Nuneaton traders call for ban on any more EDL demos (UK)

Businesses in Nuneaton have threatened to “shut up shop” if another rally by the English Defence League is allowed to go ahead in the town on a Saturday afternoon.

Calls have already been made by the borough council and the MP for action to be taken by the Home Secretary to prevent a repeat of last weekend’s arrival of 1,500 EDL supporters.

A massive police operation contained and controlled the demonstration away from the main shopping area – but store owners and stall holders were still left to count the cost, with takings badly hit.

“In 42 years, this was the worst Saturday afternoon I have ever known,” said Stuart Tooby, who sells confectionery and is a spokesman for Nuneaton market traders.

“It is the first time I have failed to take enough money to meet my day’s costs. I had to pay staff out of my own pocket. After lunchtime, the town was absolutely deserted. Shoppers stayed away because they were frightened of what might happen.

“The manager of one main store told me their takings were 50 per cent down. Others closed early and everyone started to pack up their stalls around 3pm. This is people’s livelihoods we are talking about – and we are not prepared to be put into this situation again.”

Mr Tooby said that traders will refuse to turn out if the EDL stages another Saturday demo in Nuneaton.

“Why should we be forced to lose money? We have made our feelings known to the council – and have suggested that in such circumstances, perhaps we could have the street market on a Friday or Sunday instead.”

Council leader Dennis Harvey said: “Nuneaton has now been targeted four times by the EDL and it is a mystery why they should pick on our town to cause disruption.

“It did have a disastrous effect on businesses last Saturday afternoon, as well as stretching the police resources.

“I do have to congratulate the police for the way they organised their operation and also thank everyone, traders and shoppers, who did try to go about their business as normal.”

A letter has gone from the borough council to Theresa May asking her to block any future EDL requests to meet in Nuneaton, while local MP Marcus Jones has also pressed the Home Secretary to take action.

He said: “It is unfair that our town has been targeted in this way, by people from outside the area coming in to cause disruption. It also puts businesses and people’s jobs at risk.”

Coventry Telegraph

Racist T-shirts branded 'ignorant' (Australia)

Racist T-shirts on sale at Queen Victoria Market are telling foreigners to "speak f-----' English''.

The shirts, which are on a stall close to shops selling stuffed koalas and boomerangs, have been branded ignorant by a multicultural group.

One shirt, featuring the Australian map and flag, has the phrase, "This is Australia we eat meat, we drink beer and we speak f-----' English!'

Another sports the flag with the phrase, "Support it or f--- off!"

Andrew Jakubowicz, chair of the Institute for Cultural Diversity, said: "If somebody is so unsure about their identity that they need to use that kind of (phrase), it says more about them than it does about anyone else.

"It might take a while for some Australians to speak English, but those who use it the best don't need to use those kinds of words to make a point."

The discovery of the provocative shirts comes after the Federation of the Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia met sporting, religious and ethnic groups around the country last month to tackle racism nationwide.

Queen Victoria Market spokeswoman Misti Dullard said the market was "investigating the appropriateness" of the T-shirts and other items sold by stall operators.

"We have noticed that recently there has been an increase in (those) types of T-shirts," Ms Dullard said.

"Assuming the trader in question is permitted to sell T-shirts under our agreement with them and those T-shirts are legally and generally available then there is little that Queen Victoria Market Pty Ltd can do."

She said the market was widely recognised as one of the multicultural hubs of the city. The Australian manufacturer of one of the shirts, Samsousan Designs, also sells drug and sex-themed shirts online.

"The person wearing this T-shirt is a police officer lie flat on your back and do everything the nice police officer tells you to do," one shirt on the Samsousan website reads.

Sunday Herald Sun

POLICE INVESTIGATE TORCHLIT NEO-NAZI PARADE IN BERLIN (Germany)

A group of about 25 apparent neo-Nazis who marched through Berlin streets with flaming torches face an investigation for a possible hate crime, German police said on Saturday. The group marched in the inner-city district of Tiergarten and chanted offensive slogans Friday evening. Police said the chants broke Germany's law on sedition, which prohibits anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred.

Torchlit parades were a common ritual when German was under Nazi rule 1933-45. The group extinguished the torches and scattered before police arrived, but plain-clothes officers in the area detained four and collected leaflets the group had been handing out. Police said those identified were aged 20 to 26 and may face hate charges.

DPA

Racism controversy dampens Holland's Sinterklaas tradition

Children across Europe eagerly await the arrive of St. Nicholas on December 6. But in Holland, the tradition has racist implications that the Dutch aren't quite willing to give up.

For the Dutch, Sinterklaasavond (St. Nicholas Eve) on December 5 is the biggest celebration of the year - bigger than Christmas. That evening, families gather and exchange presents, and children leave out their shoes in the hopes that Sinterklaas will have fill them with candy by the next morning.

 What seems like a harmless holiday devoted to gifts, candy, and children, has a catch: Sinterklaas' helpers, the Zwarte Pieten or "Black Peters," are portrayed according to degrading racial stereotypes.

 They're typically dressed in 19th-century Moorish outfits, curly Afro wigs, and painted red lips. It is common for both adults and children to dress up as Zwarte Piet, complete with their faces painted black.

 "Zwarte Piet is a person who is happy, who is the assistant of St. Nicholas, the first person who has contact with children and speaks with children," said Bert Jansen, a schoolteacher in Rotterdam who has organized the Rotterdam Sinterklaas parade for 10 years and also walks in the parade as the chief Zwarte Piet.

 Indeed, nowadays the Zwarte Pieten are friendly characters that are clever and mischievous, and adored by children. Yet in the original Sinterklaas story, the Zwarte Pieten were slaves. Gradually, the tale evolved and they became Sinterklaas' helpers, but they were portrayed as being stupid and spoke broken Dutch with a Surinamese accent. They were also frightening figures: It was their job to punish misbehaved children by beating them.

In an effort to tone down any racist implication, the story now says Zwarte Piet is black because they're covered in chimney soot. However, some say that explanation is unconvincing.

 "That just doesn't work for someone who is a grown-up. Where did the Afro come from?" commented Ama van Dantzig, a resident of Amsterdam whose mother is Ghanian and father Dutch.

 Questioning the tradition
The proposal to eliminate Zwarte Piet from the celebration altogether has arisen from time to time, but not yet taken hold.

 "Personally, I think it is an invented tradition and Sinterklaas can stay, but the Zwarte Pieten have to go," said Artwell Cain, director of the National Institute for the Study of Dutch Slavery and its Legacy (NiNsee). "It is an affront to people of the African Diaspora in the Netherlands, and it is not proper in this age."

 The question is even more urgent today as the Netherlands is focusing more on integration efforts and the right-wing Party For Freedom - led by controversial figure Geert Wilders - is the third largest party in the Parliament.

 At a time when there is pressure for minorities to integrate into Dutch society, a tradition like Zwarte Piet sends the wrong message, Cain said.

 "If you are developing this sense of belonging and then this tradition of Zwarte Piet is running around, it diminishes your confidence in what you are as a Dutch person," Cain said. "You become something like an ambiguous citizen. You question yourself: 'Why do I have to enjoy this? Why do I have to be confronted openly with this form of racism?'"

 Others see Zwarte Piet as an essential Dutch tradition that is enjoyed by all children and families, regardless of race or ethnic background.

 "Everyone is happy about Zwarte Piet, and if you are from Holland or you come from Morocco or Somalia, every child puts his shoe by the door or chimney in the hope that Zwarte Piet puts a present in his shoe; everyone does it," said Peter Boelhouwer, an event organizer who has managed the Sinterklaas parade in The Hague for the past 10 years.

 A 19th-century creation
Although celebrations around Sinterklaas date back to the 16th century, they were usually spontaneous, wild celebrations in the street, said John Helsloot, a researcher at the Meertens Institute who specializes in Sinterklaas traditions. The current story of Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet dates back to 1850, when Jan Schenkman, a schoolteacher from Amsterdam, published an illustrated children's book that introduced many elements of the Sinterklaas story that caught on, including the Zwarte Pieten.

 The book was quite popular among the bourgeois and there was a readiness to adopt the festival, Helsloot said. From there, it slowly evolved into the celebration that exists today.

 It's not uncommon for St. Nicholas figures to have a devilish companion - such a figure exists in both Austrian and Swiss traditions - but the Netherlands is the only place where he is imagined as a black man. It is difficult to say why this particular story emerged here, but Helsloot suggested that it could be tied to the Dutch abolishment of slavery in 1863.

 "You can see that racism was stronger even after the abolishment of slavery," Helsloot said. "Zwarte Piet was part of this general idea of foreign people, black people as frightening, and that people should be punished by frightening figures."

Goodbye to Zwarte Piet?
If lasting changes are to be made to the Zwarte Pieten, it seems they will have to be organic rather than imposed by a political organization. In 2006, The Dutch Programme Foundation encouraged people to paint their faces with rainbow colors, but the effort failed and the next year the usual Zwarte Piet black face returned.

 Though that's not to say change isn't possible.

"With more and more people like me who become Dutch and don't find it necessary that the Zwarte Pieten stay black, it can change, but slowly," said Sueli Brodin, a resident of Maastricht who is Japanese-French and has lived in The Netherlands for 19 years. "It has to happen naturally because society is changing."

 Helsloot also could see a future where children smear their faces with black ink rather than paint their whole faces black to lose the racial association and show instead that Zwarte Piet is actually covered in chimney soot.

 Still others say Zwarte Piet must be taken out of the tradition completely.

 "I think it can happen, but it is completely tied to the question of racism in general and how we are conscious about how racism affects the whole of society," said Max van Lingen, a representative of the International Socialists who works on anti-racism campaigns. "This is not something that will happen within the next five years; it really is a long battle."

 Van Dantzig is not as optimistic. "The people around me are highly educated, internationally-oriented people and the Dutch in that group don't understand the big deal with Zwarte Piet, and they are the future change makers if you ask me," she said. "They are very protective of Zwarte Piet and it will be difficult to change it."

DW-World

GERMAN COURT UPHOLDS FINE AGAINST FAR-RIGHT PARTY

A German court on Friday upheld a fine imposed on the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) for failing to declare part of its income. The party is on the verge of financial ruin because of earlier fines. The federal parliament had imposed the 33,000-euro (43,400 dollar) fine on the party for false accounting practices between 2004 and 2007.

The NPD had failed to declare 16,603 euros of income from two constituencies. In 2009, the same court ordered the NPD to pay 1.27 million euros for filing erroneous tax returns in 2007 - halving the original penalty imposed by parliament. In a separate court ruling, parliament in the state of Saxony received legal backing on Friday for its temporary expulsion of NPD leader Holger Apfel for anti-Semitic comments earlier this year.

In June, Apfel was excluded from parliament for 10 days after calling Israel a 'rogue state,' amongst other things. He had refused to leave until police officers escorted him from the building.

DPA

West Brom: James Morrison talks about racism in Russia

James Morrison hopes England’s failure to land the World Cup will have a positive effect by helping to eradicate the racism in Russia.

West Brom take on Newcastle this afternoon but the nation continues to debate the fall-out of England’s failed 2018 bid amid allegations of corruption within the FIFA.

But it has been relatively forgotten that Russian fans were recently caught up in a racism storm involving Albion striker Peter Odemwingie.

Supporters of his former club Lokomotiv Moscow unfurled a banner with ‘thanks West Brom’ plastered across the front alongside an image of a banana.

Albion fans protested and hit back with a banner of their own, produced in the style of the Kick Racism Out of Football logo.

Odemwingie was this week unwilling to offer his opinion on Russia’s success, although he had previously endorsed both the English and Russian bids.

Scotland international Morrison hopes that some good will come out of FIFA’s controversial decision to hand Russia the tournament.

He cited South Africa’s World Cup which was relatively successful from an administrative and logistical point of view, despite fears being voiced before the tournament about the potential for crime and a lack of organisation.

“It’s a real shame England won’t be hosting it – Russia haven’t got the stadia that we have,” said Morrison.

“Money talks I suppose, doesn’t it?

“They had the Champions League final a few years ago so maybe it will be a success.

“But the one thing I do hope is that this helps them get racism out of their game. It will hurt them otherwise.

“Peter got some stick which was very unpleasant.

Sunday Mercury