Bob Marley - Get Up Stand Up

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Preacher man, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Most people think,
Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. jah!

Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Don't give up the fight! (life is your right! )
Get up, stand up! (so we can't give up the fight! )
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )
Don't give up the fight! (yeah! )

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )

So you better:
Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (don't give it up, don't give it up! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Don't give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (... )
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight!

MY PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT MULTICULTURALISM

I see multiculturalism primarily as an unacceptable ideology of cultural relativism, which would lead to acceptance of barbaric practices, including those brought to the Western World by immigrants. I remember infanticide, torture, slavery, oppression of women, homophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, gangs, female circumcision, discrimination by immigrants, suttee, and the death penalty. Cliteur compares multiculturalism to the moral acceptance of Auschwitz, Stalin, Pol Pot and the Ku Klux Klan.
The intellectual rejection of multiculturalism was accompanied by a political transformation, which led to the abandonment of official multiculturalism.
The historical event of multiculturalism brings with it many complicated conceptual problems, causing a rich debate over what multiculturalism is or should mean.
Most controversial in this regard is the movement known as "Afrocentrism," which in various versions seeks to document the centrality of African cultural traditions to the foundation of American and Western history, and to celebrate that African tradition so as to increase the self-esteem and educational success of African-American students. Critics of Afrocentrism dispute both its intellectual claims the scholarship and historical conclusions it advances and its educational claims specially regarding the effect of an ethnically-centered curriculum on the academic achievement of students.

TWO OPINIONS I ESPECIALLY LIKED ABOUT MULTICULTURALISM

PROFESSOR SIR BERNARD CRICK
“I see no incompatibility between multiculturalism and Britishness. Britishness must be part of multiculturalism.
In the report I chaired advocating language and citizenship education for immigrants, The New and the Old (2003), we said:
"Who are we British? For a long time the UK has been a multicultural state composed of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and also a multicultural society... made up of a diverse range of cultures and identities, and one that emphasises the need for a continuous process of mutual engagement and learning about each other with respect, understanding and tolerance."
In other words, dual identities have been common, even before large scale immigration.
We further wrote: "To be British means that we respect the laws, the parliamentary and democratic political structures, traditional values of mutual tolerance, respect for equal rights..."
But Britishness does not mean a single culture. Integration is the co-existence of communities and unimpeded movement between them, it is not assimilation. Britishness is a strong concept but not all embracing.”


RUTH LEA
Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a centre-right think tank


“There are two ways in which people interpret multiculturalism.
The first one is the more common way and that is every culture has the right to exist and there is no over-arching thread that holds them together.
That is the multiculturalism we think is so destructive because there's no thread to hold society together. It is that multiculturalism that Trevor Phillips has condemned and, of course, we are totally supportive.
There is another way to define multiculturalism which I would call diversity where people have their own cultural beliefs and they happily coexist - but there is a common thread of Britishness or whatever you want to call it to hold society together.
And that is clearly what I would support because you do accept that people have different cultures and you accept them. It a positive acceptance not a negative tolerance.”

MERCEDES C 63 AMG

A car that I absolutely love is Mercedes C 63 AMG (limousine). Mercedes-Benz has a small size sedan, the class C limousine and the AMG enterprises, which is a subsidiary of the Mercedes-Benz, have their own version, a much more powerful version.
The C 63 AMG is reportedly the first AMG Mercedes designed from the ground up for performance, as compared to previous AMG cars which essentially featured "bolt on" performance modifications. The C 63 has a revised front end architecture that is taken from the CLK 63 AMG Black series. The revised 7-speed automatic transmission now has three shift modes - Comfort, Sport and Manual - with the last one running with the converter locked allowing the driver to hold the engine at the rev limit. The ESP can now be completely turned off, interfering only under heavy braking. The car also has the quickest, most responsive steering of any Mercedes to date. Car and Driver tested the car in their December 2007 issue and got a 0-60 mph time of 3.9 seconds and a quarter-mile time of 12.3 seconds at 116 mph (187 km/h).[15] This made the C 63 the fastest 4-door production sedan in the world at its debut.

PLAYING For change

The PLAYING FOR CHANGE movement is a movement that unites all the cultures around the world with the power of music. There are people playing the same music at the same time in a big number of places all around the world: Venezuela, U.S.A., South Africa, Congo, Russia, Spain, France, Italy, Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, etc.
This movement’s principal objective is to unite all cultures and show that we are all equal. The PLAYING FOR CHANGE movement managed to touch the hearts of many people, the video in Youtube has reached more than 20 000 000 exibitions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjPODksI08

cartoons about racism

Australia, India sign education deal after attacks

Australia and India pledged to expand education links on Thursday after a series of attacks on Indian students, including a murder, tarnished relations.

Apr 08,- Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and India's Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal agreed to extend exchanges and set up a joint education council at a meeting in Melbourne.

"The fact that I am here suggests we want to take the relationship forward, it does not mean that we are not concerned about what's happening here," Sibal said.

"I think the Australian government is taking strong steps in that direction to prevent those things happening," he added.

Muggings and beatings of Indian students prompted street protests last year, before graduate Nitin Garg, 21, was killed as he walked to work at a Melbourne burger restaurant in January.

Gillard promised Australia would tighten regulation of its colleges which gained a reputation for charging overseas students for substandard courses.

"For an Indian family that sends a young person to this country a long way from home, they want to know that their young person is going to be safe, get a good experience, a great education and they're going to be able to go back home and use those skills," she said.

India badly needs more teachers and higher education opportunities after landmark legislation passed last week promising free schooling for all children aged between six and 14.

Xenophobia

Xenophobia is a fear or contempt towards to everything is foreign or unknown. Mainly to those who come from abroad...
Xenophobia can be based on various aspects, such as racism is based only on the race and stereotypes that people make about the others.
Since a long time, attacks against foreigners had been increased more and more. Many people have so far been killed, while others have been injured.
There are several places where there are a lot of violence towards immigrant people.
The violence in these townships is mainly aimed at foreigners who are either asylum seekers or refugees.
Xenophobia happens all over the world, like in Japan, Dominican Rep, Switzerland and others.
I believe that this is yet another social problem for us to add to our long list. I hope the people of the world can put aside their differences and fears and growing together in peace!

In my arrival in a foreign country

In my arrival in a foreign country, I hope to have a good reception and be very well received by the native people that live there. I would like to be treated just like one more of them.
I expect them to help me if I need, because I was a new person. Someone that doesn’t know what expect and what do in this new land.
In the future my principal plans are: to get money, to get a good Job to can survive and meet new people, with others cultures and traditions and share with them my cultures and traditions too.

What is your Color?

I get red, when I’m mad,
I get blue, when I’m sad,
I get pink, when I’m glad,
When I’m furious, I get purple,
When I’m sick, I get colorless,
When I’m indisposed, I get yellow…

To be Colorblind

To be colorblind doesn’t mean to be daltonic.
It doesn’t mean that we don´t distinguish the colors.
It means that we don’t care if you are black or white.
It means that we must stop being intolerant to other races or ethnic groups.

London

On the 4th of April,2010,we went to London with our teachers, Isabel Ramalho, Teresa Ramalho e Ricardo Fonseca.
Our plan was to visit some of the most important monuments of London, the Britsh Museam Natural History Museam, Covent Garden, Hide Park anjd Madame Tussouds, and others.
We went to all these places, and we love it!
The place that we liked the most was Madame Tussouds. It’s a wax museam with a lot of famous people and some of theme belong to the worlds History like, Adolf Hitler.
In Candem Lock, a kind of a market for our ages, we bought some London t-shirts some saying just “London” and others saying “ I <3 London”. In that market we saw the real Amy Whinehouse and we took a lot of pictures.
In London tube we had a lot of fun. We needed to catch the train very quickly so the sentence that we said more was “ get in the train now!”. In the train Montijo was almost always making fun of people that probably did not speak Portuguese.
At nigth we went all together to a bedroom and we made a “disco night” that only ended with the arrived of one security guard.

Well, what happen in London, stays in London.

some images about stereotypes

Racism

UNESCO and FC Barcelona “Put Racism Offside” at the Camp Nou Stadium

On 24 March 2010, UNESCO and FC Barcelona marked the beginning of their joint Campaign against racism and discrimination with a series of activities alongside the game between FC Barcelona and C.A. Osasuna at the Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona (Spain).
Up until one hour until kick-off, a large message board set up at a strategic spot outside the stadium invited fans to express their thoughts and feelings relating to discrimination and racism. In a symbolic gesture, the players of the 1984/85 champion team who received a tribute on the same day, left their own messages adding their voices to those of the fans.
Before the game, the stadium speaker made several announcements on the campaign and its objectives. The campaign’s main slogan “PUT RACISM OFFSIDE” was projected on the giant screens of the stadium as well as on the billboards around the football field. Moreover, an article about the Campaign was included in the official newspaper of FCB “Barça Camp Nou” which was distributed freely inside and outside the stadium.
The Campaign, launched to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (21 March), foresees many more activities to be conducted throughout the year 2010.
The main purpose was to fight against the discrimination in an easy and very effective way. That idea of unesco was amazing because football is the most popular sport all over the world and it leads a lot of people. Football is nowadays the strongest way of keeping people from different countries and nationalities together.
For example our next competition «South African 2010» is here and the organization gave some tickets to the workers too.
It’s a good idea because they are the main reason to make that dream in a reality.
Otherwise they would never go to the Worlds Football Competition.

Racial Stereotypes

In some TV programmes there are racial stereotypes. One example is the “Family Guy” series. I love this series, but in some episodes they make fun, or they stereotype an image of some races, see these videos and check it by yourself!

The children can see movies on TV, at any time, and some of them can show a wrong image of some races. That can promote racism since an early age.

My stereotypes

I have some stereotypes about the gipsy people. When I think in a gipsy women I see the folly haired women, bracelets and necklace’s. And when I think in the man, I see lots of dark clothes, gold necklace’s and a black hat.
I also think that the majority of them are quite violent and noisy people.

yes or no to Multiculturalism?

In fact, social exclusion is likely to occur as well as all the problems that come with it: homelessness, unemployment, drug-abuse, and crime among many others. Minorities are required to deny their way of life and conform to the main stream, in the name of integration. Multiculturalism leads to prejudice, bigotry, rejection, discrimination, segregation and racism. But on the other hand, multiculturalism is an asset because you grow up aware of your rights and of other people’s rights and you are offered more opportunities of choice in many aspects of life. Multiculturalism brings with it innovation and cultural vitality, which widens our horizons and enhances our personality and it fosters tolerance, and a wider acceptance of other people’s lifestyles. Integrating into the mainstream doesn’t necessarily mean to give up one’s cultural roots but it really means the acceptance of diversity within a community.
After all it is often very difficult for outsiders to integrate into the mainstream, in spite of the many efforts endeavoured.

The Multiculturalism Problem

Living in a multicultural society has never been easy. There are many aspects that keep people closer like language, race, culture, religion or myths; the same aspects, however, can be sources of conflict when extremism, antagonism or even beliefs are at stake. Although many people claim that discrimination is not socially acceptable and no one considers himself to be prejudiced, in modern societies, be it Europe or America, full integration becomes extremely difficult especially when people suffer segregation for religious, racist, cultural or sexist reasons. All too often in the name of integration minorities are required to deny their entire way of life and conform to the mainstream (the majority culture). They are told to fit into a society that may be openly hostile to them and ostracises them. They are treated as outsiders. Black people have suffered the stigma of colour and they have often expressed their anger through crime, hate or prejudice. Mexicans have had difficulty in inserting into American society and even today they are discriminated against. And what to say about brown-skinned Muslims after September 11? Rightly or wrongly they have been the target of prejudice and discrimination and even persecution. And the Portuguese have always been looked down by Americans who don’t even know where Lisbon lies. It’s not a joke, but I read on the Net that when the German Chancellor, Merkl, came back from America, the American Press referred she had stayed a couple of nights in Lisbon and said Lisbon was located on the west coast of Africa!!!! It’s outrageous!

Multiculturalism in America

The Americans are supposed to be the result of the mixture of all the peoples and cultures that make up the USA and so the metaphor “melting pot” was mostly used and thought to be very accurate. Nevertheless, the different peoples didn’t mingle completely so as to make a single people with a single culture. Actually, elements of every race and culture have mixed up to a certain extent though the different ethnic groups still tend to keep their differences as a means of asserting their cultural identity. That’s why the metaphor “Salad bowl” seems more appropriate nowadays than “melting pot”.

What is meant by Multiculturalism?

According to the dictionary, multiculturalism is the existence of several different cultures within a society, within a country , because in those countries live people with different cultures. Though the USA and Britain share the same language, English, this language is a vehicle that conveys two different cultural backgrounds, two different ways of life, two different kinds of nations.
As far as the USA is concerned, its main feature is diversity as this nation is the result of the mingling of all sorts of people coming from all over the world and because it is a huge country made up of different states with a certain local autonomy. However, there are some cultural aspects that may be identified as typically American and help keep the nation together. As a matter of fact, we all recognise McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken as American.

Best Multicultural society

Yes, in my opinion multicultural society is the best because it develops an exchange between cultures. This relation is very important for the world because the culture of the world is taken all over the globe.
By one hand multicultural society is best, because there are different people, different points of view and different cultures and this is better.
By other hand is very difficult to preserve the peace between some cultures. It is one of the disadvantages of this multicultural society.
My dream is that we all can live nowadays without wars, living in peace in a multicultural society.

Should Portugal close the door on new immigration or should our government be more welcoming to the outside world?

In my opinion Portugal is receiving more and more immigrants nowadays. It is a country of emigrants, because many people come here with the dream of find a job.
In our country immigrants are welcomed; this may be mainly for the fact of our African possessions in the past. Our country Portugal is situated near the sea and connected with all of Europe and in contact with African countries.
Portugal also had colonies in Africa and India. Immigration was very early accepted in our country. So, our government received other people and didn’t ever close the door of immigrants.
Our emigrants like to be welcome in other places, so we have the duty of opening the door to new immigrants.

Imagine that you are an immigrant arriving for the first time in a foreign country.

In my opinion, it may be welcomed or not, depends on the place you are going to immigrate, too. But, in general, I think that there would be no reason to be not welcomed. Although there are people and people, but we have this in every place we go.
If I immigrate to some place I wouldn’t expect any reception in particular, but I think that when I arrived there I should try to meet people, to make my integration easier.
But, what I would like to find, would be new and cool colleagues and above all friendly people, because if I would go with them, for some reason they should be real friends.
In the future, I would be able to practice veterinary medicine. If there will not happen any changes in my country, I would consider immigrating. Besides there are a great number of countries that are dealing with this area. I will not think about in another job for me. This is what I want.
I consider that I could to contribute to the wealth of my new country. This is what I call to work and cooperate with all the others around me.

An Immigrant

In my point of view I would welcome in other country but depends on my relationship with other immigrants and people of this country. Other immigrants could help me with complete in other place, and this help would be very simple.
I would not expect very much, because they wouldn’t like that one person from one country want to go to live in this place or find a job in this area. But I like that they were friendly with me and help me in first time in their country.
If I was an immigrant in the future I would want to find a job and integrate in this society that would be different from me. And like that life in peace with my neighbours mainly.
In my opinion I simply show them my culture and my country. I would only participate when I know their culture. I think that living in another country, would be different but would be amazing!

Yes or no to multiculturalism?

In my opinion there is multiculturalism when all cultures live in peace with all the different societies. It turns the society in a better place to live, because each culture has a different way of seeing the world.
The biggest problem of this multicultural society is the relation between very different cultures. This relation is not always easy because it’s not easy to accept something you don’t agree or you don’t understand.
Nowadays people put different labels in different cultures. But you have to remember that not everything in your culture is perfect. There are good people that do good things and others that do bad things, in every country. This is ordinary.
More and more people have to be aware for different kinds of culture.
When are labelling people we are discriminating them too when we discriminate people we one putting them away from the society.
But all off these are stereotypes. The society has to grown up more, in my opinion. We are growing up in the technological way every day.
Someday society will promote cultures and ethic, without memories from the past.

Imagine - John Lennon

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

A MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY

It is common that over the world live people together with different nationalities, colours of the skin and religious belief. When different people live together they form a multicultural society. Big cities such as London, New York, Paris, Berlin are called cosmopolitans because of the many nationalities and people with different colour.
New York is as cosmopolitan as London but is not as mixed. Nationalities stay in their own areas, for example; the Russians in the Russian section, the Polish in the Polish section. The area where many Chinese people live and where you can find many Chinese shops and restaurants is called Chinatown.
It’s very important to keep peace between mixed people so they can live and work together. However it’s not so easy. Even when we live in the 21st century there is still racism around the world. People fight against each other and even kill each other.
Living in multicultural society has also some advantages. People can get to know many cultures, their lifestyles, traditions, habits, cuisine and music. In big cities there are many different restaurants which offer their national food and drink together with an existing new atmosphere. Experiencing and understanding different cultures is the first part of acceptance. In a truly multicultural society you will find people of different backgrounds or religions living together and even getting married.
Some countries welcome foreign cultures more than other. In the UK you can find information written in many different languages, however, in Germany you will mainly find information in German and sometimes in English.
In Slovakia we live with different cultures as well. Out of a total population of 5million, we have over half a million Hungarians living in the south of Slovakia and a same minority groups like Russians in the East. The Gipsy minority group are spread through out Slovakia and theirs numbers are rising rapidly. Minority groups get a lot of attention as they often say that they are treated unfairly. This often means that there is positive discrimination against Slovak people to keep the EU happy. Unfortunately this causes tension between the Slovak and minority groups.