Some good news dug up by La Vanguardia the other day. They discovered that two Arabs were working as police officers in Nou Barris one of the areas where many immigrants live (17.6 of all the city's immigrants) and they had been particularly effective in policing Cuidad Meridiana which has a 35% immigrant population.
It seems Zuhair and Soraya ( not sure if they were real names) inspire confindence in that they prevent the communication breakdown which often takes place when an Arab person is arrested - or even just questioned. They also have a good nose as to what's going on out there anda re able to ferret out information that Catalan officers would have difficulty in finding. So why don't we have more? OK, maybe we do as they were not reported as being the first ones in the force, but it's very difficult to find out. It's like asking how many people from Sabadell eat fish on Fridays or how many people in Cornella under 13 have had sex.
What was interesting is that local Arabs were surprised that an Arab woman had become a police officer since she would be moving in a predominantly male environment but seemingly the uniform was the important thing in giving her the respect (DareI say it?) that she all too often does not have not only in the Muslim world but in Spain too. For that matter in the UK as well where gender violence is one of the highest in Europe.
As a footnote to this in Dubai where I worked for many years, a local paper ( The Gulf News) reports that the nunber of complaints to the police about wives beating up husbands has increased enormously in the last five years. The culprits are it seems drugs, alcohol - and western television programmes. Now if they got Spanish TVout there I'd certainly agree with that!
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Monday, 21 March 2011
Racism: CEO report suggests 25 % of Catalans could be racist
A recent Government CEO survey showed that one in four Catalans could be termed racist depending on which newspaper you buy for your news. Different papers looked at the stats in a half-empty- glass way but others in a half-full way. Immigration is emotive in Catalunya since many residents believe that much of the street crime is the work of immigrants - and not much is done about it.
According to the results of the survey, people felt positive about immigrants in some respects: they felt that if they had been laid off work they should get unemployment benefit, they should be allowed to keep their customs and traditions (as long as they didn't wear the burka!); they also felt they should be allowed to vote. However certain issues were red-rag status to residents - particularly health and education; many felt immigrants overused the public health service and filled the schools; that the authorities bent over backwards to help them, even depriving native parents' preferences in some areas, in terms of work, people strongly felt that immigrants kept wages low as they were prepared to work for peanuts - some even went as far as saying that immigrants were taking Catalans' jobs.
Sometimes public opinion surveys do more harm than good, especially when newspapers get hold of them and distort the findings for political ends. Clearly however, all is not well on the immigrant front (in a previous blog I mentioned one flagrantly racist politician from Vic who was putting up for election in the government) and there is a lot of rancour out there, clearly expressed in the high percentage of respondents who felt that the city has too many immigrants. It might be interesting to compare Barcelona's with other cities' attitudes though. And to look at things from the immigrants' side too. Will they get the chance to express their feelings publically about living here in surveys like this? Can we also come up with a definition of 'immigrant' too. To some Catalans I've spoken to if you come from Marbella or Cadiz you're classed as one!
According to the results of the survey, people felt positive about immigrants in some respects: they felt that if they had been laid off work they should get unemployment benefit, they should be allowed to keep their customs and traditions (as long as they didn't wear the burka!); they also felt they should be allowed to vote. However certain issues were red-rag status to residents - particularly health and education; many felt immigrants overused the public health service and filled the schools; that the authorities bent over backwards to help them, even depriving native parents' preferences in some areas, in terms of work, people strongly felt that immigrants kept wages low as they were prepared to work for peanuts - some even went as far as saying that immigrants were taking Catalans' jobs.
Sometimes public opinion surveys do more harm than good, especially when newspapers get hold of them and distort the findings for political ends. Clearly however, all is not well on the immigrant front (in a previous blog I mentioned one flagrantly racist politician from Vic who was putting up for election in the government) and there is a lot of rancour out there, clearly expressed in the high percentage of respondents who felt that the city has too many immigrants. It might be interesting to compare Barcelona's with other cities' attitudes though. And to look at things from the immigrants' side too. Will they get the chance to express their feelings publically about living here in surveys like this? Can we also come up with a definition of 'immigrant' too. To some Catalans I've spoken to if you come from Marbella or Cadiz you're classed as one!
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Catalunya's National Front.
Today I had my mailbox stuffed with electorial propaganda. I usually chuck this kind of stuff into the nearest bin - as a foreigner I can't vote in the elections anyway. But today but one flyer caught my eye. On the front was a cross printed against the phrase "Control immigration" with 'immigration'' highlighted. There was also a picture of the candidate who wanted my vote - he looked remarkably like my gym trainer, Marcus, a 'typical Catalan' face. On the back was a list of the things he promised to do if I voted him in. Amazingly, out of the ten issues highlighted by Sr Josep Anglada of the PXC party eight consisted of 'crimes' levelled against non-Spaniards. Unbelievably, as a foreigner I found myself guilty of dire crimes against (Spanish) humanity? And he wants me to vote for him. Assassinate more likely! I mean, look what the man would do to me if he got in.
For starters he'd immediately deport me if I was an illegal immigrant or a teenage delinquent.
He wouldn't allow me to wear my burka -in public - nor allow me to build mosques on any public land. If I was part of a South American gang terrorising residents in the local parks and squares he'd deport me right away. If I had a shop and wanted to keep open to catch the on-the-way-home-from-work crowd, he'd want to take my licence away, cos what I was doing would be unfair competition. As a foreign shopkeeper he thinks I'm probably part of the Mafia anyway. And if I went into selling fake handbags or DVD's on the street to make a living then God help me!
He'd certainly change all this reserving places in schools for my kids rubbish, cos he says there's no room for Catalan kids is there? My children would lower the standards of any school they were in -they'd prevent all those hard-working motivated Catalan kids from progressing quickly enough. Finally there should be no free health cards for me and my type because we clutter up the local clinics and prevent sick Catalans from being attended to.
This man certainly doesn't beat about the bush does he. He goes to town on the naming of names: he pole-axes the Chinese, the Pakistanis, the Moroccans, the Latins and by inference any one who is Muslim. He's sexist in picking on burka wearers.
Hey wait a minure you might say. There's plenty of sense in what the man says. He appeals to voters over 99 who are terrified by gangs and get their handbags snatched off them every day. He has a point too about the health centres - all these bloody Brits down in the south getting their new hips and kidneys on the cheap. Can't even get my Viagra prescription these days the queues are too long. Bloody health tourists!
But underneath this right wing garbage passed off or disguised as an electoral campaign there's something more sinister at work. It's a policy riding on the popular back of xenophobia and pure racism. It's no better than Oswald Mosely's National Front in the UK in the thirties. And what was the political climate then? An economis crisis just like now. Mosely blamed the foreigners for everything and whipped up feelings in the worker class. Look around there are plenty more examples around you. It's what Penn and more recently Sarkozy did in France, what Berlusconi says in Italy. It's the politics of the British National Party . Come to think of it isn't that how Hitler did so well too in Germany?
So Herr Anglada will you get my vote? Like hell you will! Now what can I post in your letterbox? Plans for a mosque in a space near you! Spanish architect though.
Update: day after elections - 29 November.
The PxC party didn't get any seats in the Catalan Parliament, but overall 72,000 people voted for its racist policies. Let's see what happens in the Municipal elections next year on which Anglada intends to concentrate. He was reported to have said said he had been greeted by voters after the election with cries of 'Anglada for President!' Dream on Señor:
For starters he'd immediately deport me if I was an illegal immigrant or a teenage delinquent.
He wouldn't allow me to wear my burka -in public - nor allow me to build mosques on any public land. If I was part of a South American gang terrorising residents in the local parks and squares he'd deport me right away. If I had a shop and wanted to keep open to catch the on-the-way-home-from-work crowd, he'd want to take my licence away, cos what I was doing would be unfair competition. As a foreign shopkeeper he thinks I'm probably part of the Mafia anyway. And if I went into selling fake handbags or DVD's on the street to make a living then God help me!
He'd certainly change all this reserving places in schools for my kids rubbish, cos he says there's no room for Catalan kids is there? My children would lower the standards of any school they were in -they'd prevent all those hard-working motivated Catalan kids from progressing quickly enough. Finally there should be no free health cards for me and my type because we clutter up the local clinics and prevent sick Catalans from being attended to.
This man certainly doesn't beat about the bush does he. He goes to town on the naming of names: he pole-axes the Chinese, the Pakistanis, the Moroccans, the Latins and by inference any one who is Muslim. He's sexist in picking on burka wearers.
Hey wait a minure you might say. There's plenty of sense in what the man says. He appeals to voters over 99 who are terrified by gangs and get their handbags snatched off them every day. He has a point too about the health centres - all these bloody Brits down in the south getting their new hips and kidneys on the cheap. Can't even get my Viagra prescription these days the queues are too long. Bloody health tourists!
But underneath this right wing garbage passed off or disguised as an electoral campaign there's something more sinister at work. It's a policy riding on the popular back of xenophobia and pure racism. It's no better than Oswald Mosely's National Front in the UK in the thirties. And what was the political climate then? An economis crisis just like now. Mosely blamed the foreigners for everything and whipped up feelings in the worker class. Look around there are plenty more examples around you. It's what Penn and more recently Sarkozy did in France, what Berlusconi says in Italy. It's the politics of the British National Party . Come to think of it isn't that how Hitler did so well too in Germany?
So Herr Anglada will you get my vote? Like hell you will! Now what can I post in your letterbox? Plans for a mosque in a space near you! Spanish architect though.
Update: day after elections - 29 November.
The PxC party didn't get any seats in the Catalan Parliament, but overall 72,000 people voted for its racist policies. Let's see what happens in the Municipal elections next year on which Anglada intends to concentrate. He was reported to have said said he had been greeted by voters after the election with cries of 'Anglada for President!' Dream on Señor:
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