Μ.Α.Χ.- Media Against Xenophobia

M.A.X Media Against XENO PHOBIA

MEDIA AGAINST

http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=2FYlbBqDmk0

XENOPHOBIA

W H A T ?

WHY?

AIMS?

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M.A.X.?

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What is

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“M.A.X. - Media Against Xenophobia” is thought to be an intensive training course on media literacy and the use of media for raising awareness against xenophobia, discrimination, social exclusion and human rights denial.

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Thus, “M.A.X.”, in United Societies of Balkans’ vision, will be a wide open learning platform for youngsters, youth workers, youth leaders and NGO’s working in this field and all participating in its planning phase, implementation of activities and diffusion of results.

In accordance with Council of Europe priorities for the current year, the learning platform built with “M.A.X.” will focus on 3 main ones.

1) Strengthening Social Cohesion

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2) Strengthening Participation

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3) Building Capacities for Dialogue. In this respect, these priorities will take shape throughout the implementation phase with a practical and realistic approach transferred to the participants using nonformal education methods and practices.

A A well prepared facilitators’ team will take by hand the youngsters taking them into the main themes object of the training course. Setting as a pillar of “M.A.X.”, the need of raising awareness on the growing phenomenon of xenophobia in Greece and its neighbouring countries, the main objective will be that of improving youngsters’ access to rights and their will to combat xenophobia, social exclusion, online hate speech and discrimination against any human being in any possible form; developing together policies and best practices to further quality education with and in non-formal settings; contributing to peace building processes, conflict transformation and intercultural dialogue between neighbouring countries.

On this last matter it’s based the European dimension needed for such training.

Thessaloniki being European Youth Capital in 2014 would be symbolic, in terms of young people’s possibilities to meet and grow in a context with many activities already planned and with great coverage and visibility; thus we think “M.A.X.” training course will have an impact on a vast public of youngsters coming with their views and ideas with different cultural backgrounds and involving them more and more, the process we want to be part of will be the smoother and as productive as possible. That is the fundamental element that ties us, United Societies of Balkans, together.

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WHY ?

The rise all over Europe of nationalistic movements and parties has followed as an extreme response to a growing and oppressing economic crisis especially in southern European countries. This impressive growth of a xenophobic violence phenomenon and an anti-immigrant sentiment in the last year in Greece and in our everyday life experience has brought the topic in object more and more up to the priority scale of the United Societies of Balkans. As a NGO working and striving for a non-discriminative society and fighting against all forms of prejudice we urge to take action against such a shame affecting our human behaviour; we feel the need to not stand still and just watch; we urge to train, inform, give all the right tools to form a correct mindset to young people, youth workers and leaders, NGO representatives and all those influencing and creating structures and platforms able to promote and affect social changes in our living environment.

This “environment” we live in nowadays is constantly changing and the basis of a common shared reality such as the European framework we are used to fit in are put in danger by destabilizing actions, spreading violent mentalities, accepted parts of popular culture present in the political discourse of mainstream parties and media brought back from the past and forced to work in a society that can hardly uphold itself. In this context media and its usage, play an important role in terms of modifying and sculpturing new substrate of culture, spreading messages in an always faster way and reaching an ever vast audience.

We are living times where media reflects and creates culture and where this mediated culture many times results in actions having a direct impact on others who can see them. Actions that becomes public are governed by the moral duty of observing those rules society we live in has set and that have become laws for the same public those actions are put into practice.

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Therefore the value of such actions is predestined by social context where they occur and media play a great role in diffusing such values. Having a Human Right literate public and a deep Media Knowledge will make in our view a big difference in this context. Will make awareness and understanding of such important issues grow significantly, will improve skills and abilities to fight and defend our rights in the correct way, and will enhance not only the vertical dimension but more importantly the horizontal dimension of people’s attitude of respect towards human rights issues.

“M.A.X.” training course will serve as a way of depicting a new approach towards social inclusion and the right use of media to make youngsters understand and put into practice in their everyday life what they learned. The international context the training course is willing to set up will broaden the views and possibility for a better and manifold dialogue. Having the most varied public, coming from different countries and having the most different backgrounds will uplift at a higher level our will to give through “M.A.X.” a big contribution in strengthening people’s participation in conflict transformation and intercultural dialogue with our neighbouring countries, in improving and combating social exclusion, discrimination and xenophobia.

Adina Enache - Human Rights Trainer

“M.A.X.” Training Course is founded on the main aim of combating or preventing phenomena of xenophobia in our society through a literate use of media. This broad aim in our project will have 3 main expected outcomes: 1. Awareness Raising 2. Improving Skills 3. Sharpening Attitudes and Values. Each objective will have various and more detailed and specific subobjectives: - Showing different ways of viewing and experiencing human rights in different societies, different groups and various sources of legitimacy (religious, moral, legal); Giving youngsters basic knowledge of key concepts (freedom, justice, equality, human dignity, non-discrimination, democracy, rights, responsibility); Exploring and deepening the role of media influencing perception of human behaviour and modifying common sense/culture towards acts of violence, discrimination, denial of human freedom and human rights; Analyzing the role of media in a framework of a constituted culture.

- Acknowledging evidences critically, recognizing forms of manipulation and making decisions on the basis of reasoned judgement; Ability to work co-operatively and to address conflict positively; Ability to participate in organized social groups; Ability to recognize human rights violations; Ability to use various media for an effective communication through a correct and literate way; Act to promote and safeguard through media human rights, locally and globally; Planning and implementing media activities to widen people’s knowledge on the xenophobic phenomenon.

- Sense of responsibility for one’s action and commitment to personal development through social change; empathy and solidarity with others supporting minorities; sense of justice, the desire to work towards the ideals of human rights and equality.

Moreover, as a most concrete and visible outcome and as a result of the knowledge acquiring process the participants undergo during the whole period of trainings, the training course “M.A.X.” will finalize its work publishing a position paper to be signed by all the participants and NGO’s leaders and trainers giving a common statement against xenophobia and the use of a media literate methodology.

Participants will also produce a best practice booklets produced with contribution of experts in the field of social inclusion and media and a promotional video for a campaign against xenophobia to be spread through social media channels and websites and other media channels of all the NGO’s partners and participating in the whole project.

“11 countries” “Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Turkey, Albania, Romania, Cyprus, FYROM”

“22 participants”

“PARTICIPANTS”

“BOSNIA -Ena Bucan, Kerim Somun , BULGARIA - Preslav Raykov, Martin Zherkov – CROATIA - Valenti SERBIA- Filip Kocevski – TURKEY – Alper Gürlek, Ece Dagdalen, Melih Yucel - ALBANIA - Erisa Caka CYPRUS - Georgia Solomonidou, Marios Philipou – FYROM- Imet Ristemi, Bled Limani”

ina Vujević, Ivana Kresic - GREECE - Tilemachos Bonis, Antios Koslidis – ITALY - Maria Valentina alli, Matilda Beqo - ROMANIA - Madalina Furis, Jipa Nina Alina, Ciocan Sorin

All the participants were contributing to the seminar and sharing their opinions...

What is Xenophobia? What we aim? What is the point of the project?...were the main topics to start.

We played fun games in order to learn each other’s names and everybody shared their experiences about volunteering...

Be creative! Use your methods and find a way to present “European Youth Council”, “European Youth Foundation” and “No hate speech campaign”.

Participants made a TV show, a poster, a web page and a role playing in order to explain their thoughts about Xenophobia.

First days were focused on team building activities and basic Xenophobia concepts.

Maria Peeva - Media Trainer

At the international night, everybody introduced the foods they brought and they gave information about their culture. This was great experience for everybody tolearn new informations and share their culture.

Ron Salaj from Kosova made presentation about digital campaigning against Xenophobia. He is giving interesting examples from different countries and clarifying the power of social media.

Ron Salaj - Social Media Trainer

What Xenophobia means to you? Participants had to prepare their own posters to clarify Xenophobia.

Participants prepared the passports of each others and also they did the same ona for the famous leaders who are against Xenophobia.

How to prepare your own web radio show? Which steps you need to follow to broadcast a program?

Maria from Bulgaria informed the participants about the basic rules and they created a jingle for USB radio!

Online hate speech must be forbidden or not? Participants had strong discussions on the subject with a debate.

We visited the Roma Community in Thessaloniki. Roma Women Association of Dendropotamos welcomed us in their office, informed us about their work and talked about Roma people who live in Thessaloniki and Greece.

All participants together visited “2014 Thessaloniki Youth Capital Center�.

Participants wrote their own articles about how media affects Xenophobia in their own countries.

Articles

The goat and the gipsy family “In January, the only thing left will be the goat” begins an “investigative” report published by the Daily Mail on November 10, which claims that “half the population” of the village of Sacoşu Turcesc, in western Romania, plans to move to the UK after the easing of labour market restrictions allowing Romanians and Bulgarians to enter the British jobs market from January 1, 2014 ‘In January, the only thing left will be the goat’ Remus Neda, 37, is heading for the UK to take advantage of state handouts He makes most of his money by

Madalina Furis

begging on the streets of Paris P...

DAILYMAIL .The journalist from Daily Mail wrote about a very poor gipsy family and the man of the family, father of 7 children like beeing representative for the whole Romania and for the invasion danger. How the british journalists found him? A few mounths before writting the article, a lady, who didn’t say is a journalist,but a social assistant in UK, arrived at this family and promise them jobs in Uk. Of course, they accepted. Then, after a few mounths, other journalists from Daily Mail arrived, even brought a goat and put it in the yard , to illustred better their fake story, and manipulating the british people with the article above. Only just this article about Romanian had 12.245 shares and 2753 comments. The reaction of the britsh who have read the article were like this:+ G1986, London, 2 months ago> This cannot be allowed to happen.

Diana, Newcastle under Lyme, United Kingdom, 2 months ago> Will someone in authority please do something to stop this mass influx into the UK. These people are uneducated and have nothing at all to offer the UK except milk our benefits, healthcare and education systems. Anyone who believes different has their head in the sand! + Paul UK, Lancs, 2 months ago: + You can get a “wife’s” visa for the goat too and claim welfare for the kids+ Deena, London, 2 months ago+ Yay, crime in London is about to go up!+ The history of denigrating Romanians started at the beginning of last year, with another scandal, such as the horsemeat affair(telling that Romania is selling actually horsemeat, instead of beef ), and by that denegrating romanians has induced, in British public opinion, resentment towards EU membership. The all hysteria took it few months and it ended only when the authorities discovered that the meat was actually coming from France, but no apologize were presenting for the damaged image of Romania.+ And because the xenophobic subjects sell the news paper, at the very first day of 2014, on 1 january, the British politicians who where against the “Romanian invasion” promise and keep their promise, and they went on the airport to see how many romanians arrive in UK, and especially why. They found only one young man.

The Why don’t you come over campaign

The good news is that you can fight against xenophobia, using smart tools, and I’ll give the exemple of a media campaign made by a Romanian news paper, named Gandul, as a response to the Daily Mail campaign, who was saying to the Romanian and Bulgarian not to come over, because they wouldn’t like it in UK, an undercover message about that actually they are not wanted in UK.+ We may not like Britain, but you will love Romania. Why don’t you come over?

Mety Ristemi

The EU cannot function without the contribution of migrants and ethnic minorities ‘‘Migrants are here to stay. It’s a fact, so we have to make the best of it’’

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igrants and ethnic minorities should be considered as part of the solution to Europe’s economic crisis, not part of the problem, according to a new report by the European Network Against Racism .Migrant workers and business owners, like the ones found in Brixton market in London, UK, create jobs and contribute billions to the EU economy.

The real cost of neglecting the positive contribution of migrants and ethnic minorities the report argues that the failure to recognise the talents and contributions of a more diverse labour market squanders a huge opportunity to revitalise the EU’s sluggish economy.

Despite Europe’s ageing population and declining birth rate, the discourse on foreign-born citizens and EU citizens from a migrant background often falsely links them to unemployment and crime levels.The report also outlines some of the facts of the contribution of migrants to European society and economy. In the UK for instance, 19 per cent of care workers and 35 per cent of nurses employed in long-term care come from a migrant background .In France, migrants pay 12 billion euros in taxes every year, and in Germany, the Turkish community contributes an estimated 35 billion euros to the economy every year.

“The EU cannot function without the contribution of migrants and ethnic minorities,” says Claude Moraes, who hosted the launch of the ENAR report.

“If in any member state all migrants would stop to work for just one day, the whole economy of that country would collapse.”

At the end of the day, if we take some of the most successful IT companies in the US such as Ebay, Google, Yahoo, YouTube and PayPal, they were all founded by migrants or people with migrant background.

All different, All Equal Jipa Nina

Roma or the Romani people, also known as gitanos in Spain, Kale in Finland and Portugal, Manush or gitan in France and Travelers in Scandinavia have one of the most dramatic stories in human history. Roma people have a long history of living in Europe with a presence recorded from the 13th Century.

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n old Romanian byword says that you should wash your won window before to say that the neighbor’s windows are unclean. Translated in xenophobia issue this means that the change must begin with you, you are the first person who must stop judging the others, who can accept the differences, who has to escape of fear of unknown, fear of change, fear to say NO when you fell that is the right thing.

The Rromani are a diaspora living mostly in Europe and the America. Romani are widely known among anglophonic people as “Gypsies” (or Gipsies) and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms; in their language, Romani, they are known collectively as Romane or Rromane (depending on the dialect).

Roma discrimination is a big issue in Europe. The Roma community suffers massive discrimination throughout Europe. Denied their rights to employment, healthcare and education, romas are often victims of racist attacks and police ill-treatment.

The question is why to treat humans different, judging only based on their skin color? There are a lot of people who steal, kill or have a bad behavior, but they are not pointed and exposed as much as Rroma. In my opinion gipsies must be integrated in community, people to trust them, give them the opportunity to work and to be useful.

Education is the first step to improve our relations in community. In school children has to be treated as equal even they are Rroma ethnicity or not. They must have the chance to study, to participate in cultural exchanges, to develop themselves. In the same time they should keep their own identity and cultural traditions. Romani people in Romania constitute one of the country’s largest minorities.

According to the 2011 census, they number 621,573 people or 3.3% of the total population, being the second-largest ethnic minority in Romania after Hungarians. The Romani are Romania’s most socially and economically disadvantaged minority, with high illiteracy levels.

“Two faces of human nature”

Valentina Vujevic

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believe that we’re born to tell differences between groups that we like and those that we dislike. We can see an example through research from neuroscience.

A toy was offered to a 10- month old baby. The baby had a choice to take the toy from a person that speaks language of the country baby lives in, and from a person that speaks an unfamiliar language. It was always the same result. The baby took a toy from a person with similar characteristics, in this case- a language the baby is used to hear (since he can’t speak yet).

There are many reasons, such as lack of self-confidence, feeling of inferiority, that people show violence and fear to the others that they tag as different. The fact that fear of others has become also institutional in many ways, like in politics or religion, raises the level of such problems. In this article I focuse on xenophobia.

Some researches show that xenophobia is an innate phenomen. We feel safe with in group because we share same identity, language, culture, etc., and other people represent some kind of a danger to us, although we can not explain why. On the other hand, xenophobia is a learning mechanism that changes rapidly, and it is influenced by the level of education, surrounding of an individual and media. On a daily basics, readers are exposed to all kinds of sterotypes. Some studies show that migrants appear more frequently in certain news genres, such as crime news, than others. Also, since the attack which took place on 9.11.2001. , stereotyping of Muslims has been found in many media reports.

We construct in-group (our surrounding) and out-group (people that we don’t want in our life because of various reasons). It is, in a way, an intrinsic aspect of human beings to co-operate with “in-group” and to develop suspicion and mistrust towards “out-group”. We build a wall around ourselves with our closemindedness and fearfully observe people across the other side of the wall.

Those are two faces of the human nature. Why do we have habit to act differently towards somebody who has different color of skin, different beliefs or speaks another language? The core of the problem is, by my opinion, that people don’t want to accept that, even in 21st century, we have so many prejudices. We like to think about ourselves as developed species who are open-minded and ready do share their life in a diverse society. And the fact is that in a diverse society exists a lower level of social cohesion. But the easier way is to cover our eyes in front of the truth rather than deal with the problem.

“I have a dream�

Melih Yucel

All human deserve to see dreams and all the great changes start with an unexpected dreams. To make the dreams come true, people dreaming about the bright future have to sacrifice to accomplish their goals and put an effort on their dreams like Martin Luther King.

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e dreamed all humanbeings have to be equal and there should be no residual piece of racism after than being equal.For this dream he paid with his life, but eventually his dream came true. However Martin Luther King solved racism problem in America, in the some part of the world still suffers from this issue. Bright example for this situation, are The Balkans and Turkey Republic which facing with non-ethnical tolerance for many centuries. There are lots of hatred issues between countries Balkans and Turkey. At the same time Turkey has an inside problem and The Balkans have their own too, which literally means that everyone hates everyone.

Most of the Balkan countries speak very similar languages, they are sharing a lot of common things in their culture, and the appaerance of the people is identical but at the same time , they are separated by artificial borders and hate. An other hand, Turkey which is their big brother of The Balkans is constantly under ethnocentric and racist intolerance. Being intolerane to each other or inside of the country can not be solved by governments because they are using this problem as a propaganda and they are exploiting the minorities rights by in this way.

Politician is the real cause of why the Balkans and Turkey not to come together. Their personal approaches towards the problem boost the hatred.Neither the politician even tries to get over this problem nor the society is because it is narrow minded. It is easier to hate someone than to get to know him try to solve problem. In order to find solution, everyone has to overcome their personal lack of understanding and fulfill their responsibilities to put a stop to this madness.

Intercultural exchanges in BiH – Good practices for better future Kerim Somun Intercultural learning is a subject that is gaining more and more attention and leverage in schools. The effects of globalization, matched with developments in technology, transports and communication are breaking barriers and reducing distances in our planet. Nevertheless, traditional institutions like schools are not always able to provide students with a real chance to live intercultural experiences.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s history was rather turbulent and exotic in many ways.

Through our history different occupants run the country, imprinting different traditions, religions, and mindsets. All that created a functional multiethnic society. It created a society that finds multiethnicity as strength and an advantage.

In the 90’s, 73% of voters in ex-Yugoslavia state overruled the state’s statute allowing national parties to candidate. Those parties had a hypothesis that said, “Differences cannot live together“, which is obviously a cruel expression of violence for uncontrolled nationalism. What is nationalism? From my point of view nationalism is a collective paranoia that was caused by fear and lack of knowledge.

After a horrific war, a war that was driven by nationalism, people still live together.

Unfortunately multiethnicity became the main barrier for further progress. Deep war wounds are still present, but I believe that people have to move on, while following the well - known phrase ‘we can forgive but never forget’.

New generations need a new start. Special emphasis should be on raising children, educating them, broadening political options and having a clear vision. A vision that needs to be hate free and future oriented, because there is no other country, but a home country.

After all horrified happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina in beginning of nineties, it’s very hard to work and create a better future for all in this country. Our country and society is exposed to lot of impacts from abroad and inside which don’t allowed positive changes and making better future for all in this country.

My opinion is that young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina need to be a initiator and creator of better future. The greatest difficulty encountered in working with young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina is their indifference and lack of desire for change in society, and problems that exist for a long time for young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as fear, prejudice of others different people who live in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In everyday work with young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina you can face xenophobia, prejudices and stereotypes. This is very hard to change, but in my previous work there was also positive examples like our project, how was called “Intercultural exchanges of students and teachers in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Interchange project is implemented as a three-day visit to the students and teachers which included visiting schools, attending classes, visiting cultural and historical sights of the city / municipality and stay in host homes. Within the project students from two schools and two towns of Bijeljina (the city with majority Serbian population) and Tuzla (city with majority Bosniak population) who are 70 kilometers away from each other, were chosen as partners in the exchange.+

Before a complete departure procedures students were asked to complete evaluation prior to departure, and to the question about the fears and prejudices, one student wrote the following: “I’m not sure if in the area of the city people live at all, because I heard only bad things about them, and many people were wondering how can I go to the Bosniak family in Tuzla on three days?”. Having successfully implemented an exchange, in the evaluation, but also in front of cameras of the Civitas media, the same boy said next: “Now I know that in Tuzla I have new friends and acquaintances, who have just a different name and customs, but which are the same as me, and like everyone else.”

In our projects was involved more then 300 students and 60 teachers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and we realized more then 40 successful exchanges. This example and another example give to us a hope that we can build our society and country without xenophobia, prejudice national tensions between different nationalities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Therefore, if you ask me if differences can unite, I am certain that they can! Peace is our only option.

“Xenophobia in Sports”

Ena Bucan

Xenophobia and racism are important issues in sports, and football very often seems to provoke the most violent and uncontrolled behaviors. It is very important to try to understand why and how specific individual, collective, social and national expressions are elaborated and expressed in the sports arena. When we speak about racism in European football we have cases related to UK, Italy,

Italy Italians are very proud of their national team, but it is important to mention that there is the resistance against immigrants and new citizens. Immigration is viewed as a constant emergency and immigrants are considered to be one of the main sources of feelings of insecurity. ‘‘Mario Balotelli case” Mario Balotelli plays for Italian national team and Milan from Serie A. There was one time that Balotelli played for his club against Roma, and Roma’s traveling fans started doing monkey chants at Balotelli and other black players on the field. Things got so bad that the referee stoped the match in the second half.

England “Yaya Toure case” Yaya Toure plays for Ivory Coast national team and Manchester City from Premier League. Yaya Toure claimed he was racially abused during Champions League match. “We are all humans. It is not a nice feeling to go and play a football match, and to be called a monkey or to hear a monkey noises. I don’t look like a monkey. That’s what disappoints me so much.” (Toure after match with CSKA Moscow).

Balkans Vedran Puljic case Vedran Puljic was a member of a fan group from Sarajevo FK club. One day he went to support his team with a group of fans in a town in other part of the country where he was killed. There was a riot in the town and he got shot by the police. After that incident all fan groups from Bosnian league were banned from supporting their teams on away matches in other towns in the country.

The reason why I chose to write about xenophobia in sport is because often I was a witness of bad things happening on football stadiums all over Bosnia and Herzegovina. There is a certain animosity between three nations in Bosnia, which gets higher at big and important games.

I had a chance to speak with people from Greece to see their opinion about xenophobia in sport and to see do they think is there an opportunity to change something in their country. They said that the people who cause this kind of bad things are mostly drug addicts, Nazis, and people with no education. The only way to stop xenophobia happening on football fields is to make clubs pay for the penalties.

Do we really know how many gay, lesbian, black, Jewish, Islamic etc. players have been excluded from professional sports so far in Europe and anywhere else in the world? Racism in the stadiums and during matches is one very serious expression of injustice. However, what should be explored is the racism and discrimination behind the stadiums, where is organized or elaborated, and try to take some actions because sport should be a fun thing and people should go to arenas to support their teams and to not be afraid for their own lives..

Oppressed Becomes Oppressor “On the behaviours of the oppressed people and societies”

Alper Gurlek

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tarting from the very beginning of the mankinds existence on earth we can observe oppression.

As a result of the dependence of the people to each other and the way that the power has been shared, some people or the societies have always found the ‘opportunity’ to oppress the others. The oppression can be observed in many ways at many scales. Starting from the bullies in the schools or the husbands conducting domestic violence to your wives till the ones who were responsible of the Holocaust which caused to death of the almost 6 millions of people. There have been many studies on almost every kind of oppressions. Each has their own specific characteristics in terms of reasons and the consequences however when we look deep enough, one common thing will be visible to the careful eyes which is the tendency of the oppressed becoming an oppressor.

Paulo Freire, who is the author of the one of the most detailed book on the oppression points out that, “almost always, during the initial stage of the struggle, the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or “sub-oppressors.” (Freire 27) He supports his idea by giving examples on the future behaviours of the children who were subjected to the violence in their family environments. When we check the statistics about the bullying that takes place in the high schools the results are in the direction of proving the Freire’s arguments. The families that are not warm and loving to each other have more possibility to have a children who bully.

This probability dramatically increase if a child is subjected to the either physical or psychological violence. The same researches also shows that the women who are oppressed by their husbands have more tendency to implement violent acts on their children.

The transformation of the oppressed in to the oprressor is also a case in the larger scale. The societal psychology states that the behaviours of the groups of people and the man is interrelated and interdependent. The researches on the one of the well know catastrophes in the history also proves the arguments of the Freire. In the second world war, the world witnessed one of the deadliest attacks to a group of people which now we call the Holocaust. Approximately 6 millions of Jewish people died as a result of the oppression done by the Nazis. However nowadays sociologists argues that the Israeli State is transferring the hate it has been accumulated to the Palestinian society by using different ways of the excessive force.

In conclusion, as a result of the mere exposure effect, the oppressed starts to justify the oppression and accepts it as a part of the norms of the mankind. The normalization of the oppression leads oppressed people to lose their skills on making empathy, instead makes them more reckless and apathetic when they find themselves in the shoes of the oppressors. This progress is the way that the oppression and hate is being taught and inherited from one generation to the other.

“Extra - community” as a term and Xenophobia Erisa Cakalli

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xtra - community people ??!! The first time i read these three words it sounded like they were representing people out of this world, but going further through the reading i realized that actually the “extra community people” is a term used by European Union to identify people that are coming from countries that are not members in EU. My friend and I were trying to get some information about the procedure and the documents that are requested

by European universities for students coming from Albania and after the strange feeling we had in the beginning when we read how a person coming from countries like mine were determined we calmed down and we said to ourselves, ok this must be something good, maybe they have created policies that are supporting our countries especially the youth and students searching to have a better education but.... it turned out to be completely the opposite. Not only their policies were not supporting us but the more we were reading the more we were feeling far away from our dream and what in the begging it seemed so simple now it looked like mission impossible...and yes the alien feeling it appeared again.

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o be more specific : the fee you have to pay about an European university, for” extra community” people is nearly double than the fee that an European student has to pay and the possibility to get a scholarship is hard because is a limited number of scholarships that are given for countries out of European union, it is required also for us to provide to the country we want to study the security that we are not going to live there after the end of the study and due to this they ask hundreds of documents that complicates the hole process. And like all this wouldn’t be enough when we finally are accepted in any university is the embassy of that country itself that denies us the visa supposing that we are going there as emigrants and not as students. When this thing happened to my best friend it really made me think a lot about the situation we are living in, especially the relationship between European Union and countries that are not members. It sometimes looks to me like slave relationship: as far as you do what I ask and what I want we are ok if not, you will be punished. All this situation I can only define with one word : XENOPHOBIA. The irrational or unreasoned fear toward foreigners has been increased a lot the last years in the European countries and this has just complicated more the situation and the consequences is that European union is creating this non sense policies which are just separating us more and more from each other. I can’t find any other reason of why should be not allowed a student from our countries to study in a European country. Only by taking off this restrictions towards youth and students we can both build a better future and a better relationship between each other. You help now us, we help you tomorrow!!

The rude, the bad and the ugly

Ivana Kresic

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The society we live in follows a certain set of social norms that help us function normally in the modern world. It is known what type of behaviour is desireable and the type that is frowned upon. We follow these rules and rarely wonder why we are acting in such way, nor do we rebel against the things that are imposed on us.Thee ones with the power are creating the rules to control the susceptible masses in a strange process of implementing ideas through media, politics and religious institutions, at the same time creating the illusion that such ideas originated from the man himself.

he wild Balkan space has been through many changes in the last couple of decades. We have been witnesses to the rise and fall of ideologies, people have been forced (or decided for themselves) to change their values and ways of thinking by 360 degrees. The people they worshiped became their biggest enemies practicly over night, the very way of thinking has changed forever in the process of transition from socialism to capitalism. It is no wonder that in a land like the Balkans the new power structures saw an opportunity to exploit the people and form a different state of mind hitting them where it hurts the most - in the basis of their identity: religion and nationality.

With the rise of nation states people needed to create a new identity in order to distance themselves from the ones they once shared the same space and culture with. We drew the lines, created the borders and put up walls creating new history and mythology of “our� nation, and the past we shared together became something to be ashamed of. To put it in a context, the space of former Yugoslavia was once a multinational, multireligious and multicultural space in which people coexisted for almost fifty years. I am not trying to create a delusion by romanticising such state as a perfect utopia, but I am using it to show how damaging it was for every country that was in it in the time that came after the fallout.

After gaining independence, our newfound countries looked towards creating a new future but never being able to let go of the past. The shared history was a burden that needed to go away, and they chose to identify the Other as the enemy, and the hate that had built up in them during the years of oppression escalated in the worst possible manner. The war in the nineties has done damages that words could never truly explain.

The moment we allowed hate to rule us is the moment we lost our humanity. The war showed the true ugly nature of humanity, by defining our neighbours as the enemies on the basis of their nationality and religion we started acting accordingly to our savage nature. Dehumanization of the enemy became a justification for the sins commited in the name of God, because it is in the nature of our damaged selves to occupy a land by any means just because someone decided to point at it and claim it for themselves.

The quote I used can be interpreted in more ways than one, and it is applicable to much more than religion and nationality itself. We live in an age when such differences should be put behind us, but our people are still poisoned by the xenophobia. With the economical crisis and the rise od fascist movements throughout Europe we have become even more sinful human beings, and sometimes it seems there is no hope on the horizon. The younger generations are burdened by the sins of their fathers, because it is normal in such mentality to continue spreading hate towards others, even after the devastating consequences of the war, or maybe just because of it. Without proper education and healthy surrounding we can not expect to prosper as a modern society. The Balkan space is slowly moving towards Europe but our countries are still poisoned by the hate and prejudices we have against our neighbours. In countries where corruption is the only way of prospering and the media is controlled by whoever has more power or money, it is easy to understand why changes aren’t coming our way.

Disconnection Between Law and Knowledge Vanceo Maria Valentina

‘‘Most of the time we think that we know enough about something so, as second step, we create our own idea on it. We start to know things because we watch TV (such as news, TV programs, films, etc.) we read books, we hear it from other people, we study it at school or by surfing on internet.’’

W

e suppose that the system provides us of all the informations because, now, we live in a free and democratic society; but is not so easy and obvious as it seems. The whole system gives us all the struments that we should need to improve our knowledge, but is up to us to use them in the best way.

Even if people have all the possibilities to improve their knowledge, one of the biggest problem of our society is the unknowledge about laws and the direct connection that it has with our lifes. People consider this topic very difficult to understand or they just think that they know about it only because they are citizens of a certain country. Is it this right?

All the laws were borned from the customs and, after legal processes, after that they became laws; so this means that all the democratic costitutions are based on the way of leaving of people. The laws that the costitutions contain are based on the fundamental principles of it; those are the fundamental human rights, so this means that no one and nothig can go against them. The real problem comes out when the law doesn’t reflect the reality, such as the way of thinking of the people and how they act.

One of the most common problem in a country is how people see foreigners and what they think about them. Most of the times happenes that they think that they have more rights than them so they treat them in a disrespectful way because of their inferiority.

For example in italy the 3rd article of the fundamental principes says that it is avoided avery kind of form of discrimination, because all kind of people, race, religion, political opinion and society position have the right to an equal social dignity. Why people don’t respect this? Have they ever asked themselves about the negative efects that can give the wrong information?

Self information is the key to solve this kind of problems, I think, because maybe the system doesn’t do enough; is up to you then to understand if the system does it in purpose or not.

Do not be afraid from `others`!

“Homophobia,a part of xenophobia that we should fight”

Matilda Beqo

P

eople all around the world are facing prejudices,violence and inequality because they think and feel different from the others. One part of xenophobia that we should fight is homophobia. LGBT(lesbian,gay,bisexual,transsexual) community is increasing it’s voice every day to get the right of acceptance,the right to live their live in their way and to be respected.+ Why are we afraid of homosexuality?

It is not law that make LGBT community feel bad but it’s our own mentality,it is us the ‘society’.If we have a look at the law we will see that law doesn’t allow discrimination,law says that everybody should have their own rights and should be respected,also the European convention of human rights says that the right of private life is a guarantied right to everyone,so it remains us the “society”.

In the countries such as United States,Canada,Spain,France etc LGBT community enjoy their own rights,they feel equality and they have also the right to get married and create a family.+ In the Balkan the situation is not so quite. The Balkans are used to traditional families and LGBT is a new word to their reality.

But who are we to judge??

We are no one,we should start to accept and respect each other no matter how different we are.

The problem is that we think that by not accepting people with different sexual orientation from us we will not have their in our society and they will “disappear”.So the problem is again and again us because they seem to be unnormal to us.+ What is normal??Are we normal?

We want everybody to behave like us and in our mind this is “normal” but this is impossible and we have to get used to this. There is only one solution which is acceptance. What matters in people their behavior,we have to learn that private life is private right of everyone and we have to respect that.

So let’s make this world a better place,let’s respect and love each other and maybe when we will do this we will be more happy.

Social Influence: Clothing ‘‘How is society affected by catogarization? Diffrences between people is reflected by group-

ing them according to their skin color, where they come from, ethnicity , etc. Five steps to the tyranny shows how grouping people is a key role in society. First step is Us and Them gives the sense of you are “in” or “out” of the group and it contains tyranny itself. Because of this self categorization inside people are excluded.’’

Sureyya Dagdelen In the movie a teacher declare the rules to the classroom and make the blue eyes children dominate over brown eyes children. Brown eyes children show immediate reaction and get angry and felt rejected. On the other hand blue eyes children become more proud and self confident. This is the minor acting of tranny on its own and shows how this differentiation alters the behavior of children to each other.

Furthermore a movie called ‘Experiment’ consists of same concept and in the movie for a psychological study 26 people participated voluntarily and divided into two groups 6 were guards and 20 of them were acting like a prisoners. after basic rules are declared guards were assured that prisoners must obey the rules and experiment will end up immediately at first sight of the violence or torture. And at the end test subjects are fascinated by their roles or fake identities. This shows us with grouping comes discrimination and when discrimination is present the rights of people are lost. Consequently, 5 steps to the tyranny emphasize the fact that authority and the way we do has some negative results and %100 obedient does not always mean beneficial. So we see that how people easily manipulated by the authority.

Another way of grouping people is making by clothing. People are seeking clue about other people according to their appearance. clothing provides them to identify ‘others’ status, sex and occupation. clothing and appearance are playing a key role in human relationships and it gives the sense of first impression on someone. according to studies clothing has a grater affect than personality and it has a significant psychological effectson people’s perception. In 5 steps to tyranny, a man who wants passengers to give their sits for no reason refused by %50 percent of them. on the other hand, when he comes with an authority figure almost %100 percent of passengers give their sits without arguing or saying anything. This experiment shows us how clothing and official uniforms affect our perception.

Especially police uniform has more psychological impact on a person because it cause to feeling of power of arresting and using force. Police uniform can cause to expose of feelings like anger, fear, respect etc depending on the country. Police uniform is a symbol authorization. This situation cause to build up some stereotypes like they love this job because they love to control others and love to use force. For example, if we met someone who has a good looking and wearing civil clothes, our first impression will be positive. On the hand, if this person would be wearing his official clothes, we maybe do not want to talk to this person because of stereotypes.

This situation is the same for every social part of someone’s life. Every type of uniform has a subconscious psychological effect on people and cause to build up stereotypes.

Σα(ν) Μάνα “Once upon a time there was a small girl from a small village near South Pakistan called Sa-

Tilemaxos Mponis

manah. Her family as many people there was so poor that they didn’t have money to buy the necessary things in order to survive. Hence, their parents decided to make a big step and move from Asia to Europe to find a “Better world”, a “Paradise” as everyone was promising them.

Everything they had was given away for a “gold ticket” for a new life. The journey started and it was long, very long...”

After passing Iran and Turkey walking all day and night they had to overcome another big problem, how they could pass to their finally destination, “Europe”. Just one step before the so called hapiness, the boat started floating, eveyone was socked, noone knew swiming, people was yelling for help, babies were crying, mothers were desperately yelling being afriad for their babies, but finally... Just like a miracle a rescue team found her and managed to save her life. However her parents were gone...Unfortunetely the 13 years old girl “Samanah” lost her parents during this unequal battle. That would be the moment that her life would extremely change and instead of travelling to paradise she would face the hell. After she was finally okay, a big problem came to the foreground...” What now? Where this girl should go? Who will take care of her?” Hard questions to be simply answered...The small girl was taken in a social sanctuary for children like her. Inside there were kids that their parents were caught by the police for no reason, simply because they were immigrants, or because their parents were forced to leave the country or because their parents got lost or or or...People around her were hostile, they didn’t accept that she was different. When she was at school other kids were making fun of her. Even people who were older couldn’t accept her. They didn’t want to! It was weird and she couldn’t understand the reason. “Why?” Did she do something wrong? NO. People couldn’t accept that there are people who are different than them. She was sad. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t like her life. But the “god” gave her a hand...one day a woman was passing by, saw her crying. So she asked her. The little “Samanah” found someone to speak to. But this woman was very special, she was Chinese and handicap at the same time. So she could understand her feelings. “Do not listen to the people. They are mean. They don’t know to recognise that we are all the same. They think that they are inferior.” she said “All good people agree, And all good people say, All nice people, like Us, are We And every one else is They: But if you cross over the sea, Instead of over the way, You may end by (think of it!) looking on We As only a sort of They!”

The little girl realized that the problem was not her but them. She asked from the woman to take her in her home and live together through eternity. The woman was all alone as well so she gratefully accepted. From now on none of them is alone. They have each other. They managed to protect each other and noone else managed to hurt them again.

The little girl found a mother, σαν μάνα....

Xenophobia is everywhere!

Xenophobia in school

Blend Limani

Children don’t hate each other and they are so friendly but not always.Ex.: with new students at there class : in this way they want to protest and to tell to the teacher that they don’t want other childrens in class because they feel like they are the perfect ones and if somebody new will come to their class will take there identity and will reach them.This happen from third grate until sixth grate .

Actually this a good and simple example of how xenophobia is presented from the young ages.

Xenophobia in bussisness In many situations when someone starts a new bussines and he makes a good progress on his work and his profit and his effect to the society,his market competitors unite themselves just to wipe him/her from the market bussiness.

The reason is:they are affraid of loosing their brand and their work by the other stranger that came in that bussines

Xenophobia in the cities Sometimes life conditions obligate you to displace from one city to the other one ,bigger one ,And often you may face with the xenophobia,the fear of the majority or the local citizens who think that with your arrival they may loose their jobs at work,you will destroy their city,the ethnic statistics will change etc.

Xenophobia in politics The biggest xenophobia is represented also in the politics,especially before the elections when “new faces” wants to intergrate in political parties but before it they will have to face with the agression of the old elite.And actually this is not the only one situations.The other one is when different ethnic group political parties wants to take a part of the polticial decisions,who in the most situations are not accepted just because the majority thinks that they are the only ones that are compatitible for the decisions

This is xenophobia in some parts of the life but because of the ignorance we name it with different epitets.

Immigrants are not ants ...!!

“The current article deals with the matter of migration in respect with the behavior of a small part of the local population towards the immigrants.”

Marios Philippou

I

n parallel to the eruption of the economic crisis in the European south, a rapid increase of the extreme right wing - fascist movements has been observed in these countries. People are turning to the aforementioned movements believing that they are an alternative to the long established system that created or allowed the crisis to hit their country of origin. The leaders of these fascist groups, as the did in the recent past, turn to the most weak in order to establish their dominance, by taking advantage of the people’s negative feelings and despair due to the crisis, by attacking ethnic groups, minorities and immigrants, blaming them for the bad situation their country is currently facing. One of the worst examples of the countries where the xenophobic and racist feelings expressed by a part of the population flourish, is Greece. Greece has seen the rise of “Golden Dawn”, a proclaimed nationalist party that manages to hide its fascist background, whilst being represented at the Greek parliament. One of their favorite techniques - means of attacking new voters and supporters, is to blame anyone non-native, as a source of Greece’s financial problems. They try to convince the Greek population about the “proclaimed” Greek race superiority over people from other racial and ethnic background, demanding immigrants to immediately leave their country since they pose a thread to the Greek nation. They resemble them as ants that must be crushed and they try to spread this belief to the Greek population.

T

hey manipulate people who are desperate, afraid or terrorized by the existing economic depression and chaos that Greece has been facing the last few years in order to turn them against migrants, as a source of all Greece’s problems. Not only that but in many situations, they have proceed with acts of violence against immigrants. This is an example that proves that eventually the most savage, ruthless and dangerous beast, is in fact the human being. But what the Golden Dawn members seem to forget is the fact that the thing that differentiate humans from animals, is the power of critical thinking and that the only way humanity can go forward, is by unity. All people that were forced to leave their country in search for better conditions and a more bright future, should be seen with empathy and solidarity. It should be clear that all humans deserve to be treated equally, since all is one. Solidarity should be the prevailing behavior towards any person in need, whilst its essential to understand and believe that we are all equal, thus we should treat people accordingly.

People should treat other as they want to be treated themselves be s. What these people seem to also forget that a significant part of the Greek population and especially youth, migrates to other countries all over the continent, in search of a better future, do they want them to be treated in the same inhuman manner ? To finish with, I would like to leave you with something to consider, the panda bears example. Panda bears are black, white and Asian, but everybody loves them ...!!

The Serbian Pride and increasing Xenophobia in Serbia!!

“The Serbian pride is one of the biggest opsticls in fighting xenophobia in Serbia. It comes from a whole bunch of varity things, and events from the past, but it has a lot of bad sides, such as increasing level of xenophobia, homophobia, nationalism, racism etc.”

Filip Kocevski

S

erbia, just like the entire Balkans, has rich history, full of tradition and numbers of wars during the last century. Xenophobia became a part of every day life of many people living in Serbia. The strange fact about Serbians’ xenophobia is that they express their phobia towards people who used to live in one country with them. The last decade of 20th century and the first decade of 21st century had a big influence on developing xenophobia in Serbia. Those were the years of wars, economic crisis, bombarding, trubles in Kosovo and Metohija, self-claimed independence of Kosovo and many others.

People started creating new way of thinking, based on historical, but also very unreliable facts. This caused the creation of the unique “Serbian pride”.

THE MEANING OF “SERBIAN PRIDE” Since the creation of first Serbian Kingdom in city of Ras in 10th century, Serbian people started having the feeling of belonging and they had something to sacrifice for. The base of Serbian pride is the Orthodox faith, Serbian medieval kings and emperor and the belief that Serbs are the Divine people.

Many people in Serbia believe that they deserve to be rated higher than the rest of the world, just because of Serbian rich history. The problem of these people is that they pay a lot of attention for history, and they don’t care about the future of Serbian and Serbian people at all.

One of the biggest ubsurdity and false beliefs is that “When royals in Serbian Kingdom ate with golden spoons and forks, the entire European royal countries ate with bare hands”. On this way, “educated” people are making a false picture of Serbian nation and Serbian history, so the nationalists can have something to talk about and be sure in something. One of a sudden, Serbians became the first nation in the world, they even go so far in saying that Adam and Eve were Serbians as well.

Walking on Serbian streets, it is not unusual to see graffiti or to hear all kind of talking about how Serbia and Serbian nation is the greatest in the World and it goes to Tokyo and Milwaukee! The story about “Srbija do Tokija i Milvokija” started in the beginning of wars in Yugoslavia in 1990’s when the football fans started spreading the idealism of Serbian nation on the football matches, so it became one of the slogans in 90’s. Whit this slogan, people wanted to show to the World that Serbia will never be small and it will spread to the far east-Tokyo and far west-Milwaukee. But, suddenly, Serbia is becoming smaller and smaller every decade.

XENOPHOBIA IN SERBIA When we are talking about xenophobia in Serbia and how it has been increasing in past two decades, first we have to talk about history of Serbia.

Serbian people started developing xenophobia first when Ottoman Empire conquer Serbia in 14th century. Serbs had 5 centuries to develop xenophobia towards Turks and Ottoman Emperor. This can be the base of Xenophobia’s development in Serbia.

After the Ottoman Empire, Serbs just continued building up their xenophobia about all the other nation who interfere with them - Bulgarians in Balkans Wars, Germans and Austrians in 1st and 2nd World War...

But the xenophobia escalate when once the same nation, from the same country, Yugoslavians, started developing xenophobia towards each other.

When Josip Broz Tito died in 1980 people living in Yugoslavia started manifest bigotry towards their “brother nations”. We all know the result of that unfortunately.

Many people in Serbia created a wrong and bad picture of Croatian and Bosnian people and they passed that false story to their children. Now, Serbia is facing the problem of increasing xenophobia towards Croats and Bosnian in young generation, who were born after the War and who didn’t have anything to do with that. The fact is that, both Serbians or Croats or Bosnian people, have the “seed of hate” growing inside them, based on the made up story from their parents.

The story about building up xenophobia in Serbia continues in 1999 when NATO bombarded Yugoslavia. Now we had more nations to “hate”. All of the nations part of NATO and of course Albanian people living in Kosovo and far south Serbia. This hatred resulted another shrinkage of Serbian territory in 2000’s.

The best thing that came out from all of the happenings in 90’s and 00’s is that now, all the people from Former Yugoslav countries can say that they are polyglots, speaking six or seven languages.

M.A.X

aga i

nst

XENOPHOBIA IN 2010’S So now, when we have a whole bunch of nations and people that we “hate”, we had to make a step forward, because there is no more territory to divide and for sure there is no more space for wars anymore in Serbia. People who are used to hate other people and talk about them in bad way, had to find a way to cherish their xenophobia in 21st century.

The escalation of “New Age Xenophobia” in Serbia could be seen in the link below. What is it about? Well, an American-Greek married couple lived in Serbia for three years, working with local people, helping them, having a cheep kitchen, bike service, volunteer works etc. In July 2013 people started a negative propaganda towards them, saying that they are foreign mercenaries who are doing nothing except endanger their children.

RESEARCH

During the participation in Training Course “Media Against Xenophobia (M.A.X)” in Thessaloniki from 16th to 22nd of January, I had the opportunity to talk to local people, living in Thessaloniki, what is their opinion about xenophobia and do they think that Greek people are proud and if that may be a reason of xenophobia in Greece?

We made a short radio show with our interviews.

CAN IT BE BETTER? Unfortunately, members of Balkan’s nations will always have a need to “hate” the others and xenophobia will be present in all of the countries of the Balkans, but what we, young people can do about it?

Well, I don’t want to tell you a lot about it. I will just show you a picture taken very recently where you can see smiley faces of young people from Italy, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Greece, Cyprus and Turkey.We were living together for 7 days, talking freely, laughing, making jokes, working on fighting xenophobia, drinking, singing, we didn’t sleep a lot, we went out, having a great time, enjoying our days together as we are all the same, forgetting about the history of our nations, and making a better future!

And we have realized one thing: THE WHOLE BALKAN AND ALL OF THE COUNTRIES IN THE BALKANS ARE THE SAME AND THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT SOME OF THEM ARE SPEAKING DIFFERENT LANGUAGE.

XENOPHOBIA

“After 23 of January, the training course of MAX was finished and the participants returned to their countries, where they had the time to think all the information they had collected.

The final evaluation seems to be positive and allows the trainers to believe that they had successfully completed this project.

Bellow you can find participants’ comments for M.A.X. and for the overall experience of participating in a youth project .

“Even though I slept only a few hours per day, I did not feel sleepy during the workshops , because they could actually earn my attention , it was interesting , fun , educational ... “ says Filip Kocevski, participant from Serbia .

Valentina Vujević from Croatia, says about her experience of participation in MAX “It is very interesting to meet different people with great knowledge and experiences. Personally, I’ve learnt a lot about the situation in all the countries- partners”.

Positive seems to be also the opinion of the young participant from Bosnia and Herzegovina , Ena Bucan, which expressed that “I had the opportunity to meet interesting people from different countries to exchange opinions and views on xenophobia , to work with very good trainers and coordinators and enjoy the beautiful city of Thessaloniki . “ Finally, about MAX, the participants from Albania , Erisa Cakalli said, “ For me the most special part of the program were workshops, radio and web platform . It was wonderful to have the opportunity to work together and learn all of these information“.

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