"If you're dark-skinned; if you sport a big Zapata mustache; if you're a woman and cover yourself with a shawl - then don't even think of living or even visiting the North American state of Arizona, which has officially declared itself racist. ... Because tell me, do you really believe that police in Arizona are going to detain a White person with blond hair and blue eyes?"
If you're dark-skinned; if
you sport a big Zapata mustache; if you're a woman and cover yourself with a
shawl - then don't even think of living or even visiting the North American
state of Arizona, which has officially declared itself racist. And it is a
racism that is clearly aimed at the Mexican and Latin American population in
the form of purely racial "profiling." Because tell me, do you really
believe that police in Arizona are going to detain a White person with blond
hair and blue-eyes? Of course not; that would open them up to be sued, because
the law prohibits detention based on a person's physical appearance. Unless of
course one is dark, or dark and mustachioed, or dark with a mustache and
speaking bad English. Or wears a shawl.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
The new racist law of the
state of Arizona harms innocent individuals. Such is the sin of all racism.
Interviewed on U.S. television, several Arizona police officials were left without
arguments. Why detain a person who looks "Latino"? To ensure that their
papers are in order, which creates an obligation for all brown-skinned people (mustachioed
or not) to carry an ID, as has been required of all persecuted groups - such as
the Jews of Nazi Germany.
In other words: the new law
discriminates against groups of people based on physical appearance,
arbitrarily eliminates the need for due process and creates a caste society,
interrupting processes of integration and making intimidation the basis of an uneasy
social coexistence. "We're just enforcing the law” repeat the interviewed
police officials. The same has been said by all perpetrators of racist,
discriminatory and ad hoc policies directed at particular groups in society. "It's
the law.”
The arbitrariness of the
Arizona law has served, however, to shed light on a number of other issues
related to the "Glass Frontier." One very painful one is the
ideological brittleness of certain American politicians. Together
with Edward Kennedy, John McCain was the author of a very generous and legally justified immigration
bill. While reaffirming the right of the United States to secure its borders
and enforce migration laws, Kennedy-McCain also proposed to speed up the family
reunification program and a program that creates a new category of visa (H-5A)
that would initially grant visas to 400, 000 workers. This temporary visa would
be valid for three years, with a possible extension of three years more. In
particular, wives and children would have been able to cross the border to
visit a father working in the U.S. The H-5A visa have would opened a path to
permanent residency. Its stated purpose would have been to "promote
circular migration patterns." The generosity and intelligence of this
initiative stands in brutal contrast to the provisions of the Arizona law, and
particularly with a flip-flop of Senator McCain, who has apparently renounced
his past and now supports the new Arizona law and therefore, the arbitrary
detention of people "suspected" of being illegal immigrants. "Suspected"
to being Jewish, communists, anti-communists, Muslims, Gypsies, etcetera,
etcetera.
Now pursuing a repressive and
racist initiative that denies the senator's own record, McCain today is a mere
opportunist who wants to defeat the arguments of his primary opponents by being
"more Catholic than the Pope." Sarah Palin, a promoter of lies and intolerance
who has been desperately recruited by the senator, has offered her stellar
support.
Compare this arbitrary policy
with President Barack Obama's call to restore a path to legality and finally obtain
a new federal law on migration. Obama described the Arizona law as "harassment.”
He's right and it's clear that the law of the state of Arizona is
unconstitutional, since the domain of immigration uniquely belongs to the
federal government and not to states of the Union.
As on other occasions (such as,
for example, a 1994 initiative of the State of California denying social
benefits to undocumented immigrants which was overturned in 1997 by a district
judge), higher courts will eventually annul the Arizona law. But in the mean
time, this is a law that promotes arbitrary detention and factual racial
discrimination.
In any case, the population
of Hispanic origin in the U.S. will be the victim of this racist initiative. A
third of poor children in the United States are Latino and the climate created
by Arizona will gravely hamper the incorporation of these young people into the
political, economic and social life of North American society. Everybody loses.
Everybody ends up living in fear.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Two further issues complicate
the status of migrants. One is the criminality on the border. The weapons are
sold in the United States and the battles are fought in Mexico. The police and
army are losing.
The Mexican government seems increasingly
weak and uncertain. In the long run, only a process of decriminalization and legalization
[of drugs], which has been proposed by [former] Presidents César Gaviria,
Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Ernesto Zedillo, will defeat the major drug
traffickers. But in the short term, criminals can only be defeated by forces greater
than theirs, such as the French Sureté,
the Israeli police or the old army brigades of East Germany. Perhaps we should look
to them for help?
On the other hand, the
Mexican argument for the existence of migrant workers is weakening. More and
more we wonder why our workers don't stay in Mexico. Why not employ them in a
massive national development program - a New Deal of public works for the 21st
century?
Why, finally, doesn't Mexico have
a major development plan? Why does it stumble through half-hearted private initiatives?
Our huge workforce shouldn't
be trapped in unemployment, migration and crime.
