Profoundest apologies for my silence, but for once, I had a life. So blogging fell victim to being a hen and all that that entails. I guess some of my chums may think it was a very odd hen weekend, but hey, there's beauty in oddity. And islands are nice, apart from the ticks, booked up ferries, booked up rental car companies, and patchy mobile reception which was a tiny barrier to pulling things together. Also, plastic bags with holes aren't particularly useful for catching sick. I should remember that. In the end, magically, it all turned out just fine, although I still have to wait and see if I go down with Lyme's disease which wouldn't be quite so nice.

Well, on the sunny side, we only got rained on when indoors, or only went out in the sunshine, saw seals, bought crafts, sat in stone circles and became experts in tick removal. Above all, there was a very moving feeling of being surrounded by the greatest collection of people you can imagine, my friends. Thanks for making it, and for making it such a special weekend for me!

what on earth happened to the layout of my blog? Help!

Why do people post so many spam trackback? By the rate of this, I'll disable trackbacks. I don't really know what they are there for anyhow. Can anyone explain? And how do you actually do stuff with RSS feeds - I've read a lot about them, tried to understand and failed. I even tried to add an RSS feed to my blog, and it just won't work. A real simple guide would be could (must be getting old if computers start posing riddles to me...). Not to speak of my increasingly slow internet access in spite of Broadband, it's excruciating. Really. I love surfing but not like this.

Let's turn to the important issues of the day: Immigration minister Tony McNulty got sacked. Now that's interesting and I'm sure it's due to John Reid reading my last entry and realising how crap the asylum system is. He just needed to be told by Cartside. 

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post is that another major failure of the asylum process is to recognise human rights abuses committed against women - well, I hinted at it, but the truth is that many forms of persecution that women experience are not generally recognised as persecution in the light of evidence in support of an asylum claim. And the person removed yesterday was a woman, and had suffered gender based violence, so it strikes home even more. Here is an interesting link on this topic: Refugee Women. I found this through a very moving article by Natasha Walter and I'm glad to see that she is working on a campaign with regards to this issue.

After all that, I'd like to end on a positive note. Our Amnesty International Glasgow South Group Ceilidh, which is our main fundraiser in the year, raised a profit of over £640 750. I'd never have believed this success to be possible a week before the ceilidh, when we were still sitting on 100 onsold tickets. This is the best ever result, and above all, it was a great night, lots of fun, laughter and dancing. Another success to note is the publication of a letter to the editor which I sent to the List, a Glasgow/Edinburgh livestyle/entertainment/what's on magazine. It didn't just get published, but won letter of the fortnight, thus getting extra special publicity. Which means two bottles of some stuff for me, hehehe. Next I got confirmation that my successful motion at the AIUK AGM will be acted upon, but probably not before October. This means campaigning for a family amnesty for asylum seekers, failed or not, who have one child in education, and have lived here for three years or more, is now supported by AIUK's policy. I think that's what it means anyway until I'm told otherwise.

Now where is the booze???

The morning started with news of people I campaigned for having been removed. Their asylum claim was rejected in spite of horrendous persecution suffered in their country of origin. The problem is that they are women, and the Refugee Convention simply doesn't have a category for women. It doesn't actually mention women at all, referring to a refugee as "he" exclusively. Clare Tudor from Immigration Advisory Services here in Glasgow gave yet another fascinating introduction to the ever changing UK asylum for our new volunteers. I've taken note of some of the main problems facing refugees.

Let's start at the beginning.
The UK government is extremely happy. It's reduced the number of people claiming asylum by 70%-85% in the last 4 years, while 85% of initial claims are refused (on appeal, 25% of these are overturned). The UK borders are really tough to break one should think. Well, think again. Immigration professionals will tell you that the rate of immigration hasn't changed at all, what has changed is that the asylum process is so harsh, and so impenetrable, that people rather don't bother with it and go underground. This means a sharp increase in illegal immigration, not a good thing whatever your political agenda. Whatever you do, don't make people illegal.

So what has made the asylum process so harsh that refugees rather go underground than apply for asylum?
So far, it's been due to ongoing changes of legislation. The problem here is that amendments to asylum legislation are not actually discussed in parliament but simply introduced by ministers. There is no debate on most changes made. Increasingly, the asylum process has been changed to make it hard to obtain asylum, and easier to remove people whose claim has failed.  In the past decade, there have been eight different legislations with regard to asylum, and this makes it a nightmare both for lawyers and obviously the people affected by it. The main hurdles of an asylum claim is compliance with very tight deadlines (if you appeal isn't in 10 working days after your first refusal, well tough etc), general lack of belief in the evidence and account presented by an asylum seeker, and poor decision making quality at the Home Office in general, which is done by underpaid junior staff without in depth knowledge of countries, culture and political situation in the countries of origin. Next come all the consequences created by a flawed asylum system: bad lawyers due to low legal aid, rejection of medial reports within the legal aid context (i.e. torture survivers are not able to present evidence), detention and resulting difficulty of accessing any legal representation at all - and the list goes on.

The New Asylum Model
As if it wasn't bad enough, things will get worse. The government have cunningly thought up a "New Asylum Model", which interestingly, isn't quite written up yet, but will come into effect in September. So we can't even criticise it properly because it has quite a few blanks at the moment. Literally. I've seen the document - there are blank boxes which are yet to be written. So much for consultation and public debate. I disgress.
The main worry for this model is the very fast track nature of an asylum claim. While I support the need for a transparent and speedy decision, so that people know where they are and aren't left in limbo for six years as is the case at present, dealing with a case in 13 weeks with pre-booked return flights looming simply seems to be an abolition of the right to asylum. It will effectively make it hardest to claim asylum for those who are most vulnerable, who cannot yet tell their tale of horror to immigration officers. Who need time and support to come to terms with what they went through. The human has been disregarded in this model.

Next, detention has to be considered for each case under the New Asylum Model. This bluntly disregards the fact that it is not a crime to claim asylum, but a right. Nobody should be detained for claiming asylum. It screams injustice at you.

As it stands, the New Asylum Model proposes something labeled "segmentation". This seems to mean that at initial screening interview , Immigration Officers will classify the claim into one of nine or ten segments, which will then determine the speed and conditions of the subsequent asylum process (including housing, access to legal advice etc). Of the nine/ten suggested segments, only four are defined yet, and they all make the assumption that we're dealing with bogus people. Third country, late and opportunitstic, nun-suspensive appeal, all make for terrible reading. The undermining attitude is clearly that of "there is no real refugee".

At the same time, the Home Office clearly hasn't got its act together. The current backlog of asylum cases would take 5 years to clear if no new cases came in. Home Office and the NASS (National Asylum Support Services) are characterised by a severe absence of communication (considering they are both government bodies, next door to one another and crucially depend on working together to deliver an effective asylum system in the first case, this is a scandal), criminals are able to stay in the country untracked while law abiding asylum seeking families are removed in dawn raids (the statistics look better if you remove a 5 head strong family at once, rather than just the one criminal). How about sorting the present system to make it just before embarking on a badly thought through new system?

We are under a Labour government, yet gaining refugee status in the UK has never been more difficult and it's going to get even worse. Frightening times are ahead of us.

that's what you get. pick up car from garage. park it. put on handbreak. handbreak obviously not working. weavel kaputt.

Sorry for the silence. I've been busy, very busy. And exhausted.
While staring blankly at the computer screen, my hand moused its way through some search engines and came up with a few blogs relating to refugees, or even written by refugees, and those should provide a nice diversion from my most recent, partially drunk, jokes played on some personal weblogs. I had a good time, believe you me!

So here are the first few highlights of refugee blogging: Interestingly, there's a lot going on in Australia. It's interesting, but not surprising because the practice of detention somewhere in the desert must have been an eyesore to anyone with an understanding of what that can do to a torture survivor. So there's Mark Thomson's  view of Australia's detention of asylum seekers and a search for an antidote to the dictum "might makes right",  and a view of African refugees in Australia. Still down under, a very interesting blog is Bridging the Gap, it's definitely worth a visit.

Jonathan Cox's Living Ghost Endurance Challenge is a short but succinct blog on surviving on handouts, what many failed asylum seekers have to face in the UK. I guess I don't need to particularly mention Burma Underground which is already featured as one of my links. Not exclusively refugee related, but featuring the topic occasionally beside other exciting stuff, is the Advocacy Blog. Closer to home, there's the No Borders Glasgow campaign blog of course.
And that's it really. Not much, but I'll keep looking. If you come across any blogs written by refugees, or any other interesting and refugee related blogs, please leave a link in the comment box.

Can't wait for the weekend. It's as if it's starting tonight. The weather is so fab, I can't wait for tonight's after work jog along my favourite river (the Cart of course), and feeding on the midges which are plentiful and enjoying the riverside as much as I do. There's a great gorge, from Cathcart to Giffnock, and while it's super to look at, it's a bit hard on the legs, going up and down all the time. Such is life, the ups and downs make it beautiful, don't they.

Friday night is another up and down story.
While initially, our 150 tickets for the AI fundraiser Ceilidh at Langside Halls didn't quite want to sell, we are now very close indeed to selling out. And still selling. Should be a fab night. The Hallanshankers are the best ceilidh band anyway, maybe alongside the Last Tram to Auchenshoogle, but what's more, they're also a local band and do us a really good price, so we can actually make a profit. If we sell out that is. Still looking for donations for raffle prizes - any local companies out there who want to give vouchers in exchange for a bit of publicity? Feel free to contact.

Saturday will be up and down too, but in a different sense. I'll fly to London, hurray! Let's get out the whisky and deal with my fear of heights, heavy flying objects with me in them etc. How I hate to be bad to the environment, but it's just so cool to be able to go to London for a day, it's almost the ultimate commuting scenario. Will be at the Amnesty Trainers' Conference and meet all the local groups trainers for once. In previous years, I was never able to make it, and I don't really have the time now either, but I simply want to go. Hopefully meet up with a few friends after before flying back to Glasgow in the evening.

What will keep me entertained the rest of the weekend, is surely something to do with wedding preparations. So much to organise, at present the up and down is that of honeymoon. Where to go, how to go, how to organise when you're not in the country you'll be going from blablabla. We've sort of settled on the Azores - not too hot a climate for me, unusual enough for my beloved, just with the disadvantage of the islands we really want to go to not being served by direct flights other than from Lisbon. So there might be a lot of organisation involved. Or we could simply go to Madeira instead. But that would be boring, wouldn't it?

So, if there's anyone out there with a hot tip on how to get to the Azores, particularly Pico, on nice and affordable accommodation suitable for a relaxing honeymoon, you know where the comment box is...

Another call for feedback: we're planning some sort of contribution to Refugee Week in the Glasgow South area, happy to join in with existing plans, groups, work in collaboration etc, and happy to explore all kinds of activities. If interested in joining forces, leave me a comment.

Once upon a time, there were two egroups on yahoo. One was for the amusement of members of the Glasgow South Group of Amnesty International, the other for improving social contact between all glasgow amnesty activists. Then, the infiltration of conspiracy theorists started. Some viciously accusing abiding human rights activists of spying for governments and industries. Others accusing the list moderator (that's me hi there) to be part of the other side as well. First, there was confustion, then irritation, next anger. This time it's so bizarre, it's hilarious. Shame really, I love conspiracy theories, really do, they're so entertaining and fun. But I don't think I'm quite part of one just yet. Not sure if I should feel priveleged to have been the target of such allegations though.

This is what landed in the mailbox of the aiglasgow egroup moderator (that's me hi there):

The following person would like to join the aiglasgow group:
Email address: domega8 [email address ommitted for privacy reasons, but for your enjoyment you can googel the username]

Comment from user
"I need your help. I live in London and want to join this group."

This membership request requires your approval because the
aiglasgow group is restricted, which means you must
approve each new member.

Cartside to domega8 (at the behest of other egroup subscribers who are getting sick of hijacking attempts of this egroup): 
"Can you tell me a bit about yourself before I suscribe you to this email list. You say you live in London. This AI egroup is based in Glasgow, so you might be better advised to contact local groups in London. If you have a genuine reason for being part of this Glasgow egroup, please let me know"

domega8:
nothing. not a word. 

Cartside:
[deletes request]

domega8 to list moderator (tries to join again):
Comment from user:
"We are surprising that the security Services MI5 has put pressure on you TO remove from us mailing list and sabotage campaign for justice like all UK yahoogroups." 

Cartside (aka list moderator):

"MI5? you must be joking.

We are a small group of volunteers, based in Glasgow. You are based in London. You did not explain to me why you have an interest in Amnesty International events in Glasgow. You can contact AI groups closer to your home.
I am the moderator of this egroup and I, acting on behalf of list members who do not wish to receive emails which are not related to our work, personally removed your email address. No MI5, just plain old Cartside. Shaken and stirred.
No conspiracy, just common sense.
Sorry to disappoint you"

domega8 to cartside

cartside to domega8:
Having googled the username, it appears that I'm dealing with someone who may be paranoid. I can't blame him/her for that. On a larger scale though, we have over 100 members on the aiglasgow egroup, 49 on the ai_glasgowsouth egroup (which is meant for group members only). At meetings, we are lucky if we get 5 people to attend. We can't do all-day events because not enough people volunteer to help at stalls. Instead, there are subscribers who never ever showed their noses at any meeting who accuse members of being evil spirits, who take the liberty of telling us what we should do and who we should associate with. They post information on other campaigns on the list. They insult, err on the slippery path of libel, and generally seem to know it all so much better. Others bring personal cases out on the list, expecting that this will lead to Amnesty starting a campaign on their behalf. Others post stuff anonymously, hiding behind the name of a fairytale character who also wasn't very keen on giving away his name (they found him out nonetheless, so don't think you can hide forever). In general, it pisses the genuine folk off, and that's simply not a good thing.

The internet may link people and create new communities, but I have the feeling it also dissolves old communities to some extent. Five vibrant Glasgow AI groups have shrunk to three not so vibrant ones, instead, people subscribe to egroups and think they are doing their bit. They're not. I'm sorry. It takes more than being on a mailing list to become an activist. If each person on these mailing lists would just spend one hour a year on an actual activity or event, or simply come along to a fun event, we could move mountains. Instead, some nutters waste the time of actual activists, leaving us with a hard decision whether to allow regular unwelcomed posts and keep the list open, or whether moderation of each post needs to be introduced. I hope we can go a bit longer with the former, I really don't like curbing free speech in any form.

The email exchange I shared with you wasn't threatening. There have been threatening ones, and that's the scary part.

Consider my cringe inducing use of clichee in the post title. Sorry. Truly. Particularly because I'm not sure if I am in fact overreacting simply because I'm German. If so, sorry again. I have a feeling, though, that I'm not, and that what I'm about to say is actually not about nationality, but about the traps of assigning nationality.

I watched TV last night. Not a frequent occurrence it has to be said. After a delightful episode of the Apprentice, somewhere on British TV, a badly made documentary was shown (please leave a comment if you know the title or channel). I didn't quite manage to get to the core of the point of the programme, but there was a highly irritating, marching presenter, with a know it all, seen it all attitude, destined to enlighten us about hideous architectural outburst of German national socialism and how they reflect Nazi ideology. Let's not get into the utter pointlessness of the programme, or the worrying notion that it did no more than stating the obvious and showing us disgusting buildings which must have resulted in viewers' numbers going rapidly downhill by the minute.

Rather, let us consider his lingering on the term "German", his continuous attempt to relate fascism to the German mentality, and to suggest that fascism came natural to Germans and would continue to fall on fertile grounds in the German psyche. Now, I'm the first to expose xenophobia, racism and all that in Germany, don't get me wrong. But to insist with such fervour that fascism and national socialism are almost interchangeable with the adjective "German", and to claim that  Germans welcome(d) an ideology which  promotes "compulsion" and "communality" because Germans love compulsion and doing things in masses, and that they get a real kick out of it, well no. Get lost.

Fascism was an international movement based on nationality, ideas of superiority, belief in progress and a new order for a changing society. It misled people through ideological indoctrination and brainwash. It almost destroyed the world as we know it. It's not just a German phenomenon, even though in Germany it reached its most horrific incarnation. However, ideological indoctrination, genocide, death and labour camps, torture and the simple and horrific disregard for anyone considered to be different is by no means a localised or historical incident. We should spend more time spotting the Hitlers of today and exposing them, rather than waste time reiterating that the Germans were the "best" Nazis, while making the terms "German" and "Nazi" so conveniently easy bedfellows.

I'm in two minds about the recent discussions about the Home Office and deportation of foreign criminals. Not so much in relation to the issue as such, but the fact that conveniently, the whole shebang achieves two outcomes which I'm more than happy about without even the hint of campaigning actions, angry letters and making myself unpopular. It exposes the undeniable shambles the Home Office civil servants have created and steers attention away from removing asylum seekers. They must all now be very busy with deportation orders for criminals that hopefully asylum seekers may have some breathing space. Hopefully.

On the downside of things, I've received a campaigning summary from someone who is the victim of this current fashion of deporting anyone the Home Office can lay their hands on. As we know, the Home Office are slightly unsuccessful in laying their hands on too many, having managed to lose track of the real baddies. So now anyone available is being issued a deportation order, to make the statistics look better soon and the electorates happy campers all around. The most recent victim of such political whims is a Chilean national, brought up here and resident here as a political refugee since Pinochet took over. Remember? That was 1977. He committed a crime, went to prison for three years, and is now due to be deported as a foreign criminal.
To Jamaica.

The Home Office clearly hasn't paid attention in their geography class. Just to make it clear: Chile: south America, main land, west coast. Jamaica: island, middle America, east coast. To be honest, I don't know what his sister is so worried about. I'm seriously considering committing a crime myself - I'm foreign, maybe I'll be deported to Jamaica too?  No more rain, lots of cocktails, beach, sunshine.

Knowing my luck, they'd deport me to France though.

The world is different in the allotment.
I spoke to a housemarting and a robin. That's not so strange, I also speak to hamsters and dogs. But they don't usually talk back. The birds did. Honest. Had a big discussion to convince housmartin that nesting in the toilet is not a good thing, and that he'd be trapped most of the time, and not be a happy housemarting. Eventually, he agreed and flew out again.

Cheeky robin was very pleased with my digging efforts. It presented him with a lush dinner plate of maggots, worms, snails, slugs and spiders. As last year, my idea to knock down a weed tree (or should that be a tree weed? Well, it's a tree and it's a weed, it's massive, and grows incredibly fast and tirelessly) crumbled to bits when the robin sat down in it to watch me go about my gardening. He like the tree. I like him. I can't knock down that tree.

Red for tulips, yellow for daffodils, my favourite blue for hyacinths. And the yellow of the dreaded dandelions. My least favourite weed has to be the ground elder though. To dig it out, you have to dig out all vegetation, including the stuff you want to keep. And it still comes back. Next is a weed whose name I don't know. It's pretty, it flowers. Yellow. But it manages to grow from one end of the allotment to the other, and has roots that are indestructable. You simply can't get it out.

I planted 5 rockets, 5 red chards, 5 oriental lettuces. 15 kales, 15 broccolis, 15 cauliflowers. One marrow. One rosemary plant, as the old one has died. A box of sage, rosemary and thyme (no parsley, so sorry. don't like parsley). Lifted one big black bin bag of weeds. Admired apple tree, gooseberry (bigger than ever, still not a gooseberry in sight), raspberry plants. Was blown away by the difference a week made to my rhubarb: once a root with a few tentative splashes of green would be sticks, it was now a proper, big, rhubarb plant with enough of the good stuff for a first harvest. The first rhubarb crumble of the year. Bliss.

Must get rid of all the grass before it goes to bloom. It's not just a nuisance and counts as weed and may cost me my allotment (I'm on probation after all), but more importantly, I'm allergic to grass. badly. So if I don't pull it out, I suffer big time. I go into overproduction of snot which could water the plants in the dry season.

I have a new strategy to fight the unknown competitor for veg: netting. Put netting over all my newly plants, now let's see if anyone still eats them. Last year, all I planted disappeared without a trace within a few days. Not the hint of a stalk left. No fingerprints of slug, snail, rabbit, fox, magpie or squirrel. Judging by the number of chestnuts found when digging up the soil last week, the squirrels are definitely at home in my plot, and had conspired to grow a chestnut forrest. No way Jose!

My gardening neighbour gave me a cherry tomato plant. That's growing at home now, alongside peas, beans, herbs and courgette, for planting out later. In fact, my flat looks like a gardening centre at present. And my back feels like I've taken a bad beating. My arm even looks like it, but that's got nothing to do with gardening, but rather running and being clumsy, because stupidly jogged right into a fence that was supposed to protect me from falling into my favourite river (the Cart that is in case you were wondering - I don't just live beside it, garden beside it, but also run alongside it), toppled over in an impressive twirl and softly landed cross legged on a bed of leaves.

I've had an allotment for four years now. Maybe even five. It's in Pollok Country Park, a vast suburban, edging on rural park which belongs to the Pollok estate. The park is still in the city boundaries, has two golf courses, two allotment associations, maybe the most famous of Glasgow's museums, the Burrell Collection, and lots of highland coos dotted about the wavey landscape. The Cart also runs through it, so it's particularly dear to Cartside.

Inspiration came from two sides. At Ceis Corran Studio, or nowadays even the Full Colour Art Studio, a dear friend has her own garden, a garden full of vegetable and colour, views and endless picking of the tastiest food. A place I cannot be in for more than five minutes without starting to sneaze, so full of goodness it is. Once I left behind Sligo and the magic of such rare places as her home, another friend introduced me to life at the allotments. I was intrigued. I saw my own vegetable plot, countless barbeques, and the perfect end of a hard day spent digging in the ground.

Sir John Stirling Maxwell Gardens is one of the few allotment associations not run by Glasgow City Council. Instead, the noble family donated the garden to a committee for good use and allowing the humble footfolk to try and get some stalks out of the cold Scottish soil. The waiting list was shorter than most others, and I got an allotment after just a few months. I picked the worst, tried for a year to grow anything at all but to no avail and asked for an exchange, which was granted. My new plot had a small greenhouse, roses, bulbs, wild bramble, a strange tree, and lots of weeds, nothing too serious though.

Over the years, I planted vegetables and soft fruit, an apple tree, and most recently even flowers. I tried tomatoes in the greenhouse, and gave up. I had barbeques, friends around, read books, slept in the sunshine. Above all, I weeded, dug and got sore backs.

Last year, the committee sent me three letters. They were trying to get rid of me. Too many weeds they say. I was alarmed. Wrote to them. Explained. Pleaded. Begged. Humbly told them how much enjoyment this space brings me and that I too wished to spend more time in it. I had every spot planted last year (and not just with weeds) though the weeds always manage to grow quicker than my veg, and somehow it's not just me that likes and eats my veg. Yet the final straw (or shall I say cucumber?) came in September, when it read something like "due to your lack of constiuency in maintaining your allotment, we have placed you on a one year's probationary period. Should your allotment fail to improve, you shall be evicted". I cried. I raved. I shouted. I cursed. I cringed. The latter because of the atrocious English they used. At least they could have shown me the courtesy of threatening eviction in grammatically correct English. But no, I wasn't even worth that much.

I'm on a probationary year. So, things to do in April and the first May bank holiday: weed. dig. plant. weed. I spotted the writer of the letter yesterday. I couldn't get myself to greet her. I just couldn't.