts ethnic Armenian sportsmen in Ottoman Turkey. The blog notes that not only were Armenian sporting events held during the priod 1911-14, but that the two ethnic Armenians represented Turkey in the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games.

Hyejin Kim: A praised young novelist among GVO authors

  20 April 2008

Global Voices celebrates, this month, Hyejin Kim's first anniversary as the GVO Korean Language editor. She is also a celebrated young novelist: her debut book, 'Jia: A Novel of North Korea', has been highly praised as a very vivid and moving novel set in 1990’s North Korea. Is this story just fiction? Hyejin lets us know in this interview.

Brazil: Debating race

  19 April 2008

Alex Castro [pt] is generating an interesting debate in his series of posts about race, a matter that he considers of utmost importance in Brazil. “Each human being is, above all, who they think they are and who they are perceived as being.”

China: One world, one dream, and one multi-front protest

  18 April 2008

The Chinese global anti-Carrefour boycott was supposed to begin on May 1, but with tempers flaring over CNN commentator Jack Cafferty's on-air remarks this past week, and a number of other recent incidents, people in a few cities across China decided to get a head start. So too did the Chinese hackers who had been planning a coordinated denial-of-service attack on CNN.com set for April 19.

Armenia: Homophobic Values

  18 April 2008

Unzipped: Gay Armenia comments on the recent suicide of a 22-year-old ethnic Armenian living in the United States. According to the blog, the young man killed himself after being forced into marriage by his family who were ashamed of his homosexuality. The blog says that the story represents the homophobic...

Remembering Aimé Césaire

  18 April 2008

Aimé Césaire - Martinican poet, politician and consummate West Indian - passed away today at the age of 94. It is not often that politics and poetry go together, but when they do, the West Indies is as fertile an environment as any for the two to coexist. Césaire seamlessly blended his love for language, ideas and writing into his political life, which spanned almost 60 years.

Malaysia's flawless democracy?

  17 April 2008

The Lost Aborigine believes Malaysia's “flawless democracy should be rejected.” The blogger adds: “It must first begin with the step down of the Prime Minister and equality to the non-Malay Bumiputera.”

Uruguay: 365 versions of La Cumparsita

  17 April 2008

Three hundred and sixty five versions of one of the most famous tangoes in the world, La Cumparsita, will be played in Independence Plaza in Montevideo, which is the site where it was played for the first time 91 years ago. Café Montevideo [es] has more details.

Vietnam: Hung King memorial Day

  16 April 2008

Blogger Faster than the Fastest has a question: “Every Vietnamese know that we have 18 Hung Kings during the 4000-year long history, why there is only one day to memorize them? Did 18 of them “die” on the same day?”