Rio 2016: Where Refugees Are Finally Being Recognized

To understand what the new Refugee Olympic Team has achieved at the Rio Games, it’s helpful to look beyond the Syrian swimmer Yusra Mardini winning her 100-meter butterfly heat, or her teammate Rami Anis setting a personal best in the 100-meter freestyle, and consider Olympic history: For 120 years, with some exceptions, the Games have been organized by country. Athletes parade into the Opening Ceremony behind a national flag, compete for the greater glory of a national team, and receive medals to the tune of a national anthem.
Refugees, by their very presence, challenge the nationalistic ethos of the Games. They have been stripped of their nation, their flag, and their anthem. They have existed in one form or another throughout the 120-year history of the Olympics. But until this year, they’ve fallen through the cracks of the world recognized by the organizers of the Games.
Now those cracks are too wide to ignore. The Rio Olympics are occurring amid the worst refugee crisis since World War II, when the concept of a “refugee” was first enshrined in international law. In creating a Refugee Olympic Team that would be “treated ... like all the other [national] teams,” in having those athletes march into the Opening Ceremony right ahead of host country Brazil, in endowing that team with the Olympic flag and anthem, the International Olympic Committee has powerfully recognized the liminal existence of refugees in a world that is more than just a collection of nations.
In a competition that typically celebrates national successes, the Refugee Olympic Team highlights national failures—the collapse of countries like Syria and South Sudan, and the lack of progress so far by many countries, especially wealthy ones, to help resettle millions of refugees. The Olympic message of international cooperation has also been muddied; the Refugee Olympic Team is, in a way, a testament to international paralysis.
As Roger Cohen wrote this week in The New York Times, there’s a disturbing contrast between the world’s enthusiasm for Team Refugees and its apathy and antipathy for refugees as a whole: “They die at sea. They die sealed in the back of a truck. They die anonymous deaths. Fences are erected, walls mooted. … They represent danger and threaten disruption.” Everybody wants to applaud refugee Olympians in Rio de Janeiro, Cohen observes, yet nobody wants to welcome refugees into their own country.
Indeed, Olympic officials are carving out a place for refugees at a time when political leaders from the United States to Hungary are refusing to admit refugees because of the alleged threats they pose. The situation recalls the English poet W.H. Auden’s description of the predicament of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in the late 1930s:


https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/08/refugee-olympic-team-rio/494969/


presence 出席
ethos  民族精神
mooted 未決定的


who:refugees
where:Brazil
when:2015

I Got Gay Married. I Got Gay Divorced. I Regret Both.

LOS ANGELES — In 2008, gay marriage was so new, my wife and I had a hard time finding a lawyer to help us legally join our lives together.

In 2013, gay divorce was so new, I had a hard time finding a lawyer to take our marriage apart.

We fell in love in the ’90s, when getting legally married wasn’t something two women could do. We danced in the streets on May 15, 2008, when the California Supreme Court ruled that “an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.”

And we decided to tie the knot ourselves the day before Election Day that year, when it suddenly seemed that California Proposition 8 was going to pass, banning same-sex marriage again.

Beneath an arbor of grimy plastic ivy at the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder’s Office, we wept grateful tears as we swore to “love, honor, and keep each other, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/opinion/sunday/i-got-gay-married-i-got-gay-divorced-i-regret-both.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FSame-Sex%20Marriage%2C%20Civil%20Unions%2C%20and%20Domestic%20Partnerships


who:2 women
what:gay marriage
where:Los Angeles
when:2008




orientation :定位


constitute:構成


legitimate:合法的

Champions of Human Rights Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (b. 1945)

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been a major voice for human rights and freedom in Burma (Myanmar), a country dominated by a military government since 1962. Born in Rangoon and later educated at Oxford University, she became politically active in 1988 when the Burmese junta violently suppressed a mass uprising, killing thousands of civilians. Suu Kyi wrote an open letter to the government asking for the formation of an independent committee to hold democratic elections. Defying a government ban on political gatherings of more than four persons, Suu Kyi spoke to large audiences throughout Burma as secretary-general of the newly formed National League for Democracy (NLD). In 1989 she was placed under house arrest. Despite her detention, the NLD won the election with 82 percent of the parliamentary seats, but the military dictatorship refused to recognize the results. Suu Kyi has remained in prison almost continuously since that time, rejecting the government’s offer of freedom as it would require her to leave Burma. In 2003, she was moved from prison and again placed under house arrest, which has been repeatedly and illegally extended by the junta. She remains a living expression of her people’s determination to gain political and economic freedoms. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, Suu Kyi has called on citizens around the world to “use your liberty to promote ours.”


http://www.humanrights.com/voices-for-human-rights/daw-aung.html


who:Aung San Suu Kyi
what:wrote a letter to the government
why:government killed thousands of civilians
when:1988
how:asked for holding democratic elections


suppress 鎮壓
uprising 起義
formation 形成
parliamentary 國會的

What happens if we leave?

Voting to leave the EU would create years of uncertainty and potential economic disruption. This would reduce investment and cost jobs.

The Government judges that it could result in ten years or more of uncertainty as the UK unpicks our relationship with the EU, and renegotiates new arrangements with the EU and over 50 other countries around the world.
HM Treasury analysis shows Britain’s economy could be tipped into a year-long recession. At least 500,000 jobs could be lost and GDP could be around 3.6% lower following a vote to leave the EU than it would be if we remained in the EU.
Average real wages could be nearly 3% lower than if we remained in the EU, which would amount to a reduction of £800 a year for someone working full time on the average wage.
Treasury analysis also shows that if the UK leaves the EU, after 15 years this could mean:

• a cost per year equivalent to £4,300 per household in the UK
• a hit to tax receipts of £36 billion a year
• this is the equivalent of an extra 8p on the basic rate of income tax

Some argue that we could strike a good deal quickly with the EU because they want to keep access to our market. But the Government’s judgement is that it would be much harder than that – less than 8% of EU exports come to the UK while 44% of UK exports go to the EU.
No other country has managed to secure significant access to the Single Market, without having to:

• follow EU rules over which they have no real say
• pay into the EU
• accept EU citizens living and working in their country

A more limited trade deal with the EU would give the UK less access to the Single Market than we have now – including for services, which make up almost 80% of the UK economy. For example, Canada’s deal with the EU will provide limited access for services like air travel, broadcasting and banking. The deal has been seven years in the making, and is still not in force.
If the UK voted to leave the EU, we would lose access to trade agreements with more than 50 countries outside the EU. The UK would seek to renegotiate these deals, but this would take years and there is no guarantee that the UK would manage to negotiate terms as good as those we enjoy today.
The UK would miss out on the benefits of the trade deals currently being negotiated by the EU, including with the US and Japan. When these are successfully concluded our exports to the EU, plus other countries covered by EU trade deals, would account for 82% of total UK exports.


http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160815143715/https://www.eureferendum.gov.uk/what-happens-if-we-leave/




who:The UK
where:Europe
why:economy
how:voting


unpick 拆開

SUPPORT HUMANITY’S HEROES

Every day in Syria, volunteer rescue workers from the White Helmets rush to the scenes of bombings to pull people out from under the rubble and carry them to safety. Their courageous and selfless work has given hope to millions of civilians.

The White Helmets are an unlikely group of heroes. These former tailors, bakers, teachers and other ordinary Syrians banded together in 2013 to save the lives others were working so hard to take. They have now saved more than 78,529 lives. But for the work they do, White Helmet volunteers and their civil defence centres are often targeted. Russian and Syrian regime planes bomb civilians, and then they circle back bomb the rescue workers and medical workers who come to help.
Together let’s help replace the rescue equipment and ambulances that they’ve lost in the bombings. Let’s buy them diggers so they can pull heavy concrete slabs off of survivors buried in the rubble. Let’s provide medical care for wounded White Helmets and look after the families of the 154 volunteers killed in the line of duty.
Please help us raise enough money from around the world so that every White Helmet knows their work is powered by great love and support from people around the world.
Please give what you can - these brave volunteers are giving everything.


https://peoplesmillion.whitehelmets.org/donate/peoples-million


who:White Helmets
where:Syria
when:2013
what:help White Helmets
How:raise money


centre中心
tailor 縫工
digger挖掘者
slab後板