Day of The Disappeared

Yesterday my better half and myself had volunteered to help clear out and tidy up the meeting room at the Amnesty International bookshop in Newcastle. We were not alone in this task and hopefully the effort will enable the resources to be used more effectively. And the meeting room more pleasant to use. There was no cost to us other than a few hours, as even the travel costs was covered as latter on my better half and I were meeting a group of her friends latter on in the evening and going out for a meal.

As we were going for a meal I had a couple of ideas for lunch, but it was dependent upon the time the voluntary work took, as it was we did have the time for a light fresh lunch so I got a couple of pounds of fresh Muscles. I had the wine and the shallots and could do a Moules Marinieres. A wonderfully easy dish and takes no time to prepare and cook too. And it was just really nice and fun to share preparing, cooking and eating the meal.

While I have met a couple of my better half's friends, the meal in the evening was quite important for her. As because she is younger than I am, a few of her friends have disapproved of even the idea of there being an “us” and this is before they have even met me or seen that she is happy with me. While the initial meeting was a little stilled, once we were all sitting down and talking and breaking bread together any awkwardness just disappeared.

Now personally I can see why folks have any reason to be disapproving as we are just a couple that are in love and happy together. But a few people are allowing their prejudices to colour their thinking. The prejudice could have been based upon or different class backgrounds, religion and many other differentials.

It has made me more aware of the types of prejudices that others have faced in the past. I can remember as a child and young adult the bigotry that would follow any couple of different ethnic backgrounds. Equally I witnessed the prejudice faced by people who are in same gender relationships. Apart from one or two folks who have been openly hostile, for the most part we can just be like any normal couple. We do get looks as we walk about hand in hand, but no one has yet said anything and basically we are just a couple who love and care for each other.

This personal discovery of yet another form of prejudice has heightened my awareness of the prejudice that people face. I have faced prejudice in the past and often that was based upon ignorance and bigotry. As my regular reader will know I am ethnically Jewish, and that causes many bigots to display their true colours.

Now I can hear my dear reader thinking what links doing some voluntary work with Amnesty International and going out for a meal with my Girlfriend and her friends? Well today 30th August has been Designated “The Day of the Disappeared”.

While thinking if I could say anything meaningful or relevant on the topic, I kept coming back to the fact that it is prejudice in its various forms that leads to Human Rights abuses. While I do live in a reasonably free country, no country is totally free, and do not face the extreme abuses that are happening all across the world, the prejudices I have faced have threatened my human rights.

While I have never kept my ethnic origins hidden, I was very young when I discovered that some folks hated Jews. Therefore, I quickly became circumspect about who I told of my ethnic origins. Had I had a different hue, and could be easily seen as being different, then I would not have had that choice. One of the amusing aspects of this has been the racists who assume that as a white European, to them White British, that I will agree with their offensive racist crap. I have lost count of the number of jaws that I have caused to hit the floor just by revealing that I am part Jewish when they start spouting racist nonsense.

Partly that is due to the nature of the society we have here in Britain, where the mainstream media are able constantly drip feed stories that make people that are a different colour or from a different country look bad. But at least here, direct and deliberate racial discrimination is illegal, and therefore attacking or assaulting someone based on their colour or ethnic origin will be dealt with as a serious criminal act. Also while there are serious issues relating to the appalling way that people seeking asylum are treated by the state or the way the Moslem community are treated by the state in trying to combat terrorism, state sanctioned violence against ethnic groups does not happen in Britain.

But that is not the case in many parts of the world. In Europe, in the former Yugoslavia, state sanctioned genocide occurred in recent years. It is happening today in Africa too, all based upon the ethnic background.

Now I ask people to pause and think what the phrase disappeared actually means. Imagine a friend or relative who just disappears. What must that be like? If that person is part of an oppressed minority and the organs of the state (like the police) are actively and openly prejudice, even reporting that disappearance may make you a target for whatever happened to your kith or kin.

In reality the disappeared are normally killed by the state or by police or security forces acting on behalf of the state. Not always with direct orders but with the tacit approval of the state. Often with the bodies just dumped or buried in a secret grave.

The relatives and friends will know that it is likely to have been the Ethnicity, Political affiliation, Community activism or a myriad of other reasons that has caused this loved one to disappear, but because of the nature of the act of internal state terrorism people never know for sure what happened. Equally, there are people that are just detained, and often tortured, but without charge or even official acknowledgement of their detention.

As this has been going on for years and across the globe, therefore I have heard many news stories regarding incidences were people are disappeared by the state. And the common factor is simply that the people left behind are left wondering, often agonising, about what happened to their loved one. Even many years after the event. And often these relatives just needed to know what happened and to know where the bodies were berried.

I can not imagine just what that must feel like.

This is why I feel and know that it is essential to protect human rights here as well campaign for the changes that are abusing the human rights of others across the world. Here our rights are threatened by our government. They, the State want to give themselves powers that they have no right to have. Often using the threat that terrorism brings, or the threat of crime as the justification. Yet be it the DNA Database or Identity cards, the more powers the state gives itself, the greater the danger to our rights here. Often these rights are not clearly under threat. But in all cases where human rights are abused and people are “disappeared” this has only happened when states have given themselves powers they should never have been allowed to take.

Often then followed by a change in government, who then use (or should that be abuse) the laws to enforce their view of how the world should be.
In Britain, there is a real threat that could come from the far right racist political party the BNP. The British Nationalist Party is a Neo Nazi racist group that gained two seats in the European parliament earlier this year. While their support is limited, there is a low level and casual racism within British society that could see these racist gain support and parliamentary seats in the future. It is most likely from a political group like this that the real threat to all our human rights would emerge.

Now I know there will be folks that read this and think that there is no real threat to our Human Rights here, and that Human Rights abuses is something that happens in countries where we don't even know where they are. But even the abuses that happen over seas in places where we barely know where the country is has an impact upon us as the countries where Human rights are routinely abused generates the refugees of the future. So if you want to just be cynical, by helping to stop abuses elsewhere in world we reduce our own problems with migration. Not that migrants are really a problem here.

But I would just ask that people stop and try to imagine what it must be like or feel like to have a member of the family disappear. To never know what has happened to them, to have no help from the authorities to find them as they are the people that has taken them and killed them.

Any human rights abuse that happens across the globe could happen here if we let it, and the only real way of stopping that abuse here is to stop it across the world too.

I cant stop people hating me because my ancestors were of a particular religion or ethnic background. Nor can I stop folks disliking me because they think I am gay, even more puzzling as I now have a girlfriend, but folks are strange like that. Nor can I stop people being jealous of me finding a beautiful young woman who loves me too. But I can fight for the rights of everyone to be jealous or racist or homophobic as I will fight for their human rights as well.