Many practices, such as gold mining, palm tree plantations for bio-fuels or other agricultural businesses in Guatemala are not only endangering traditional communities’ health but also preventing them from sustainably harvesting their own crops. Also, Mayan families have been forcefully evicted from their homes in favor of those great land owner businesses.

To show their discontent and to demand Guatemalan government to urgently address a reform of land rights, about 1500 Mayans walked 200 km from the town of Cobán to Guatemala City.

Mayan ritual - Preparing the ground for their friends arriving from Cobán.

Shortly before the group arrived there was a land-wide power cut, which impeded the rest of the organizers waiting in front of the National Palace of Culture (Palacio Nacional de la Cultura) to use their microphones and loud speakers. At about 11 am, though, the power was back.

Palacio Nacional de la Cultura in Guatemala City

The march ended at midday in front of the former headquarters of the President of Guatemala known as the National Palace of Culture, which today holds a museum and thus is under the auspice of the Ministry of Culture.

The protesters met with members of parliament and the supreme court and handed out a number of petitions to Otto Pérez Molina, the president of the Guatemalan Republic. These included demands to end forced evictions against rural communities, to reform mining exploration and extraction and to subsidize fertilizer up to 100 % for indigenous farmers.

“If we don’t get concrete answers from the government, we will camp here on the square until we do. We don’t want more promises”, said Billy Ochoa, member of the Colectivo Caja Lúdica. Álvaro Pop, from the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, told the newspaper Siglo 21: “This is a historic march. The communities’ requests will be of benefit to the whole country, as more than two thirds of Guatemala’s economy depend on agriculture.”

According to Asociación Avivara, an NGO, massive land expropriation from the indigenous population in this central american country has resulted in one of the most unequal distributions in the world: 80 % of the fertile land belongs to just 2 % of the population.

Poster saying: "Stop government discrimination. Yes to dignity for indigenous peoples.

Jarivs is an American author and a visionary. He has published two well-known books: “What would Google do?” (2009) and “Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live” (2011). In the latter one, he defends the openness of the internet and argues against regulations to protect privacy.

He also teaches interactive journalism at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Watch the video now!

Jeff Jarvis on internet and freedom of movement from GLOBAL EYES on Vimeo.

Media reporting on the Arab spring and its aftermath suggests firstly that cooperation between Europe and the Arab states on the Mediterranean is something new, and secondly that there is a “we” and “they”. 

Map of the Union for the Mediterranean (Libya observatory status)

The truth is that there is more cooperation between the Arab states and the European Union (EU) than is perceived.

Today the trade volume with the Arab states of the Mediterranean makes up to 10 % of the EU’s external trade (almost 225 billion Euro), according to the European Commission.

Politically, the “Barcelona Declaration” of 1995, signed by the ministers of Foreign Affairs of the then 15 EU members and 14 Mediterranean partners, set the framework for the bilateral relations. Just five years ago the “Union for the Mediterranean” (UfM) was established out of the Barcelona process. “The Mediterranean is a sea that joins” is the UfM’s key guideline. Its aim: a Free Trade Area (FTA) across the sea that separates Arabs and Europeans. The visionary: France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy. At the time this new “Club Med”, as it was also labelled, was eagerly supported by Egypt and Israel.

On an academic level, there is a lot of research going on. The University of the Mediterranean (EMUNI) was inaugurated in 2008 in Slovenia and offers a number of postgraduate programmes, such as “De-pollution of the Mediterranean”, “Mediterranean Business Development” or “Maritime Land and Highways”. EMUNI also issues the “International Journal of Euro-Mediterranean Studies”.

Thus, there is a huge framework that has been built up for several years on many levels. But why is there still a sense of dichotomy, especially after the Arab spring? Souldn’t both sides of the sea be more willings to cooperate? Will there ever be a Mediterranean Union?

The MaG spoke to Almut Möller from the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) about current developments in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

Almut Möller, Euro-Med Relations Expert, DGAP

The MaG: Hello Mrs. Möller. Thank you for the possibility to interview you. Could you in brief explain to our readers what the “Union for the Mediterranean” has achieved in the past five years?

A. Möller: Quite frankly I think expectations about the Mediterranean Union launched under the French EU Presidency were overrated from the beginning. Back in 2008, the French President wanted to come up with a new political initiative on the Mediterranean, underpinning France’s leadership ambitions in the EU’s southern neighbourhood. There were red carpets involved, and lots of declarations. The most obvious sign for me that the Union for the Mediterranean had not really gone beyond what had been put in place anyway with the Barcelona Process in the mid-nineties was that it was invisible during the Arab uprisings. Until today, it clearly has not become the nucleus of a new EU Mediterranean Policy.

The MaG: How is the Euro-Crisis affecting cross-Mediterranean relations?

A. Möller: Good question. My observation is that EU countries have gone largely introspective. The euro members have to put a lot of time and energy into finding ways out of the debt crisis. Apart from stabilising heavily indebted euro-zone countries, in the wider perspective it is about how to set up a competitive and yet sustainable economic model within the EU in a globalised world. Some solutions to this challenge might indeed lie in the EU’s neighbourhood, and opening up for the opportunities that can be found in the neighbouring countries might be beneficial for both sides. But I see more of a fortress mentality in Europe at the moment.

The MaG: Of course any relationship has its difficult moments. On the European side, we know that there are skills shortages in Germany. Why wasn’t this country willing to receive experienced migrants from Tunisia, but instead has let Libyan refugees in?

A. Möller: That is exactly what I mean. If you look at the recent EU documents (that are also supported by the EU’s governments), there is the promise of greater mobility for students or businesspeople made by the EU now. But in reality, the numbers are still small and there are a lot of hurdles for visa applicants. EU countries such as Germany have not come to terms yet domestically with the question of how to remain competitive while shrinking. There is no vision on how to transform European societies, and convince Europe’s citizens that opening up might be a good thing.

The MaG: The Arab side seems to perceive this reaction as lack of confidence. I’m thinking about members of American and European NGOs being held in Egypt at the moment. This could be perceived as a response to the “fortress mentatliy” you mentioned.  What to you think of this?

A. Möller: This is a time of transition, and hence, uncertainty, for both Arab countries and the EU. The latter has to understand the fundamental changes in its neighbourhood. And the EU has to realise that in many ways its Mediterranean policies were not successful. In such a time of uncertainty, it is important not to escalate, but to learn how to dialogue better. Europe and the Arab world will stay neighbours – this is a matter of geography. There will have to be some sort of living with each other, and better, ideally in a truly “neighbourly” spirit.

The MaG: Having the current political and financial situation in mind on both sides of the Mediterranean, how close are we to the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean FTA?

A. Möller: I don’t see this happening any time soon. The EU members simply don’t have enough political will – and do the Arab neighbours want it?

The MaG: What about an Euro-Med Schengen? How long will it take to create an even greater freedom of movement?

A. Möller: I’d like to be optimistic and see the Mediterranean as a sea that facilitates exchange, like it was in ancient times, and not to be a barrier as it is now. But I don’t see it happening. The tendency we see in the EU is rather to close up than to build bridges, I am afraid.

The MaG: Well, let’s hope that the EU will see these chances soon. Thank you!

Official logo of the Union for the Mediterranean

Further information on Euro-Med relations:

* Union for the Mediterranean

* University EMUNI

* Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

For European readers this might sound familiar, as they have the world’s most developed regional parliament with direct votes. In fact, the global parliament is not as utopian as it might seem at first. It’s more of the last step of globalization, as global cooperation already takes place as we speak.

The United Nations, the World Trade Organization or the World Bank are some of these global institutions. Yet they lack parliamentary (or parliamentarian) representation. The Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (CEUNPA) wants to change this.

“The global parliament is more of a reform than a revolution”, says Friedrich Brandi from the campaign for UNPA, as the global parliament is officially called. The name “UNPA” was not randomly chosen. The parliament should become part of the United Nations family making use of the organization’s global legitimacy and framework.

The campaign has had support from members of parliament, academia, NGOs, personalities and citizens from around the globe and has collected about 1000 signatures. The international campaign is coordinated from Berlin. “From here we know which NGO in which country is actively supporting the campaign. The success of the campaign strongly depends on how active the local NGO engages in lobbying for the UNPA”, says Brandi. India and Canada are strong supporters, while it’s more challenging in USA.

Issues debated would be those affecting all citizens of the world, such as lack of drinking water, poverty, social justice, armed conflicts or climate change. There are concrete proposals already of how the UNPA should be constituted (e.g. number of seats, proportion of representation, location, etc.). “The proposals are drafted as realistically as possible so that when time comes they can actually be put into practice. This is why it is important for the campaign to convince more academia to join the project”, explains Brandi.

But of course anybody can support the campaign for more global democracy, for example by becoming a member of the campaign committee of the local NGO in your country. “You can also create a new supporting group wherever you are. The more we grow, the more we show politicians and media that we want this change”, says Brandi, who himself was a sceptical of the project when he first heard of it.

For an interactive map with supporters by countries click here.

For more information about the campaign visit www.uncampaign.org or join their facebook page.

Dr. Butros Butros-Ghali, former UN Secretary General: “We need to promote the democratization of globalization, before globalization destroys the foundations of national and international democracy. The establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations has become an indispensable step to achieve democratic control of globalization.”

This might sound like fiction – but it is a true story.

Diego studies in Canada. He is a Colombian citizen. His sister Ana is studying in Germany. She wants him to spend Christmas with her, as she can’t miss classes and won’t be able to travel. So she invites her brother to Germany.

End of story? Unfortunately not.

This is how it ends up:

Ana’s visa is a limited student visa and has to be renewed soon. She has no regular income and lives from money her parents send her. To visit Germany as a non-EU citizen, you must guarantee that you can finance your own travel and living costs, and you have to take out a travel health insurance with a minimum coverage of 30,000 Euro. If you can’t prove this yourself, the person inviting you has to to be able to cover all costs, including the health insurance. But as Ana is a student, too, she can’t guarantee for this.

Luckily she has a friend, Jakob, that accepts to invite her brother. So Jakob writes a letter to the German Embassy in Canada, stating he will cover all costs of Diego’s visit.

A few days later, the Embassy writes back. A simple invitation won’t do. Jakob has to print a form from the internet, take this form to the immigration office of his city, where he will get a “real” form, signed and sealed by the immigration office. But of course he can’t just simply “go to” the office. He has to call and schedule an appointment that is given to him for the week to come.

Jakob, who is an Austrian living in Germany, goes to the appointment and takes all relevant documents with him.

The immigration officer starts filling out all required fields and checkes Jakob’s documents. Then the officer asks: “Do you have a legal residency permit?” “Well, I’m a EU-citizen. I don’t need a residency permit”, says Jakob. “Oh, yes you do. You need your certificate of freedom of movement (Freizügigkeitsbescheinigung)! You have to carry it around with you all the time! I’m sorry, sir, but without this paper I can’t issue the form that you need.”

Good enough that Jakob knows of his rights and tells the officer: “All EU citizens have the right to move and reside freely in the EU. It is not true, that I have to carry that certificate with me all the time! That’s just unnecessary bureaucracy.” So Jakob, after having to pay 25 Euro for the form, in the end got the paper he needed and sent it to the German Embassy in Canada. The form got there the day after Diego was supposed to leave.

As you can imagine, all this bureaucracy not only causes a lot of psychological stress, it is humiliating and is an attack on human dignity. These kind of stories happen every day.

Diego was able to postpone his flight. In the end, this story went out well. But there are many that don’t.

The names of persons were changed, as they want to remain anonymous.

December 10^th is Human Rights Day and the United Nations are celebrating the 63^rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was through the transforming power of social media that people were able to show their strength and fight for their rights. This is why Navanethem Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be hosting a global conversation streamed live on Facebook, Twitter and Weibo.

In addition, the UN is collecting wishes from everybody on the “celebrate human rights” Facebook page. 

This magazine, that draws awareness to current problems of freedom of movement and discrimination on grounds of nationality, has wished for the adoption of a World Passport.

The current system of national passports divides the world into people who are able to travel freely and others who don’t – and this just on grounds of their nationality.

That means, just because you are lucky enough to have a e.g. Danish, Japanese or German passport means that you won’t be subject to fill in forms asking demeaning questions and very often you won’t have to pay for your visa, unlike citizens e. g. from Iraq, Thailand or Egypt.

This is highly discriminating.

Furthermore, the current system of national passports drives people to rob passports, to forge identities or to to lose them on purpose so they can enter a country as refugees. Many people without a passport are seen as “stateless”.

Konrad Adenauer, one of the fathers of the European Union, said in 1957: “Progress demands bigger spaces, other wise we can’t develop ourselves, and furthermore, our times also demand political progress.” This view of the late 50’s couldn’t be more up-to-date.

Adenauer’s “bigger spaces” means we need to think global. We need a supra-national authority to issue World Passports, allocated in one of the United Nations specialized agencies.

Garry Davis is the self-proclaimed first world citizen. He renounced his US-citizenship in 1948. His US-based “World Service Authority” currently issues World Passports. Unfortunately these are accepted in only four countries: Ecuador, Mauritania, Tanzania and Togo. This shows that we need a respected, established supra-national authority such as the United Nations to issue World Passports to make this endeavour realistic.

The World Passport should be given by birth. Everybody would have the right to hold a World Passport and it should be the only valid travel document. National identity cards would of course still be available and valid in each country.

A World Passport accepted by the international community will hopefully be possible in the future, enabling all people to travel freely, visit relatives, or just get to know other countries of their world. This is “The MaG”’s wish for Human Rights Day 2011.

The Editor in Chief

Josephine Landertinger Forero

Find out more about the UN’s global live human rights conversation here.

]]> http://the-mag.net/2011/12/08/i-wish-for-a-world-passport/feed/ 0 Passport for the World (Chris Noble) eyeraqnews Human Rights Day 2011 http://the-mag.net/2011/12/05/not-welcome/ http://the-mag.net/2011/12/05/not-welcome/#comments Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:12:13 +0000 globaleyesprod http://the-mag.net/?p=62 ]]> A Colombian national living in London and working there in a high position was supposed to attend an important conference in Spain two weeks ago. She applied for a Schengen-visa to enter Spain. It was denied to her twice. Spain, now facing high numbers of unemployment, is afraid of letting migrants in – well, al least those coming from poor countries, no matter what their educational or career background is. In the end the woman, who wants to remain anonymous, managed getting a tourist Schengen-visa for Italy, and then traveled to Spain to attend the conference. Because of all the trouble, she was afraid she might even lose her job in London.

Wealthy states want to protect their economic interests, so a passport is actually much more than an identity card – it’s a document that helps states organize themselves economically. Human beings are seen as economic agents. This is why, according to an index compiled annually by the law firm Hanley & Partners, Danes and Finns can travel visa free to almost every country in the world. In contrast, citizens from Iraq, Egypt or Thailand have to fill in forms and undergo a number of bureaucratic steps, if they wish to travel. So, it is according to this economical logic that in the current financial crisis of the European Union, people are denied visas without further explanation. This is a clear violation of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The unjust system of passports and the concept of nation that is lived out by national passports diverges strongly from our globalised life style: mass tourism, open borders in the European Union, families that are more and more heterogeneous, etc. But the possibility to live the global world seems to be the reality of just one part of the society, in great part due to our current system of national passports. Have you ever asked yourself if this is a just and fair system?

Imagine a binational couple – a European husband, let’s say German, with his Mexican wife and binational child standing at the airport re-entering Europe from a trip to Mexico. The German father and his child go through “Europeans” counter, but his wife has to wait in the long line of “all other nations”. The passport check here takes much longer of course. This is discrimination on grounds of nationality and takes place everyday at any airport in this world.

Remember the signs in South Africa during the apartheid era? “Europeans only”, “Whites only” etc. In our airports very similar signs (“EU citizens only” – “All other States”) still exist.

Violating freedom of movement on grounds of nationality is also violating Article 1 of the UDHR, “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”, and subsequently violating many other basic rights.

Article 13

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Map of Schengen Area

But the way the world works clashes with a prevailing strong attachment to the idea of nation-states. The rise of far right extremism in many countries in Europe, conflicts between the US and Iran or North Korea or the Arab Spring with countries “reinventing” themselves show us that globalization doesn’t undermine nation-states.

However it is also clear that nation-states are transforming themselves in response to the complexities of globalization. The question is: how are they doing this? Are they creating international business incentives? Are they making it easier for foreign academics to work in their country? Are they shutting borders or making traveling easier?

The latter question is of great interest. Freedom of movement is a basic human right. If you don’t get a visa to travel to a certain country, you won’t be able to visit the conference you were invited to, you won’t be able to see the sister living elsewhere, you won’t be able to get to know the traditions of another country. If you are denied a visa, you are being deprived of your rights. This is not obvious to many people. Denial of your freedom of movement is a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 13 says: “Everyone has the right to leave any country (…) and return to his country”.

These Italian film studios hide Europe’s biggest indoor studio – teatro 5 – also known as Federico Fellini’s second home.

    Filmmakers from all over the world come to shoot their films at Cinecittà. The studios were created by dictator Benito Mussolini during the Fascist period.

For the first time ever since Cinecittà was built in 1937, it has opened its doors to the public.

Big box office successes, such as “Ben Hur” or “Cleopatra”, have been filmed here,  as the guides will tell you on thisexclusive tour.

Also modern film such as “Gangs of New York” or contemporary Italian films make use of Cinecittà’s endless possibilities. You’re only able to walk behind the scenes with a tour guide.

However, you can stroll around the gardens in front of Cinecittà’s main building and follow the red carpet at your own pace.

You will find such things as “Marte”, the statue used in Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” (2000) or “Venusia” from a scene in Federico Fellini’s “Il Casanova” (1976). The red carpet will lead you to the main building, where you will see a number of props, costumes, and an educational video on how to make a movie. There is a whole room dedicated to Fellini, who spent much of his life here.

Cinecittà was supposed to close its doors to the public today. But with more than 70 thousand visitors in six months, the organizers have decided to extend the exhibition until March 31st 2012. “The great interest of national and international visitors has confirmed what we thought – that there is big curiosity into how we work. We felt the need to communicate the greatness of this company to everyone, including those who experience the myth from the outside”, says Giuseppe Basso, project creator and deputy general manager of the Studios.

If you are in Rome or planning a trip to the Italian capital, make sure not to miss this great opportunity, which will give you an insight to one of the world’s biggest film industries.

For information about tickets and prices, click here.