I am somehow not surprised that someone I know's first facebook post postpartum is not about her baby but, rather, how much weight she has lost.
20 pounds, we are told.
Open for debate: is this due to the nature of facebook, privacy, lack of having a name - more than a week on - for the baby and finding that embarrassing or - um - something else entirely.
I have been in an intransigently horrible mood all day for reason(s) which absolutely escape me.
How, how can this be.
Seemingly, I am not master of my own domain as something, somewhere is able to dictate to me... where I react to their order unconciously. Even more disturbing on top of the already disturbing.
growl. growl.
Thsi is not fun foul. This is really, truly, foul.
f o u l.
Let it be said there is much I do not know about refugee claims in Canada.
Yet, I am aware that issues of rampant crime in a nation have, and have not, been seen as relevant reasons for refugee status (NB: the Mexican situation); further, that it is rare for a person to win a refugee claim on the basis of a society's proclivity to something, rather than a direct causal link establishing a specific and personal at severe harm (i.e. genocide, organized crime hit). To wit, I am fairly certain the numbers of those who will be raped in RSA, due to their economic, cultural and gender reality would have been previously eligible for refugee status in Canada.
So I am surprised by the report Canada has accepted the refugee claims made by a South African based on his assertion of being mugged violently on different occasions. The board claimed — as per this news story and the board's statement — the claimant "stands out like a sore thumb" anywhere in South Africa and that there is "inability or unwillingness by the government and security forces to protect white South Africans from persecution by African South Africans."
Yes. The claimant is a white South Africa.
This claim interests me for many reasons. Notably, an assertion that South Africa's government is doing nothing to protect it's people. Or, rather, "white" people. One hopes the state acknowledges similarly across cultures ... If so, this might lend our state towards agitating for change, as we so notably did (*ahem*) against the more overt apartheid — rather than the more insidious ongoing economic apartheid. If not, we would acknowledge with systemic violence against one group with one hand, and support it with the other. Hopefully, we will be more forceful and helpful this time than last.
Further, it pleases me that now Canada will now accept as claimant all of those who have experienced/shall experience any kind of extreme violence in that country, including those many, many raped every day based not on individual but systemic societal reasons.
I do hope all of those who have suffered endemic, misogynistic violence will immediately place their own claims. That should encompass the majority of the female population of at least half the country.
I cannot wait to replace the shawarma shops in Ottawa with miele vendors. I miss their calls.
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