As you may know I'm quite worried about the rise of fascism in Europe. Not so much about the marginal extremist parties, that too, but specially about the sliding into totalitarianism without almost noticing, carried by "perfectly normal" conservative or even socialist parties.In the case of Italy, where there is no free press de facto (all the relevant media belongs to Berlusconi, a system almost identical to the regime of Milosevic in Serbia: allows voting but misinformation reigns), where the ruler has got away from justice way too many times by pushing legal reforms that would make him immune to prosecution, where he is strongly suspected to be in collussion with the Mafia and member of the former totalitarian and violent masonry the Logia P2, the situation has gone awry long ago.Sadly the EU has not been able or willing to impose a quarantine on his regime, the same it did with that of Haider in Austria some years ago. But the situation is way too similar. And one can't ignore that the neofascists of Fini are a pillar of Berlusconi's ruling bloc.Today we learn with deep sadness and worry that Italy has gone one, or rather two steps further into full fledged fascism: it is the first EU country to make illegal immigration a punishable crime, not just for immigrants but also for "collaborators", like people who might rent homes to these refugees, who can be punished with up to five years in prision. Simultaneously "citizen patrols" have been legalized.I have been very much concerned in particular about Italy's democratic demise in the las two decades and I suspect that this year and these laws will be soon considered by historians as an inflection point in the slide of old Italy to a new form of fascism.What is even more worrisome is that the same kind of trends you see everywhere in EU: France, Britain, Spain... all these states and many others are more and more becoming less democractic and more totalitarian. Civil rights are less and less and we are almost forced to look outside Europe, maybe to countries like Brazil or Bolivia in order to find references for democracy in the 21st century.A very sad decade for Europe indeed..
Earlier, as I woke from a long nap, I watched this video at the European public news channel, euronews:As I watched the men being brutally arrested, still sleeppy, I realized that it was some local police op against petty crime network at my town but... uh?... wait!... this is euronews: we don't get local news in this channel, what the heck!The information was almost trivial: a small group of immigrants from nearby North Africa arrested for burglary, credit card falsification and drug trafficking.So?Why is it sold as an operation against "terrorism"? Why is there a High Inquisitor (Audiencia Nacional judge Eloy Velasco) involved? All you can read is that the police vaguely suspects that maybe these people sent remittances to some alleged "terrorist organization" back at home. Erm?They look like a little local mafia to me and the pretext of "international terrorism" looks like some less famous inquisitor is trying to score some kind of political points by helping some Spanish mafious to get rid of some petty, yet autonomous, competence.This would be nothing new: since long the big mafias have used the legal system to get rid of less powerful competitors. But this is the first time I know one of those that uses the AN and tries to classify the losing side as "international terrorists". I do not have the feeling, nor the information provides any single factual data that makes it likely that the arrested were anything else than a small criminal gang. So why the "terrorist" speculation? And why has it been hyped that way in the media?I have the feeling that this is some big mafia boss pulling all the strings at state level to get these people, who may have challenged him, in jail for a very long time. Probably nothing else but, damn, it sucks that you cannot get any decent contrasted information anywhere. .
The film Querida Bamako (Dear Bamako), co-directed by Txarli Llorente and Omer Oke (former Director of Immigration in the Western Basque autonmous government) got the first prize for fiction movies in the Festival of Poor Cinema of Cuba, plus the especial mention of the foreign press.A Basque documentary, Sicarios del Capital (Hitmen of Capitalism), of Gregorio Subersiola, got the Zero Poverty prize in the section of documentary, videoart or experimental work. It deals with the political violence in Colombia, where people is murdered every other day, mostly for oposing the government and the ultra-wealthy.This Festival of Gibara is focused in low-budget films from around the world, but, according to Omar Oke, it is a festival that gathers many films and lots of talent, because what they mean by "poor" is only about budget.Oke evaluated positively the success of his film because, while commercial cinemas have rather ignored it, it has got a very good circulation in parallel and even alternative circuits. Thanks to this subdistribution it has been watched by many people in many festivals, at schools, at NGO meetings...Oke has another film already finished: La Causa de Kripan (Kripan's Cause), which deals on female castration. He is still awaiting for donors to finish post-production.
Oke (l) and Llorente (r) before their movie's poster
Source: Gara..
I watched it yesterday on TV news and read today at Al Jazeera again. It happened on April 28: the immigrants were trying to reach southern Spain on an inflatable motor boat and were intercepted by a Moroccan militray ship that sent a group on another boat. One of the soldiers punched a hole with his knife, saying: try to reach Spain now.
According to the survivors account they managed to continue barely but the Moroccans insisted and attacked the boat again with the knife. They begged for their lives but the soldiers ignored their plea. A handful of them managed to reach the Algerian coast but most drowned.
It reminds me of the Berlin Wall, really. It seems that EU has bought the Moroccan authorities throughtly and now they serve their masters with extreme criminal efficiency.
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