Category: Misc

Once more, Israel sheds civilian blood in Gaza.
Hundreds of dead and over 4.000 injured so far…

Israel continues to shed blood in Palestine with merciless bombings and brutal pounding. So far (22/7/2014), over 500 people have been killed, most of them children, women and elderly, over 4.000 have been injured and thousands have left their homes… ALL CIVILIANS, ALL INNOCENT.

In the last 5 weeks, 3 Israeli teenagers were killed (by whom???) in the West Bank, a Palestinian boy was burned alive, a US citizen boy was brutally beaten up by Israeli police and over 40 children in Gaza were killed in Israeli air strikes.

A voyage around the Mediterranean reveals a claustrophobic & inhospitable face of Europe … 

 

The Mediterranean Sea, home of the olive tree, bellybutton of the ancient world, commercial crossroad between East and West, meeting point of people and cultures but also of military conflicts, is connected  in our memory with the Journey of Odysseus, who had been wandering for ten years between Troy and the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) before finally reaching Ithaca. While Odysseus was fortunate enough to return home, there are thousands of immigrants from African and Asiatic countries who quit their homelands hoping for the survival of themselves and their people left behind, only to become objects of exploitation, living under deplorable conditions and facing famine, misery and death every single day…

During the last decade seven thousand illegal immigrants have died horrible deaths in the waters of the Mediterranean, a tragedy that climaxed when the shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa took the lives of hundreds of African men, women and children.

Victims of colonialism and imperialism, these tragic figures from the Third World desperately searching for a better fate in the Western and European capitalist « paradises », face total indifference from EU bodies as well as the hatred of many common people who are carried away by ideologies leading them to dark and dangerous paths; people who forget the fact that immigration is caused by the conflict of interests between great powers and the development gap among industrialized and underdeveloped countries, causing unbalanced distribution of social wealth among nations and people.

This is how the Odyssey of the immigrants from Africa who reach the coasts of southern Europe almost every day is described by the famous Swiss author J. Ziegler: «From the vast lands of black Africa, an enormous crowd of wanderers spill out into Sahara. Their dream is to reach the Mediterranean coast and afterwards Europe. Many souls are lost in the strait of Gibraltar. They set off on junk trucks, piled up in hundreds … The trucks travel for three or four days and at this part of the journey their human cargo starts to agonize. Along the roadsides lay pits full of corpses… In May 2001, a Touareg caravan described, north of Tenere, 141 corpses, 60 of them being Nigerians and the rest from Ghana, Cameroun, Niger and Gols Coast»[1].

Unfortunately, EU does not seem willing to face promptly this huge issue and is limited to keeping up pretences, as it became obvious at the visit of its President Mr. Barroso to the island of Lampedusa in order to express his support to the inhabitants. Under their jeers, he stammered a few minced words, without however mentioning the Schengen Agreement, tailored to the interests of the EU core countries, while south European countries are left to handle by themselves the dozens of thousands of immigrants who arrive to the coasts of Greece, Spain and Italy every day, piled up in hundreds in the slave traders’ old tubs, since this notorious agreement does not allow to send immigrants to another EU country.

It is a fact that the absorption capacity of immigrants in EU is limited, especially in the southern European countries due to the financial crisis. However, the solution is not indifference but distribution of immigrants on the basis of each country’s population and financial dynamic and, above all, supply of development aid to the countries of immigration origin, a basic condition for effective resolution of the problem.
 
The contemporary methods to protect European frontiers against the wave of immigration far from effectively protecting European citizens, harm what is left of the celebrated Western liberal democracy, favoring racist paranoia about superior and inferior races and triggering the lurking phantom of fascism and Nazism. It is high time the «successful» West and the «haves» had started to share their gains and financial «achievement» with the « have-nots » «damned of the earth», or else their success will be proven self-destructive …

[1] Jean Ziegler, Privatisation of the world and new global rulers, Sinchronoi-orizontes, Thessaloniki 2004
* This text is based on articles of Mr. Z. Papadimitriou, emeritus professor at the Law School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Mr. G. Stamkos, author, published in TVXS in November 2013.

Ένα ταξίδι στη Μεσόγειο που αποκαλύπτει το πρόσωπο μιας  κλειστοφοβικής και αφιλόξενης Ευρώπης… 

MUCEM
Museum of the Civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean

To MUCEM,  to Μουσείο των Πολιτισμών της Ευρώπης και της Μεσογείου

Στο πλαίσιο του Προγράμματος στο οποίο συμμετείχαν 10 σχολεία της Μεσσηνίας, πραγματοποιήθηκαν:

• 10 Ημερίδες ευαισθητοποίησης & ενημέρωσης για την ελιά, την ιστορία της και τα προϊόντα της
• 10 Γευσιγνωσίες ελαιοκομικών και παραδοσιακών προϊόντων
• 40 Παιδαγωγικά Εργαστήρια για μαθητές

Σκοπός και αποτέλεσμα του Προγράμματος ήταν η δημιουργία ενός νέου κολατσιού από τους ίδιους τους μαθητές με βάση τα ελαιοκομικά και τα παραδοσιακά προϊόντα της περιοχής της Μεσσηνίας, το οποίο θα επιδιωχθεί να διατίθεται στα κυλικεία των σχολείων και στα Κέντρα Περιβαλλοντικής Εκπαίδευσης του Δικτύου ΕΛΙΑ.

Οι 600 μαθητές που συμμετείχαν στο Πρόγραμμα:

• Ενημερώθηκαν για την ελιά, τη σημασία της και την θρεπτική αξία των προϊόντων της
• Δοκίμασαν παραδοσιακά προϊόντα της Μεσσηνίας και επέλεξαν αυτά που τους άρεσαν περισσότερο για το κολατσιό τους
• Συμπλήρωσαν ένα ερωτηματολόγιο με τις επιλογές, τις εντυπώσεις και τις παρατηρήσεις τους και με τον τρόπο αυτό συμμετείχαν στη δημιουργία του «ΣΧΟΛΑΤΣΙΟΥ», ενός υγιεινού παραδοσιακού κολατσιού.

The study of the “Impact of European Cultural Routes on SME’s: innovation and competitiveness”, jointly launched by the European Commission (EC) and the Council of Europe (CoE), is now available online.

This study was launched in September 2010 (see previous articles:The “Routes of the Olive Tree” and Cultural Tourism ; Study on the impact of cultural Routes on the SMEs ), to give an idea of ​​the impact of the Cultural Routes Programme of the CoE on the performance of SMEs, cluster initiatives and networking. The study also seeks to examine the potential of cultural routes to promote sustainable tourism and quality tourism in Europe, to strengthen the European identity, the awareness of the value of European cultures and to foster intercultural dialogue and understanding.

The network of “Routes of the Olive Tree”, partner of the study, is one of five exemplary case studies selected and published.

Download the Study of the “Impact of European Cultural Routes on SME’s: innovation and competitiveness”

 

Ευρωπαϊκές πολιτιστικές διαδρομές και Μικρομεσαίες Επιχειρήσεις (ΜΜΕ). Δημοσίευση μελέτης από την Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή (ΕΕ) και το Συμβούλιο της Ευρώπης (ΣτΕ)

Η μελέτη για την επίδραση και τον ρόλο των ευρωπαϊκών πολιτιστικών διαδρομών στην καινοτομία και την ανταγωνιστικότητα των ΜΜΕ, που πραγματοποίησαν από κοινού η Ευρωπαϊκή Επιτροπή (ΕΕ) και το Συμβούλιο της Ευρώπης (ΣτΕ), είναι πλέον διαθέσιμη στο διαδίκτυο.

Η μελέτη είναι αποτέλεσμα σχετικής έρευνας που ξεκίνησε τον Σεπτέμβριο 2010 (βλ. προηγούμενα άρθρα : Δρόμοι της Ελιάς» και πολιτιστικός τουρισμός ; ΕΡΕΥΝΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΠΙΔΡΑΣΗ ΤΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΤΙΚΩΝ ΔΙΑΔΡΟΜΩΝ ΣΤΙΣ ΜΜΕ ), με σκοπό να καταγράψει και να παρουσιάσει τα πιθανά οφέλη των ΜΜΕ της περιφέρειας από τις Πολιτιστικές Διαδρομές του ΣτΕ σε κάθε επίπεδο: ανταγωνιστικότητα, απόδοση, ομαδοποίηση και δικτύωση των ΜΜΕ. Η μελέτη εξετάζει επίσης τη δυνατότητα των Πολιτιστικών Διαδρομών να προωθήσουν ένα βιώσιμο τουρισμό ποιότητας στην Ευρώπη, να ενισχύσουν την ευρωπαϊκή ταυτότητα, να προβάλλουν τον πλούτο των ευρωπαϊκών πολιτισμών και να ενθαρρύνουν τον διαπολιτισμικό διάλογο και την αμοιβαία κατανόηση.

 

 
Βλ. την Μελέτη  για τις Ευρωπαϊκές Πολιτιστικές Διαδρομές   (μόνο στα αγγλικά)

An original proposal of tours that combines agricultural production, trade of traditional products, cuisine and the heritage of the olive tree, was presented a few days ago, in Messinia, to a delegation of French tour operators, specialized in cultural tours.

 

Visits and meetings were held, from 12th to 17th of May 2012, all around the region of Messinia, in order to show the monuments and archaeological sites that are associated with the olive and its products, traditional oil mills and various testimonies of the traditionneal uses of olive oil, etc., selected by members of the Scientific Committee of the Cultural Foundation “The Routes of the Olive.”
Note that “The Little Route of the Olive Tree” is a proposal of the Cultural Foundation “The Routes of the Olive” for cultural and theme tourism of traditionnal oil oil producing regions.

The aim of these visits was to turn one of the emblematic routes of “The Routes of the Olive Tree” in Greece in a program adapted to the touristical offers of tour operators in cultural tourism, and that should be provided to tourists  from 2013.