I am Spartacus. Brown.

Not brown as a result of my trip to Cuba, but rather as a state of mind.

Only a few days ago did I write about the Romanian beggars invasion of Sweden and soon thereafter I read a new article, currently number 1 most read on that site, penned by Jenny Sonesson of the Liberal Party of Sweden.

I initially wanted to superimpose a brown person on a cross on top of the “cathedral” but I could not find too many representations of such. The black Jesus from Madonna’s Like A Prayer had too much Madonna in it and not enough cross. Monty Python had too much white. Therefore, I made it myself. As for the church, I settled on what CriticAtac called a project of artist Vlad Nanca.

The top 7 points made in article are the following – the full article linked at the end.

1. I have witnessed with my own eyes the sheer misery from which the beggars lining Stockholm’s streets have fled. Last spring I was part of a delegation together with EU minister Birgitta Ohlsson on a visit to Bucharest. The purpose of our visit was to meet representatives for the Romanian government and to express our wish to make use of EU structural funds to fight poverty.
2. Impressions gathered from rural Romanian villages remain with me - hovels, mud, and emaciated horses dragging carts. I will never forget Nicoletta who lives in a tidy shack devoid of running water with four young children and a handicapped son. The wood-fire, the only source of heat, is warmed with sticks collected in the woods. There is no money for wood. Meals are almost exclusively cornmeal.
3. “How can this be part of our European Union” we asked each other in the car on the way home.
4. The almost pharaoh-like project was begun in 2010 and is due to be completed within a couple of years. The costs remain undetermined but will be measured in hundreds of millions of euros. French newspaper Le Figaro estimates that the figure is likely to reach a billion euro ($1.2 billion).
5. In one of Europe’s poorest countries there are resources to build a 125 metre tall cathedral complete with golden arches at the same time as a mother and her four children are forced to live in a shack without water or electricity.
6. The Romanian state is contributing financially to the cathedral but the exact figure is unknown. According to the BBC the Romanian state hands the church €100 million per annum to pay for clergy salaries and to fund renovation and church construction. New churches are being built across the country.
7. The enormous cathedral in Bucharest is devoted to Christ. I am utterly convinced that Jesus the carpenter would prefer that Nicoletta and her children would get to live in a warm house.

I made quite a few comments to that article.

My first comment dealt with the most pressing issues. I’m reposting it here, expanded and with a few more links.

1. The cathedral being built is a national disgrace.
2. Romanians have been influenced by a very entertaining movie made in 2002 - Filantropica. It’s about a teacher who joins a criminal begging gang. In the final scene, the gang leader says “Do you feel empathy? I take your money!” My view is that such gangs, if they exist (and I have my doubts) are not on the same level with drug trafficking or prostitution rings but rather a social club for the destitute.
3. You cannot outlaw begging any more than you can outlaw prostitution (yes, Sweden has a different approach there, but I happen to think that the “success” reported in tackling prostitution is tainted by ideological bias).
4. Here in Toronto the practice of ticketing “aggressive panhandling” has resulted in hardship for those who are trying to leave this life behind (recently in the news).
5. Finally, the view that Sweden elite is taking - that these are “Romanian beggars” and should go back to Romania is BS. They are European citizens before they are Romanian citizens, they belong to the largest stateless (and most hated) European ethnic minority and defining them as Romanian citizens begs the “solution” of sending them back to Romania, even though only a small minority of beggars is from Romania. Expecting Romania to resolve the problems with this minority, even before resolving the many problems even the majority is confronted with is more than wishful thinking - it’s delusional.

 

*(*This article is unfinished – it was scheduled to appear in the hope that it will be finished before, but since this message is here and until it is removed, the article is to be considered work in progress*)*.

Sources / More info: localse-rohungry, wiki-cathedral, inbo-racialbias

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