Little Secret: a must see - for me at least.

I have posted several times here about a highly-publicised incident last year in which a 15-year-old boy claimed he was severely beaten by a group of Romanies after he had refused them a cigarette. The incident sparked a wave of anti-Roma sentiment and saw benefit concerts organised to help the alleged victim. Under police questioning, however, it became apparent the boy made up the whole story. In truth, he had fallen badly on a landing, and made up the story to avoid being punished at home.

Now a 21-minute film, Strach, directed by Martin Krejci, has won one of the main categories at the prestigious LA Shorts Fest 2013. The result automatically pushes the film onto a list of contenders for an Academy Award nomination. 

See a short here.

My text derives from a Cesky rozhlas short news story.

Ah, the Swiss. doG love 'em

Last week, Obama told us that he used to hear car door locks clicking when people saw this black man nearby. Today, we learned that a Swiss shop assistant didn't think that some anonymous-in-Switzerland black woman would be able to afford a 35 thousand (some currency, who cares?) Tom Ford handbag. Oprah's trying to keep up with the Anistons, huh?

What surprises me is that Oprah isn't better informed. Who else doesn't know that the Swiss are racist, uncaring, greedy, shameless and self-serving? What a racist comment I've made! Tarring a whole country with the same brush.

The problem in Switzerland is their democratic system - everyone votes for everything which puts power in the hands of the plebs, the rabble. There is no moral leadership.

What do you see in this picture?

1. What country are they in?
2. Who is the woman?
3. Who is the boy?
4. What activity are they engaged in?
5. Where does this picture come from?

This picture comes from an article in aktuálně.cz, Reportáž z britské školy, kde excelují čeští Romové.

The answers to the five questions above: UK, Leicester to be precise. A muslim woman is teaching a Roma boy from Cz or Sl English pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

It's difficult to even know where to start with this. ČR is not a multi-cultural country, and neither was England before WWII. If you click through this photo story (linked above), English school looks very very different from Czech schools. So do the teachers and students who show great involvement and commitment to what they are doing. I have accompanied groups of Italian and Spanish teachers on day visits through British schools and they were astounded, in ways that I am sure that Czech teachers would be. They were surprised by the physical classroom, its decoration, the self-directedness of the students, the individual help available, and the number of male teachers.

The attitudes of people towards Roma in society is reflected in their treatment in schools. One thing that fascinates me is that of the handful of languages that can be studied in Czech schools, the languages of the largest minorities, Roma and Vietnamese is not offered. Why is that? In Australia, which is supremely multi-cultural, there were until recently 42 foreign languages on the "maturita" menu, (school leaving exam syllabus). In these straightened times, this has been rationalised, as very few people studied Czech which was on this menu in Australia. I have sample papers for that exam.

See this article from the NY Times - also very enlightening.

I guess it's only a co-incidence that my previous blog entry here was about Czech people's wantonly negative attitude to foreigners.

You arseholes: too many foreigners

Poll: Number of people drops who believe there are too many foreigners------------------------------------------------------------------------The number of people who believe there are too many foreigners living in the Czech Republic has dropped by 9 percentage points over the past three years, suggests a new poll by the CVVM agency released on Wednesday. While in March 2009, 57 percent of Czechs surveyed said there were too many foreigners in the country, some 48 percent expressed the same opinion three years later. Around 43 percent of those surveyed in the latest poll said the number of foreigners in the country was "appropriate" while 11 percent of Czechs who took part in the poll believe foreigners should not be allowed to gain permanent residence in the Czech Republic at all.

I'm not going to waste my time looking into the credibility of this poll. The last one I looked into had less than a 1,000 respondents. Where from? Who knows.

Some of my best friends are foreigners living in the Czech Republic. Come to think of it, so am I. How many thousands of times have I heard from Czechs, oh why are you living here when I would happily swap to live in your country? Well, my xenophobic friend, my counrty welcomes foreigners and even teaches them English for free when they arrive so that they can feel at home, participate in the community, society and economy. You get permanent residence within a few years. It took me 15 years to get it in the xenophobic Czech Republic. And I've never had a free Czech lesson, not even a good one come to think of it. A few weeks ago, in the space of one week my Czech accent was criticized twice by young adult Czechs who can barely speak English. But don't you just wonder what is behind their criticism? Of all the horrible English I've had to listen to in my decades in this country, I've never really heard native English speakers criticising the Xenophobe's English accent. I wonder why not.

What are the sources of children's thinking?

The following related news items come from Radio Prague (Cesky Rozhlas 7 - Radio Praha). 
The issue raises some rather fundamental questions.
I doubt that the child was as intentionally malicious as those who falsely accuse teachers of sexual assault. In a story I once heard, which may be apocryphal, a teacher was summoned to the headmaster's office to hear that a girl was pressing charges. The teacher dropped his pants to reveal that his genitalia had been all but destroyed in the Vietnam War. Case dismissed. What happened to the girl? Nothing I expect. 
And yet Breclav Boy has incited racial hatred on a grand scale and international embarrassment to the Czech Republic because he was afraid of his mother's reaction to him falling from a balcony. 
I would also like to know how the doctors were unable to distinguish a brutal attack from a fall. 


May 24th, 2012
Boy fabricates Roma attack story
------------------------------------------------------------------------

A 15-year-old boy who claimed he had been brutally beaten up by Romanies in Breclav has admitted that he caused his injuries himself by falling from a railing. The boy who lost a kidney as a result of the accident fabricated the attack because he was afraid of his mother's reaction. The incident stirred strong anti-Romany sentiment in the town of Breclav and ultra right groups organized an anti-Romany march through the town. The town approved a number of security measures in reaction to the alleged attack and invested money in a better camera system. The boy's mother on Thursday apologized publicly for her family's behavior and returned a 100,000 crown donation that had been collected for her son's medical treatment.


May 24th, 2012
Czech Association of Romanies considers taking legal action over Roma attack story
------------------------------------------------------------------------

In related news, the Czech Association of Romanies is considering taking legal action in the case, which they have labeled an act of inciting racial hatred. The head of the association announced Thursday that he would discuss the issue with local Romanies from Breclav. Speaking on the matter, he said that Romanies in the town had suffered greatly due to the incident. He added that it was important to keep calm and that he wanted to also address the matter with town hall officials and the police.


May 25th, 2012
Government human rights commissioner hopes lessons will be learned from fabricated attack
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The government's human rights commissioner Monika Simunkova says the fabricated attack on a Moravian boy by Roma was damaging to the Roma community and those who work with stopping social exclusion. She said she hoped the incident would be a permanent reminder to locals of how cautiously people should approach media information and warned against blaming groups of people for the acts of individuals. Residents of Breclav took to the streets en masse when a fifteen-year-old boy reported he had been beaten by three Roma. He was hospitalised and lost a kidney. On Thursday he admitted to police that he had in fact fallen off one balcony railing on to another and had invented the story for his mother.