A common vision for tackling antisemitism, Islamophobia?

2024/07/08 Leave a comment

Good long read and discussion. While a logical first step is to have separate discussion groups for each, the next step is to have the more challenging conversations between the two groups and others. Some encouraging signs from the respective chairs and co-chairs:

Despite philosophical differences, the authors of two separate reports emanating from Stanford University in the United States on ways to address antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus say they believe there is enough overlap between the two documents on which to found a common vision for the institution.

The reports released last month by committees at Stanford University, one charged with studying antisemitism and the other Islamophobia on campus, paint pictures of a university where both Jewish and Muslim, Arab and Palestinian (MAP) students, faculty and staff feel physically and psychologically unsafe, and abandoned by their university’s administration.

Both reports charge that the elite university has forsaken its raison d’être: the impartial search for truth.

Among the dozens of recommendations – some of which, were they to be implemented, would discomfit the other group – are some that would lower the temperature on a campus that is presently under investigation by the Department of Education for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (The latter is the Federal law that prohibits universities that accept federal funds from discrimination based on race, religion, shared ancestry, ethnicity or national origin.)

Stanford’s President Richard R Saller and Provost Jenny Martinez commissioned the reports on 13 November 2023 following the establishment of a pro-Palestine encampment on the university’s quad, and an upsurge in Islamophobic and antisemitic actions – in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October and Israel’s military response in Gaza two weeks later.

“Members of our community,” Saller said when announcing the two committees, “have been feeling pain, fear, anger, and invisibility as they have confronted the ugliness of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other expressions of hatred, both here on our campus and in the wider world.”

Speaking directly to the purpose of the committees, he continued: “The steps we are taking are intended to respond to specific needs of our communities, to support the wellbeing of community members, and to foster the atmosphere of open, civil, deeply informed discussion that is important for Stanford and our educational mission.”

An emphasis on recommendations

Each report states outright that its goal is not to outline what a Middle East peace might look like. Rather, in addition to placing on public record instances of harassment, physical threats, silencing in classrooms and dorms, and ‘othering’ of Jewish and MAP students, respectively, each report provides recommendations.

Such recommendations include educating the wider Stanford community on antisemitism and Islamophobia, improving dealing with antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents, and clarifying the university’s rules around protests. Each report proposes strategies to foster dialogue across religious and ethnic lines in order to build a more cohesive community.

However, evidence of harassment is offered in both reports. The MAP report, titled Rupture and Repair: A Report by the Stanford Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Communities Committee (Rupture and Repair), for example, notes a 900% increase, to 50 incidents, of anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab bias or Islamophobia on Stanford’s campus between October 2023 and May 2024.

Among these incidents were a least two physical assaults, intimidation of a woman wearing a hijab, online harassment, and a professor who told a student: “I think you do work with Islamic jihad and Hamas and Iran – people that murder and torture gays, women, and you are their useful idiot.”

Rupture and Repair further charged Stanford’s administration with weaponising the university’s rules against encampments by, for example, threatening to issue trespass notices against the encampments.

Likewise, in ‘It’s in the Air’. Antisemitism and Anti-Israel Bias at Stanford and How to Address it (It’s in the Air), the subcommittee, co-chaired by political science professor Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution (both at Stanford), found that “antisemitism exists today on the Stanford campus in ways that are widespread and pernicious”.

It cited examples of vandalism, including the sacrilegious act of ripping mezuzahs off Jewish students’ door frames and the drawing of swastikas.

In one freshman class – “COLLEGE 101 Why College? Your Education and the Good Life” – the professor asked Jewish students to raise their hands if they were Jewish and said “he was simulating what Jews were doing to Palestinians” by taking a Jewish students’ belongings and moving it to the edge of the room while the student was turned around and looking out the window.

In another class, after a student said that six million Jews died in the Holocaust, the professor responded: “Yes. Only six million” and said 12 million had died in the Congo during Belgian colonisation.

The committee documented cases of Jewish students feeling so unsafe they had to hide their Stars of David, and the creation of a new epithet, ‘Zio’ used, Diamond said, in sentences like, “She’s a Zio [meaning Jew], so you can’t trust her.”

At times, protestors at encampments on the university’s Quad chanted threats: “We know your names, we know where you work and soon, we are going to find out where you live” and “Go back to Brooklyn” – Brooklyn being that part of the United States with the highest Jewish population.

In sum, during the fall of 2023 and winter of 2024 quarters, there were 146 events reported to Stanford’s Department of Public Safety (DPS), 75 (or 51%) of which targeted either Jewish or Israeli students who make up 10% of Stanford’s total enrolment of 17,529.

Yet, despite such content, neither Diamond nor Professor Alexander Key, professor of comparative literature with expertise in Arabic literature, and co-chair of the committee that wrote of Rupture and Repair, view their reports as “duelling”, as The New York Timescharacterised them on 20 June.

Rather, as Key underscored: “You can’t threaten people with discriminatory hate; we should all be treating each other with respect because we’re all members of one university community.”

Speaking directly about swastikas, he added: “That’s what’s so frightening about the stuff that Jeff [Kosof, co-chair of the committee that wrote the It’s in the Air report] and Larry [Diamond] reveal in their report: if people are invoking the Nazis to target Jewish students on social media, this is antisemitism, it needs to be stopped. It’s not acceptable at the university.”

For his part, Diamond told University World News that his committee was not interested “in an Olympics of suffering”.

He said his committee does not have to say that what Jewish students are experiencing is “equivalent to, or greater than what Arab students are experiencing, or Palestinian students, or black students, or Hispanic students, or Pacific Islander students. It’s not a contest. You look at each form of discrimination, marginalisation, and injustice. And each one needs to be addressed”.

Interestingly, both reports were critical of how Stanford’s DPS dealt with reports filed through the Protect Identity Harm (PIH) system. Jewish and MAP students had so little faith that a report would lead to action that many told the committees they didn’t even bother to file reports, while some MAP students said they feared that filing reports would be singling themselves out before the administration.

Accordingly, each report called for revision of the PIH system and for the DPS to be more responsive.

Policies for residences

More than half of Stanford’s students live in campus housing, including 97% of its 7,207 undergraduates. While Diamond stressed that many resident assistants (RAs) were supportive and fair minded, and supervised dorms in which Jewish students felt safe, there were others where Jewish students did not feel safe.

“In some instances,” notes It’s in the Air, “RAs posted antisemitic or threatening content on social media, for example [saying] that Jews don’t need protection because antisemitism isn’t real. In others, they abused their role to advance divisive political agendas that left their Jewish residents feeling that they could not trust or approach them.”

The MAP students’ experience with RAs parallels that of Stanford’s Jewish students. Some were responsive to MAP students in distress and pointed them towards helpful resources. In other cases, the report notes, students were “fearful of communicating with their RAs due to the general silence on Palestine and-or specific real or perceived political misalignment”.

MAP students who were RAs found themselves “caught between being genuine and their fear of being punished, with one noting that she tried to keep her activism separate from her role in the dorm and said, ‘I felt very othered in a position where I was supposed to help people not feel othered and it’s hard to do that. I felt it was unclear what could get me fired. As I look back, I realise what lengths I went to [in order] to dehumanise parts of my identity because I didn’t want to get fired’.”

Both committees called for better training for RAs, though each proposed a different curriculum. Diamond told University World News that the training must focus on what’s permissible.

“It involves clarity that you cannot use any official channel of communication, anything related to your role as an RA, the dorm, mobile phone, text messaging network, a Slack channel to the dorm, or anything else to push political and divisive views that will leave some students feeling like they’re not part of the community,” he said.

The report calls for the training of RAs (and teaching assistants) to include education into the history and forms of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias.

The MAP committee calls for “training on anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab bias and Islamophobia, as well as mental health training related to these communities” and for clarification on the “policies around student rights to political expression: detailing specifically the hanging of banners, flyers, etcetera, in rooms, doors, shared spaces, etcetera and ensure all residential staff (RFs [resident fellows] and RAs along with professional staff) have adequate training around those policies and their application.”

Further, the committee says Stanford must “[e]nsure the consistent application of those policies across political issues and not just with respect to pro-Palestine support”.

Philosophical differences

The different emphases in each report in regard to RAs and other issues stem from basic philosophical differences between the two committees.

Central to the MAP analysis is what is called the ‘Palestine exception’, which Key explains as “a real epistemological problem. This is the one thing you can’t talk about. Talk about Ukraine, who cares? Talk about Palestine? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, bad for your career. Better to keep quiet; this could be bad for your job. Let’s just not talk about Palestine”.

To counter this silencing, the MAP committee calls for a 10-year commitment to hire 10 new tenure track positions in Arabic and Palestinian studies in order to build the university’s capacity in these areas and make Stanford a destination choice for students interested in studying these areas.

(While he did not specifically agree with the MAP committee’s proposed number, Diamond told University World News that he was sympathetic to this argument.)

Exploding the ‘Palestine exception’ is also why Key and his colleagues write in support of the “People’s University for Palestine” (PUfP), a kind of ‘university’ set up by students as part of the second encampment that began last April.

As did hundreds of similar encampments across the United States and, indeed, in Canada (where some are still in place) Stanford’s students called for the divestment from corporations that supply weapons and surveillance technology to the Israeli government.

Additionally, according to the MAP report, the PUfP hosted presentations on Palestine’s intersection with other causes, film screenings and it “raised awareness on the Palestinian issue by embracing intersectionality and connected struggles”.

It also “shed light on how the ongoing war in Gaza is part of and intertwined with larger global oppressions against Indigeneity, Muslim identity, the environment, and the Global South”.

Among other topics, the PUfP covered “From Vietnam to Falastin: Intertwined Histories and Futures”, “Bringing Indigenous Revolution to Campus: Lessons from Palestine, Kurdistan, and Wallmapu”, “Asian American Organising and Solidarity with Palestine”, “Spirituality, Buddhism, and Non-Violence”, “Lunch & Learn: Bridging West Oakland and Gaza”, and “‘The Palestine Problem’: Black & Palestine Solidarity Teach-in.”

The PUfP did not adhere to what most American professors consider the sine qua non of academic freedom: their control, as experts, of the curriculum.

Accordingly, when Key was asked to square the MAP committee’s support for a ‘university’ outside of professors’ academic control, he said that the kind of centralised control of syllabi that exists at the University of St Andrews (where he took his undergraduate degree and later did some teaching) or even at Harvard (where he did his PhD) “is just not the Stanford way for good or ill”.

“It’s a much more laissez faire attitude here,” he said, adding that students did not receive credit for whatever work they did in the PUfP; the structure was wholly separate from Stanford’s accredited units.

The most important point about the PUfP, he explained, is that it is a flashing red light that the university is not doing its job.

“If it were, we wouldn’t have needed the People’s University for Palestine, because we would have had a university, Stanford, in which these discussions and these varying epistemologies and political analyses could have been argued about and processed in our university,” he said.

The Palestine exception also explains the MAP committee’s opposition to a normative definition of antisemitism (or, for that matter, Islamophobia) – because any such definition could impinge on pro-Palestinian advocacy.

The committee rejects “attempts to revise university policy in any unit to limit opportunities for speech expression in response to Palestinian advocacy”, he said.

Accordingly, the MAP committee rejects the idea of “civil discourse” in favour of “vibrant discourse”.

“Civil discourse,” Key explained, is problematic because, in North America, it has a “long history of being mobilised against interest groups that are committed to political change. ‘Can you be more civil? You need to be more civil.’ We have serious concerns about that.

“We don’t think it’s an effective approach. We don’t think it’s appropriate. We don’t want to repeat the same mistakes. We want a situation in which people are able to feel like they are able to bring their commitments to the discourse, their ideas to the table.

“And civil discourse, whilst in the abstract its definition says that people can do this, the history of civil discourse in North America has done the opposite. And we don’t want to do that,” he said.

By contrast, Key continued: “vibrant discourse is a world in which you don’t have to sign up for a specific epistemological project in order to take part in the discourse. In anticolonial and decolonial work, for example, a lot of people have done a lot of useful theoretical work that contests framings based on liberal understandings of reason.

“In fact, what worries us about some framings of civil discourse is that they appear designed to exclude some knowledge production, in favour of a certain kind of knowledge production, which is itself contested.

“Liberal reasoning, for example, could be thought of as contingent on belief in the existence of abstract universal reason or on the denial of experience and tradition; all such claims need to be engaged and contested rather than one of them being accepted as the prior conditions of discourse”.

Defining antisemitism

It’s in the Air calls for Stanford to introduce time and place restrictions on protests on the quad as well as banning loudspeakers blaring protest messages into classrooms. Further, it calls on university leaders to “exercise their own free speech right to call out and condemn antisemitic and anti-Israel speech on campus”.

One thing the report does not do is provide a definition of antisemitic speech. Instead of endorsing, for example, the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definitions endorsed by the United States State Department and House of Representatives, the committee proposed a framework consisting of two questions to determine if a speech act is antisemitic.

First, “Does the objectionable act employ antisemitic sentiment in its substance? In other words, does it “rely on specific examples of antisemitic belief such as blood libels or claims about Jewish avarice?” Or does it embody tropes like the Jews control the media or banks?

Second, “Does the objectionable act rely on antisemitic logic in its structure?”, for example, by asking if the speech act “blur the lines between the Jewish people and a concept of ‘The Jews’ as a nefarious and perhaps hard to identify cabal?” Does the statement rely on the “structure of antisemitism [which] figures Jews as a kind of universal unwelcome guest and a source of eternal trouble?”

This question would not prevent criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war aims in Gaza but would identify when and how such criticism tips over into antisemitism.

For, under the structure of antisemitism, “Blaming Jews does not mean holding actual Jewish people responsible or accountable but, rather, using the figure of ‘the Jews’ or ‘the Zionists’ as a necessary feature of a larger explanatory argument.”

Examples of this is the statement, “You are Jewish; therefore, you are to blame for Israel’s policies”, or when, as the report documents, Jewish students were pressed in class to declare whether they were Zionists or not.

Common ground

Despite these philosophical differences, both Diamond and Key told University World News they believe there is enough overlap on which to find a common vision for Stanford.

An important part of this re-imagining of Stanford is the recognition that both Jews and the members of the MAP community are minorities that are not recognised as such by the existing framework of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

While both reports call for these groups to be included in the existing DEI structure, It’s in the Air goes further and suggests radical reorganisation of what Diamond explained was the faulty binary DEI model of oppressor-oppressed or coloniser-colonised, under which Jews are first identified as ‘white’ (which, especially in Israel, is not always the case) and are always placed on the left side of the binary.

Diamond and his co-authors point to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) – which they found to be relatively free of antisemitism – as having a different DEI model.

In the GSB, “faculty, staff and students are trained in the importance and methodology of perspective taking and the complexity of identity. Employee training is buttressed by staffers whose role is not only to advocate for DEI but to facilitate discussion and understanding of how identity influences people’s opinions, experience, and information processing.

“Rather than being siloed in their own DEI infrastructure, staff members who are charged with overseeing affinity groups (whether students or alumni) integrate into the various student and alumni services”, they state.

At the centre of both Key’s and Diamond’s belief that their reports can chart a way forward for Stanford (and, by implication, for other colleges and universities) is their common emphasis on the university being the “site of knowledge production”, as Key called it.

“We think that part of the solution to the problems we identify is a substantial and substantive investment by the university in scholarship in these areas. It’s not going to fix everything, but we’re a university and producing knowledge is what we do.

“And if we have an asymmetry between the knowledge that’s being produced on campus [because of the Palestine exception], this has kind of a trickle-down effect into the classroom, into different spaces, into increased pressure on specific faculty, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera,” he said.

“We want the big investment. We don’t think that, you know, a couple of lines in the next few years, maybe replacing some existing faculty who leave, is going to cut it. Right?

“This kind of investment needs multiple stakeholder communities invested; it needs the donor community invested, the faculty invested, the academic leadership invested. It needs the development office keyed in; it’s a big … multi-stakeholder push to have this kind of investment,” he explained.

‘Vibrant and civil’ conversations

Diamond told University World News that while it was important to recognise the different emphases in the two reports, it was “important to emphasise” that the two sets of co-chairs had had “vibrant and civil” conversations with each other as they were preparing the reports.

“I think we can say: ‘We like and respect each other.’ I think we share a common vision of the university where nobody will be discriminated against on the basis of identity: not students, not faculty, not staff; where people can sit in auditoriums, in classrooms and talk about issues that are very divisive, very painful – and listen to the other side.

“I think that these conversations about identity in the United States, about exclusion, about the Israel-Palestine conflict, about the war in Gaza, about the massacre on October 7, about what the future of this profoundly precious territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea should look like – two states – how might it be achieved, or the articulation for why there should be one state, can be made,” he said.

“There’s no way you can have the conversations that need to be had without them being robust and vibrant, which are the two adjectives they use,” Diamond said.

By way of example, he invited the pro-Palestinian side to explain how the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” means something different to how most Jews and Israelis interpret it.

“There’s going to be passion. There’s going to be conviction. There’s going to be emotion. There’s going to be anger expressed.

“But in the university, the anger, the passion, the conviction, you know, has to be tempered by evidence, by a willingness to submit one’s arguments to the test of logic and historical accuracy, by a willingness to listen to the other side, and by some underlying social fabric, of mutual respect for the equal dignity of all of the individuals participating in these conversations.

“I think there’s a lot of common ground there [between the two reports] that we can work with. I should really love our peers and the other committee to speak for themselves, and I’m sure they have asked the same question,” said Diamond.

Source: A common vision for tackling antisemitism, Islamophobia?

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Regg Cohn: Clearing protesters from university campuses won’t end their chilling effect on free speech

2024/07/08 Leave a comment

Good column:

It’s all about free speech. But for whom?

For those who oppose Israel, yes. For those who support or come from Israel, not so much.

On campus, protesters demand an untrammeled right to trespass, occupy and speechify. But it’s seemingly a right reserved only for them, as pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist protesters — not their opponents.

Think about that one-sided argument. All along, many protesters have tried to restrict the rights of their opponents — other students and professors — to speak or exchange ideas.

Now, time’s up for the campus occupation. But speech suppression will continue on campus in other ways.

Two months after pitching their tents at the University of Toronto, protesters were ordered to pack up this week by a judge who ruled their occupation illegal. In granting the university’s request for an injunction, the court pointed out a peculiar contradiction plaguing the movement:

While the protesters continually claimed a right to free speech, they adamantly refused any reciprocal right of free assembly — even a right of entry — to anyone opposing their encampment on the university’s main grounds. Free speech for me, no speech for you.

Turns out that the protesters were turning logic and the law upside down — not merely trespassing, but trampling on the rights of others on U of T grounds. That’s why the court cleared the way for police to clear them out if they refused to fold their tents.

Superior Court Justice Markus Koehnen stressed he wasn’t denying their right to assembly. For his ruling drew a distinction between daily protesting (permitted and protected) versus perpetual occupying (trespassing and illegal).

Put another way, Canadians have the right to squawk, not squat. If that sounds like a victory for free speech, don’t be so sure.

Here’s an afterthought in the aftermath of the protest: Long after it’s gone, its legacy will live on — in the worst way.

No, I’m not talking about the crusade against divestment, which gets disproportionate coverage in light of the university’s minimal and indirect investments in Israel (a rounding error). Given the ink devoted to divestment, you’d think the U of T’s endowment was single-handedly bankrolling the Israeli war machine.

Divestment is a distraction that detracts from a more insidious objective that motivates the movement.

Listed among the top demands is an “academic boycott,” which is a polite way of describing the blackballing of the other — the other side, which means the other person.

In his ruling, the judge calls it a demand to “suspend all partnerships with Israeli academic institutions that either: operate in settlements in occupied territories, or; ‘support or sustain the apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.’”

That may sound principled to some, but it violates and vitiates the protesters’ own stated commitment to free speech, inevitably serving to intimidate and silence scholars by virtue of their national identity and, ultimately, their religious, racial, ethnic identity.

It means banning Israeli students and professors, and slowly silencing many Canadian supporters of Israel’s right to exist — also known as Zionists. Make no mistake, the protest movement on campus is aimed not merely at divesting but disinviting and decoupling from the other.

That’s the perverse paradox that undermines the campus protest movement. For it opposes any opposing voices — not just in encampments but elsewhere on campus.

The movement seeks to constrain the unencumbered right to study, speak or teach by the other by virtue of their national origin (Israel) or religious and political beliefs (Zionism). Whatever the intent, this would amount to fewer Jews admitted to study or invited to speak on campus, just decades after the notorious “Jewish quota” restricted admissions on campus.

To be sure, protesters occasionally (but inconsistently) draw an apparent distinction between universities that operate in the “occupied territories” versus those confined solely to Israel’s internationally recognized borders. In reality, the question of settlement activity is hard to delineate (who decides?); in any case, the protesters lump all universities together when talking about institutions that “sustain the apartheid policies of the state of Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza” — which potentially captures all of them.

If someone at some university has tangential ties to some settlement, by what logic must the entire institution be banned? How does any university defend itself against the blanket allegation that it helps to “sustain” a state?

Why should any professor be held accountable for the actions of their fellow professors, let alone the decisions of politicians they may very well oppose (in Israel as in Canada)? Why should Israeli professors be banned, but not academics from other countries accused of genocidal actions, from China to Sudan?

That’s not whataboutism, it’s a glaring contradiction in a protest movement that wraps itself in the flag of free speech. It’s also a double standard — one for Jews, one for everyone else in the world.

U of T president Meric Gertler has rejected the recurring demand to boycott Israeli universities as a non-starter. But long after the fighting stops in Gaza, long after the U of T occupation is forgotten, the academic boycott will have the effect of delegitimizing, demonizing and dehumanizing the other.

The challenge is not merely formal academic bans but the informal — and far more insidious — exclusion of Israelis and “Zionists” that will creep into campus life. Instead of free speech, there will be speech chill.

Professors will be interrupted, lecturers will be disrupted, guest speakers will be disinvited. Sound far-fetched?

More in my next column about free speech — not just for protesters but professors.

Source: Clearing protesters from university campuses won’t end their chilling effect on free speech

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Artificial Intelligence and Immigration Implications

2024/07/08 Leave a comment

More directed at legal and immigration firms than governments but nevertheless interesting. Predictive technology, if fed with the right assumptions and data, could be a very useful tool for governments as they often appear flat-footed and late with respect to impacts and change:

According to the International Monetary Fund, almost 40% of global employment will be impacted by artificial intelligence.

The field of immigration is no exception, and several countries are already implementing or planning to implement artificial intelligence (AI) into their immigration systems to obtain benefits such as increased productivity by their staff members, enhanced security measures and streamlined recruitment of foreign nationals.

This blog discusses recent and forthcoming examples of AI in immigration systems; ways for companies and governments to prepare for the AI revolution and adapt it for their uses; and addresses some of the challenges and concerns surrounding the use of AI in immigration.

Some recent examples of AI being utilized in immigration systems include:

  • In the United Arab Emirates, the Dubai airport launched an iris scanner to confirm identity, allowing travelers entering the country to move rapidly through passport control while still maintaining security precautions.
  • Portugal uses AI tools to validate the authenticity of documents submitted with an online citizenship application.
  • The government of Brazil is planning to utilize AI to analyze residence permit applications for employment, to reduce bureaucracy and speed up processing times.
  • France is expected to begin using AI to uncover and trace document fraud on the ANEF (Digital Administration for Foreigners in France) portal.

How can companies and governments prepare for AI and adapt it for their purposes?

  • Ensure compliance with standards in the region they are operating. Across the world, countries and regions are taking different approaches towards regulating AI and affected employers should be aware and revise their business practices if they are subject to these new rules. For example, the European Union is set to become the world’s leading tech regulator when the Artificial Intelligence Act goes into effect; the law will implement regulations on AI in phases, with the first phase banning prohibited AI systems that pose “unacceptable risks”.
  • Adopt specific AI visas to attract talent. Many governments recognize the transformative nature of AI and the critical need to attract individuals specialized in AI practices to transform industries and boost productivity.
    • The United States is considering changes to the J-1 exchange visitor program that could enhance opportunities for AI talent. The U.S. government is also reviewing existing immigration pathways, including the EB-1, EB-2, O-1 and International Entrepreneur Parole Program, to clarify and modernize these pathways for experts in AI.
    • Australia launched a Mobility Arrangement for Talented Early-Professionals Scheme, which provides 3,000 places for Indian national early professionals in several fields, including AI.
  • Utilize predictive technology to understand how migration management affects their companies. AI is being used for migration management, allowing the public and private sectors to pool information that can be used to predict migration flows, leading to more informed decisions and policy-making.
  • Implement upskilling and reskilling initiatives. The private sector should include AI upskilling initiatives as part of their workers’ regular assignments. This is particularly important as, according to the Harvard Business Review, “the half-life of [tech] skills is now less than five years, and in some tech fields it’s as low as two and a half years.” Constantly hiring new talent for emerging AI technology would result in a revolving door at a company, creating a loss of institutional knowledge, productivity, and revenue. By adopting upskilling and reskilling initiatives to keep up with the latest AI technology, employers build employee loyalty.

What challenges and concerns should companies and governments be aware of when utilizing AI or immigration systems built with AI?

  • Confidentiality of information. Governments and the private sector alike collect highly sensitive data essential to immigration procedures, such as biometrics and passports. With the AI transfer of information into systems, employers and government officials must ensure that these systems comply with data privacy laws, contain adequate cyber security precautions, and will not be used to harm the individual.
  • National security issues. Governments want to ensure that information they store on private sector AI platforms is only shared with select partners and does not end up with adversaries that could potentially use this information for nefarious reasons.
  • Translation issues. AI has already proven to be somewhat unreliable when used for translation purposes, due to the nuances of written and spoken languages. Although it may be cheaper and faster to utilize AI for this purpose, translation errors may lead to undesirable outcomes, such as denied visa applications. Employers and government individuals should be extremely circumspect in determining when and what type of AI translation technology they employ.
  • Divide in uptake of AI by countries. To effectively utilize AI, companies and governments must operate in countries with a suitable information and communication technology infrastructure. Developing countries, which may not have this infrastructure or individuals with the skill set to operate such infrastructure, may be slower adopters of AI technology. As a result, if AI is needed for productivity, companies may end up reshoring jobs originally outsourced to these developing countries, causing greater disparities among countries.

Due to the ever-changing nature of AI technology, companies should reach out to their immigration professionals for guidance in navigating the complex landscape at the intersection of these two fields.

Source: Artificial Intelligence and Immigration Implications

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Fatima Payman walked a path familiar to many of us – work within a system or disrupt it from the outside, Faith-based politics will be bad for social cohesion and Islam:

2024/07/06 Leave a comment

Two different takes, starting with the activist perspective of Sisonke Msimang:

Senator Fatima Payman has cut a lonely figure in the past week. The first-time senator has spoken with a clarity that is rare among politicians from the major parties. Having found her voice dissenting from her party’s tepid position on Palestine, Payman seems to have hit her stride. Her departure from the Labor party is no surprise, but as the decision loomed, it was clear that she had resonated with communities with strong ties to Palestine.

Since October last year, the Labor party has tried to walk a cautious path in the face of unfolding atrocities in Gaza. As Sarah Schwartz, executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, wrote this week: “While our government has called for a ceasefire, they refuse to name Israel’s crimes or take the material action many have called for under international law including implementing sanctions and throwing our weight behind a global arms embargo.”

Payman’s actions have put her former party’s failure to lead with a conscience in the face of horror under a microscope. In making Gaza an issue worth breaking with tradition for, Payman achieved a cut-through on Labor’s position on Palestine the party has thus far evaded. The spotlight was clearly not welcome.

In this fractious week, Payman has shown the nation that you don’t have to be the most powerful person in the room to have an impact.

The path Payman has walked is familiar to many people from marginalised communities across Australia. We are often the most vulnerable people in an organisation – lower paid, most burdened by systemic inequalities, most precariously contracted. And yet, because of the nature of the society we live in, we are frequently called upon to be courageous and to take hard stands in defence of the values of the communities we represent. We are often aware that if we don’t speak up, people in the mainstream are unlikely to understand the issues we are putting on the table.

A week ago, at the beginning of this saga, Payman invoked the memory of her father to explain the responsibility she felt to support Palestinian statehood. Insisting that she would not simply go along with party policy on a matter of principle, Payman said: “I was not elected as a token representative of diversity, I was elected to serve the people of Western Australia and uphold the values instilled in me by my late father.”

Those words resonated with many people I have spoken to in migrant communities across the country. Payman is like so many other women of colour who have pushed for change inside organisations that – whether intentionally or not – are hostile to ideas they don’t like or tone deaf to the effect they are having on minority groups. And like many others before her, Payman has had to make tough choices about whether to work within the system or seek to make change in more visibly disruptive ways.

Payman has refused to deny one of the defining issue of our times, but hers is also a story about what it means to try to play a broken game when you are part of a minoritised group in this country.

Though Labor has improved its diversity, its caucus is still overwhelmingly white. According to Per Capita thinktank research fellow and Labor activist Osmond Chiu, the proportion of non-European-background, non-Indigenous MPs in federal Labor is close to 10% whereas in the general population that figure is 25%.

Like others who enter largely monocultural spaces, Payman is confronted with a set of rules and procedures that have worked well for the majority but have significant drawbacks for those who haven’t always belonged to the club. To sway a caucus room, you need seniority and a certain kind of standing – commodities that take time to build and are not guaranteed even when young people, women and people of colour are outstanding at their jobs.

Even if Payman had been persuasive (and to be clear, the Labor party did not seem to be interested in being persuaded on this matter), she would likely have encountered an age-old problem: those who defend the status quo thrive by claiming issues raised by people from ethnic minority communities are themselves minor or tangential. We saw this in action when the PM expressed frustration this week about the fact that he was talking about Payman and Palestine instead of tax cuts.

The message was clear – Payman was a distraction and what he really wanted to talk about was cost of living and other matters regular Australians care about. The sub-text was rich.

As it turns out, Australians can walk and chew gum at the same time. They can appreciate the tax cuts and empathise with a young senator who has managed to elevate an issue that has been bubbling away for months but that has largely been treated as a foreign policy matter by the major parties. The war on Gaza isn’t simply happening over there. Seven decades into the Israeli occupation, Palestinians have created a formidable diaspora, and many of those people have created lives in Australia. They in turn have created networks and have friends and neighbours. In a multicultural society it is these types of ties that make it hard for so many of us to tolerate the bombing of Gaza.

As she leaves Labor, Payman reminds her colleagues that genocide is not someone else’s problem. Importantly, she is seeking to prove that if you choose to ignore a genocide, communities that have families, relatives and loved ones at risk overseas may feel that you don’t care about them either.

Politics is not easy for anyone, least of all for leaders from ethnic and religious minority groups. Some play an inside game, while others seek to make change from the outside. Both strategies are important. Pushing the destruct button can sometimes make progress easier for those who choose to remain inside.

This fierce woman, whose family made a new life here after fleeing Afghanistan, has much to teach us about self-determination. Surely the country that has praised itself for giving her shelter can accept that human rights for all means exactly that – in Gaza now more urgently than ever. Payman’s actions this week have been a reminder that if we allow it to be, speaking truth to power is the most powerful gift multiculturalism can give this society. We can all learn from that.

Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home (2017) and The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela (2018)

Source: Fatima Payman walked a path familiar to many of us – work within a system or disrupt it from the outside

From the Australian PM:

The introduction of sectarian politics to Australia in the wake of Fatima Payman’s defection would risk further harm to social cohesion and be bad for the Islamic community, Anthony Albanese has warned.

The prime minister also rounded on Senator Payman by rubbishing her claims that her defection from Labor was spontaneous rather than orchestrated, and implying she should resign altogether and give back her Senate seat to the party that put her in parliament.

“Fatima Payman received around about 1600 votes,” he said of the Senate result in WA at the last election.

“The ALP box above the line received 511,000 votes. It’s very clear that Fatima Payman is in the Senate because people in WA wanted to elect a Labor government.

“And that’s why they put a number one in the box above the line, next to Australian Labor Party, rather than voted below the line for any individual.”

On Thursday, after six weeks publicly agitating against Labor’s position over the Israel-Gaza war, Senator Payman quit and moved to the crossbench as an independent for Western Australia.

She left open the possibility of forming a political party but said she did not intend to collaborate with The Muslim Vote, a group of Islamic community organisations based on a model in the UK that plans to run candidates against federal Labor MPs with large Muslim populations.

Senator Payman has met representatives of The Muslim Vote as well as micro-party specialist Glenn Druery, who has also advised the group.

Mr Albanese on Friday warned against introducingfaith- basedpolitics into Australia.

“I don’t want Australia to go down the road of faith-based political parties because what that will do is undermine social cohesion,” he said.

“My party has in and around the cabinet and ministerial tables people who are Catholic, people who are Uniting Church, people who are Muslim, people who are Jewish.

“That is the way that we’ve conducted politics in Australia. That’s the way you bring cohesion.”

There are many in the major parties who fear an Islamic political push could reignite Islamophobia, something with which Mr Albanese appeared to concur.

“It seems to me as well beyond obvious that it is not in the interest of smaller minority groups to isolate themselves, which is what a faith-based party system would do,” he said.

Source: Faith-based politics will be bad for social cohesion and Islam: PM

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , ,

How our immigration policies failed Black Americans

2024/07/06 Leave a comment

Every now and then, similar articles appear on Black Americans and immigration:

This year marks a milestone in Black American history. It’s the 50th anniversary of Congresswoman Barbara Jordan’s televised speech to the nation regarding the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

Widely considered one of the best American political speeches of the 20th century, it catapulted Jordan – the first Southern Black woman elected to Congress – to national prominence.

But there’s another element of Jordan’s story that’s notoriously undercovered: her opposition to immigration policies that have failed Black Americans for centuries – and continue to hinder their ability to build wealth today.

With slavery abolished after the Civil War, Black Americans began accruing real wealth. After emancipation, the white-black wealth gap narrowed from 23-to-1 in 1870 to 11-to-1 in 1900. While still suffering from discrimination, Black Americans took on paying jobs, became business owners, and even purchased land.

Then the Progressive Era’s immigration boom began in earnest. Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived at U.S. shores – destabilizing labor markets and particularly hurting Black workers.

Numerous Black civil rights and labor leaders, including A. Philip Randolph, endorsed efforts to slash immigration rates. Randolph correctly pointed out that excessive immigration “over-floods the labor market, resulting in lowering the standard of living.”

Congress ultimately listened and passed the Immigration Act of 1924 – which curtailed foreign migration. By dramatically tightening the labor market, the law helped shrink the earnings gap between Black men and white men by nearly 60% between 1940 and 1980.

It’s simple supply and demand. When there are fewer workers available, employers have to raise wages and provide better benefits to attract them.

The 1924 law certainly had flaws. It gave preference to prospective immigrants based on their country of origin, and strongly favored northern Europeans. Ultimately, the law’s discriminatory nature led Congress to repeal it in 1965.

But lawmakers threw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead of creating a nondiscriminatory immigration system that protected American workers from cheap foreign labor, the reforms of the 1960s re-started mass migration. Black Americans have been paying a steep price ever since.

As Harvard economist George Borjas has shown, Black Americans are particularly disadvantaged by lax immigration policies because immigrants compete directly with Black workers for blue-collar jobs. Each “10-percent immigrant-induced increase in the supply of a particular skill group reduced the Black wage by 4.0 percent, lowered the employment rate of Black men by 3.5 percentage points, and increased the incarceration rate of Blacks by almost a full percentage point,” he and his colleagues concluded.

Of course, Black Americans aren’t the only ones harmed. Journalist David Leonhardt recently chronicled how American workers of all races have seen their wages decline thanks to the renewed tide of immigration that began in the 1960s.

He also elevates the forgotten perspective of Barbara Jordan.

Jordan chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, a bipartisan panel of experts tasked by President Clinton with offering immigration reform recommendations. The commission recommended that the United States pare down immigration to 550,000 people per year and eliminate low-skilled immigration altogether. Clinton initially endorsed the commission’s recommendations, but business lobbyists ultimately convinced Congress to not move forward with the reforms.

Since the Jordan Commission, too many policymakers have defended a system that imports millions of predominantly low-skilled immigrants, both legal and illegal, who depress wages for Black Americans.

Reducing immigration, just as Congress did a century ago, would give Black families a fair shot at the American dream.

Andre Barnes is HBCU Engagement Director for NumbersUSA. This piece originally appeared in the Houston Chronicle.

Source: How our immigration policies failed Black Americans

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Saudi citizenship granted to selection of researchers, innovators, and specialists

2024/07/06 Leave a comment

Of note:

Saudi citizenship has been granted to a number of scientists, doctors, researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and people who have unique capabilities, expertise, and specializations, Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.

The granting of citizenship was issued as part of a royal order granting Saudi citizenship to people with distinguished legal, medical, scientific, cultural, sports and technical expertise for the benefit of the nation in various fields.

It is also in line with Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to create an appealing environment that attracts, invests in, and retains exceptional creative minds.

A number of specialists, whose expertise in the economic, health, cultural, sports and innovation fields was considered distinguished, were previously awarded citizenship in 2021.

Source: Saudi citizenship granted to selection of researchers, innovators, and specialists

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with

Nicolas | Sommes-nous prêts?

2024/07/05 Leave a comment

Agree en principe but don’t see how any political party will embrace serious analysis over slogans and shallow arguments. Kim Campbell may have been ahead of her time when she said, “An election is no time to discuss serious issues:”

Je vous avoue que j’ai beaucoup de difficulté à me sentir émotionnellement investie dans le cycle de nouvelles canadien (surtout anglophone) qui tourne largement autour de la crise de leadership de Justin Trudeau depuis la défaite libérale dans Toronto-St. Paul’s. Vu mon travail, cette désaffection mérite d’être interrogée.

Ce n’est pas que je me foute de la politique fédérale, bien au contraire. C’est plutôt qu’il y a cette manière habituelle, voire culturelle, de cloisonner l’intérieur et l’international dans l’analyse politique qui déclenche chez moi une réaction viscérale de plus en plus proche de la claustrophobie.

Pour décrire ce côté profondément insulaire de la politique canadienne, on parle souvent de la « bulle » d’Ottawa. Cette bulle me fait de plus en plus l’impression d’un bunker. Je ne sais pas comment on fait pour regarder les Américains sélectionner pour nous l’homme politique le plus puissant du monde entre un criminel mythomane et un homme qui peine à formuler des phrases complètes — et ensuite parler de politique canadienne comme si nous vivions dans une autre galaxie, complètement hermétique. Je ne sais pas comment on peut regarder l’extrême droite non seulement prendre d’assaut la France, mais prendre de l’ampleur partout en Europe — et ensuite commenter notre théâtre partisan comme si les démocraties du G7 n’étaient pas sous tension comme jamais. Je crois que d’un point de vue éthique, il devient de plus en plus irresponsable, voire inexcusable, de se complaire ainsi dans la « bulle ».

Si les mots sont durs, c’est parce que la situation est grave. 2024 est une année électorale historique : plus de la moitié de la population mondiale vit dans des pays où on se sera rendu aux urnes avant la fin décembre. La crise des médias traditionnels ainsi que la montée en puissance des médias sociaux et de l’intelligence artificielle influent sur notre rapport à la vérité et sur la capacité des démocraties à subsister dans un espace de rationalité. Durant cette année électorale, les conséquences de ces transformations prennent forme sous nos yeux. Et on voudrait parler de l’impopularité de Justin Trudeau et de la montée de Pierre Poilievre en faisant abstraction du reste de la planète ?

Mardi, le collègue Jean-François Nadeau était en pleine forme. Il nous a donné un bel exemple du calibre d’analyse dont on a besoin pour donner un sens à notre monde en 2024 : parler d’idées et pas seulement des derniers « développements », et tracer les liens nécessaires entre le passé et le présent, l’ici et l’ailleurs. En bref, on pète la « bulle ».

Nadeau a notamment écrit que Poilievre « profite en partie d’un contexte mondial délétère pour s’autoriser à multiplier des coups de gueule dignes, parfois, de chats de ruelle ». On présume qu’on parle ici du climat au parlement en général, et du ton — nommons bien les choses — absolument dégueulasse à la période de questions. Le mépris envers les journalistes ouvertement affiché et le refus grandissant de s’adresser aux médias traditionnels annoncent une fissure profonde dans la santé du débat public canadien.

Mais il y a plus. Mardi, dans le Toronto Star, Bruce Arthur a mis en lumière les attaques personnelles grandissantes de Pierre Poilievre contre des citoyens dont l’expertise contredit des propositions conservatrices. Si des médecins, des fonctionnaires, des professeurs d’université peuvent devenir la cible d’insultes s’approchant du harcèlement de la part du probable futur premier ministre du Canada, le coût de l’expression et donc de la participation citoyenne libre vient d’augmenter radicalement.

Bien sûr, ce sont là des procédés qui minent déjà la démocratie américaine, le débat public français, et bien d’autres nations encore. C’est pourquoi la bulle d’Ottawa me semble si dangereuse. En éteignant la partie de notre conscience qui s’intéresse au monde le temps de parler de politique canadienne, on se garantit de reproduire les erreurs américaines, françaises et autres, avec quelques années, voire quelques mois de décalage. On s’arrange pour devenir — ou rester ? — une piètre succursale du bloc des démocraties libérales en déclin.

Pour donner du sens à ce qui nous arrive, il est impératif de rehausser le niveau moyen d’analyse, sur toutes les plateformes. On ne peut plus se permettre de parler de politique avec le détachement et la rigolade bon ton qui seraient de mise si les partis étaient des équipes de hockey dont on cherchait à faire le pronostic pour les séries éliminatoires. Pas lorsqu’on patauge dans le mensonge, les attaques contre les droits et libertés de la personne, ou la défense d’une guerre qui tue, mutile et affame les enfants à un rythme record.

Il nous faut faire bien plus de place à l’analyse profonde, et bien moins à l’anecdote du jour et à nos prédictions sur l’anecdote du lendemain — à l’écrit, à la radio, à la télévision, sur le Web. Les médias eux-mêmes traversent des transformations qui ne rendent pas la tâche facile. Mais nommons tout de même l’un des principaux obstacles à la hauteur du débat public, soit l’idée, trop répandue chez nos élites culturelles, que « les gens », « la madame au Saguenay », « le monsieur pogné dans son char à Terrebonne » n’ont pas envie de se « casser la tête » avec du contenu trop complexe. Le mépris de classe suinte de partout.

Je suis plutôt profondément convaincue que « les gens » ont envie, non, ont fondamentalement besoin de comprendre le mieux possible le monde qui les entoure. Alors que les démocraties se fissurent, cette routine du nivellement par le bas nous mène à notre perte. L’habitude de la pensée critique, c’est ce qui fait s’entraîner les peuples à résister à la manipulation, au mensonge, à l’assèchement de la compassion et à la mort de la conscience de notre humanité partagée.

Je profite de l’été pour le rappeler, au cas où il serait encore temps — à la manière des démocrates américains — de se faire des rencontres stratégiques d’urgence, et me demander si l’on est vraiment si prêts que ça pour la rentrée médiatique et politique de l’automne.

Source: Chronique | Sommes-nous prêts?

Filed under Politics Tagged with

Immigrants back regularization for undocumented people

2024/07/05 Leave a comment

More accurate header would be “immigrant organizations” as unclear, absent good polling, the degree to which immigrants themselves, who have gone through the hoops, would support. And the usual arguments in favour of impact on overall GDP, not the more important GDP per capita.

Sense of impending panic over a likely conservative government with their “the time is now” reference:

As leaders of immigrant and diaspora organizations across Canada, we want to address recent statements from Immigration Minister Marc Miller about the supposed lack of consensus on the regularization of undocumented people. This hesitancy ignores the moral and economic imperatives at stake. Canada has a responsibility to offer protection and stability to those who have long contributed to our society from the shadows. Contrary to concerns expressed by some about “queue jumping,” many Canadians—especially within immigrant communities—support regularization. Here’s why.

A matter of justice and solidarity

Many immigrants—like other Canadian citizens—personally know non-status people. Undocumented people are our friends, partners, neighbours, family, and coworkers. They care for our children, build our homes, and deliver our food. Their lack of status makes them vulnerable to exploitation, from unfair wages to denial of health care.

Many have fled war, persecution, or severe economic hardship, only to face a precarious existence due to barriers to legal status. Immigrant communities overwhelmingly support regularization because we understand these hardships, and empathize with those trapped by the unforgiving web of the immigration system.

Understanding the path to becoming undocumented

It’s crucial to dispel the myth that undocumented immigrants are “queue jumpers.” Becoming undocumented is not a choice but often a consequence of an opaque and unfair immigration system. Many arrived legally as refugees or migrant workers, but faced insurmountable obstacles in renewing their status or obtaining permanent residency.

Immigrants know—through personal experience or those of our parents and grandparents—that access to permanent residency is fraught with high fees, long waits, and complex requirements that many cannot meet. Thousands fall through the cracks not because they are trying to subvert the system, but because the system fails to provide fair options. When immigrants see undocumented people, they know it could be them. Regularization is not about rewarding lawbreakers; it’s about rectifying systemic failings that leave many vulnerable and uncertain.

Regularization: a pathway, not a shortcut

The idea that regularizing undocumented people amounts to “jumping the queue” is a misconception. Regularization does not mean granting immediate permanent residency without scrutiny. It means allowing individuals to apply for permanent resident status, subject to the same assessments as any other applicant. This would place them in the queue where they belong, acknowledging their long-term contributions and connections to Canada.

Regularization programs can ensure fairness and integrity, offering a transparent process where individuals must meet specific criteria, such as proving residence in Canada. This is not about creating shortcuts but about integrating those already part of our communities into the legal framework, enabling them to contribute more fully to society.

Economic and social benefits

Regularizing undocumented immigrants is not just a humanitarian gesture; it’s an economic boon. These individuals are already contributing significantly to our economy, often in sectors facing severe shortages. By bringing them out of the shadows, we can enhance their wages, productivity, purchasing power, and tax contributions. According to research done on France applied to Canada, regularization would grow the economy by more than $28-billion, and as Miller said, that’s more than the economic growth from multiple oil and gas pipelines. This growth will fund public infrastructure and services, which will result in improving the working and living conditions of all Canadians including recent immigrants.

Regularization promotes social cohesion and stability, and reduces exploitative labour practices. When people live without fear of deportation, they are more likely to invest in their communities, seek education for their children, and pursue opportunities. This leads to stronger, more integrated communities where everyone has a stake in our collective success. Undocumented people already live here, regularization is about including them in the family of rights.

The time is now

Canada has welcomed diverse communities of newcomers over the years. This has strengthened us. We cannot let fears and misconceptions dictate policies that leave hundreds of thousands in a perpetual state of limbo and fear. The decision to regularize undocumented immigrants aligns with our values of fairness, compassion, and inclusivity. The time for change is now. Immigrants are ready to support this initiative.

Debbie Douglas is executive director of OCASI – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants. Amy Go is president of Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice. Samina Sami is executive director of COSTI Immigrant Services. Samya Hasan is executive director of Council of Agencies Serving South Asians. This is the shared opinion of multiple immigrant groups we are in touch with in the country.

Source: Immigrants back regularization for undocumented people

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , , , ,

In Sweden, concern grows over anti-Muslim hate incidents

2024/07/05 Leave a comment

Of note and a reminder that hate is happening to both Jews and Muslims:

On the night of Tuesday, May 28, a car parked in front of the Skövde mosque, which opened in 2023, just outside the town between Gothenburg and Stockholm. The driver threw the corpse of a wild boar against the building, which is in a small wood, before driving off, unaware that the surveillance cameras installed by the Bosnian Islamic Association had filmed the action. “Unfortunately, we’re used to this sort of thing,” said Mirza Babovic, 66, an employee of the association. He reeled off incidents such as Islamophobic tags painted outside the former prayer hall, the remains of a pig dumped on the building site and the windows of a container smashed.

This time, Imam Smajo Sahat, who reported it, decided not to publicize the incident, “so as not to give publicity to its perpetrator, nor to give ideas to others.” He did not want to worry his followers either. But local journalists got wind of it and before long, the national media began to report it, “no doubt because it happened just a few days before the European elections,” said the imam, still dismayed by the violence of the discourse against Islam and Muslims during the campaign.

In November 2023, far-right leader Jimmie Akesson – whose Sweden Democrats party has been allied with the right-wing coalition government since October 2022 – declared that he wanted to destroy mosques, ban the construction of new buildings and wiretap Muslim religious communities in order to combat “Islamism.” His right-hand man, Richard Jomshof, president of the parliamentary legal affairs committee, followed suit, calling for a ban on all symbols of Islam in public spaces, which he likened to “the swastika.”

Shocking remarks

On social media, party officials have constantly denounced the “Islamization of Sweden,” claiming that “Swedes are on the verge of becoming a minority in their own country.” This rhetoric is not new. Back in 2009, a year before his party entered parliament, Akesson asserted that Muslims were “the biggest threat to Sweden.”

Source: In Sweden, concern grows over anti-Muslim hate incidents

Filed under Hate crimes, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

German Authorities Overwhelmed With Citizenship Requests Following Law Changes

2024/07/05 Leave a comment

Not surprising given likely pent up demand:

  • Germany Implemented new Citizenship Law in June 2024, offering an accelerated process of obtaining citizenship.
  • Following the new changes, Germany is experiencing an increase in requests for information for the citizenship process from internationals.
  • In some parts of Germany, all consultation appointments for those wishing to acquire citizenship are already booked up for the following eight months

Source: German Authorities Overwhelmed With Citizenship Requests Following Law Changes

Filed under Citizenship Tagged with

← Older posts

Newer posts →