Signs & Portents
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Pagan News Beagle: Fiery Tuesday, September 15
Ethiopa's Jewish minority fights for their rights. An American teacher seeks to help young women escape Boko Haram in Nigeria. And Germany faces a national divide over Europe's refugee crisis. Welcome back to Fiery Tuesday, our weekly segment on political news. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!
One of the oldest Jewish communities in the world is the Beta Israel, a minority group in Ethiopia who dates back to the 9th century at least. However, despite Ethiopia's own claims to Biblical origins the country's treatment of its Jewish population has been mixed at best, marked by persecution at the hands of the country's dominant Christians. Al Jazeera covers the modern struggle of Ethiopia's Jews for equal treatment.
On the other side of Africa (some 3,000 miles away), Nigeria is engaged in a different, more openly violent kind of conflict between the government and the Boko Haram militant group. Having risen to global prominence after they abducted over two hundred schoolgirls, Boko Haram has infused the northern region of Nigeria with terror and sectarian violence. Hoping to make a difference Margee Ensign, the president of the American University of Nigeria, is working with local security forces to provide safe refuge to women fleeing Boko Haram.
Despite some small steps towards peace, unity and reconciliation between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass region remains elusive. Recently violence out in Kiev when a demonstrator threw a grenade into a column of soldiers, killing one person and injuring over a hundred others. But while Russia benefits from the resurgence of violence and the continuing struggle of the Ukrainian government, it may not be behind this most recent incident, as this article from The Guardian argues.
Many people who consider themselves progressive like to believe they're above racism. But racism is often subtle and subversive and what might seem innocent to one person might not look that way to another. George Sachs of The Huffington Post offers ten examples of the way that, far from helping, progressives often enable racism.
In Germany, the debate over the country's recent influx of refugees from the Middle East continues. The German newspaper Der Spiegel discusses the continuing struggle between the country's two perspectives on the fugitives: the side that wants to help and the side that wants to drive them out.
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