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Italy is debating a new bill that would allow foreign-born students to become Italian citizens, linked to their status within Italy's school system.
National high school final exam day in Milan
ROME — "Joseph, are you Italian?"
The question hangs in the air for just a few seconds, before the boy replies confidently: "Of course!"
Before starting to shoot the basketball again, his expression turns worried and asks: "Why? Am I not?"
Twelve years old, a lover of basketball and fan of AS Roma soccer club, Joseph was born in Italy but his document states the nationality of his mother, who arrived from Nigeria shortly before he was born.
In Rome's multi-ethnic Esquilino neighborhood, he attends primary school where — like many of his classmates — he is among the 877,000 "foreign" pupils attending Italian schools.
Children of immigrants who are born or raised in Italy could obtain Italian citizenship thanks to the proposal dubbed: Jus Scholae, or right to school (using the Latin formula of Jus soli, for birthright citizenship), which would update the current Law 91 of 1992 on how Italian citizenship can be acquired.
The bill would make it possible for children of immigrants who were born in Italy or arrived before the age of 12, and who have attended at least five years of school, to apply for Italian citizenship. One of the parents, legally resident in Italy, has to apply for citizenship before the child turns 18.
After months of delays and parliamentary obstruction, the bill was scheduled for debate, which began on June 29, though not expected to move forward until after Italian national elections in late September.
The first stumbling block to be overcome was the clear opposition of the right-wing parties, Brothers of Italy and Lega Nord, which first tabled more than 700 amendments in the constitutional affairs committee, then — as soon as the discussion in parliament began — decided to raise their voices against it.
With elections in September, the bill now remains on hold — until new members of parliament decide whether to put it forward or not.
Giuseppe Brescia, a member of the 5-Star Movement, part of Italy's coalition government, explained that the bill is based on "a choice of trust not only in foreigners," but also "in the work of the educational community, in the dedication of school leaders and teachers."
And it is precisely the school community that has been lobbying for the reform bill to reach final approval.
Meanwhile, some schools have launched a mobilization drive that will continue in the coming months under the slogan #ItaliaDimmidiSì (#ItalyTellMeYes). The slogan was coined by the campaign On the Right Side of History, which brings together more than 30 associations and NGOs.
"It is definitely good to link citizenship to the education path, because it calls on schools as an active part of society," says Natalia Vetta, a teacher at Di Donato School in Rome.
"We teachers will be responsible for accompanying a process that is actually already underway in our classrooms: the children we call foreigners rightly feel they are Italian, even if they are not by right. The real challenge is broader and concerns the learning difficulties and social differences of pupils with migrant backgrounds."
In the courtyard a few steps from the multi-ethnic Piazza Vittorio in central Rome, parents exchange views and opinions.
For some, the citizenship law will never be changed: "We are a racist country," says one of the mothers.
For Girma Abay and her two children, Amca and Kirble, eight and six years old respectively, nothing would change even with the approval of Jus Scholae.
She arrived from Ethiopia in 2008 and now lives at the Hotel 4 Stelle, a squatted hotel in the capital's eastern suburbs, along with 300 other people, most of them foreigners.
"I was forced to leave my country and today I am a political refugee. I do not have the minimum income required to apply for Italian citizenship and I gave it up long ago. But it is different for my children: they were born here, their home is here, their culture is Italian. They are totally Roman, even in the way they speak. So why can't they be Italian like their classmates? It should just be a right."
The current reform proposal stipulates that in order to apply for a child's citizenship, the parent must have legal residency. This excludes those living in squats or in other housing arrangements.
Some schools have launched a mobilization drive under the slogan #ItaliaDimmidiSì (#ItalyTellMeYes)
Claudio Riccio
Flore Temanu, 40, arrived from the Horn of Africa in 2012. Until 2017, she lived in a squatted building until they were violently evicted.
"They literally threw us out on the street when my son Adonai, who was born there, was two years old. So together with my husband we were hosted by a friend and then ended up in another squat… where we still live now," she says. "My son feels Italian, but we cannot apply for citizenship because we have a fictitious residence in via Modesta Valenti," she explains referring to the residence usually assigned to homeless people.
The Di Donato School Parents' Association, together with representatives of the Spin Time Labs squat, met with some parliamentarians to ask for changes to the bill. They were particularly worried about the criterion that requires parents to have a legal residence, and asked for that to be scrapped because it does not take into account how difficult it is for foreign-born families to afford proper accommodation.
While that requirement remained in the final text, at least the one for both parents to apply on behalf of the minor was scrapped.
The text has several other limitations: it only covers minors and does not change the rules for adults who have lived in the country for years. In addition, the law is not considered retroactive, so even those who have already finished their schooling would be excluded from the pool of beneficiaries.
"It is not the bill that we would have written, but it is nevertheless a small step forward, after years of immobility," points out Fioralba Duma, an activist with the Italians Without Citizenship Movement.
Duma was born in Albania and came to Italy in 2001, when she was 11 years old. She has been involved in the battle for citizenship rights for many years.
"In a few months my twins will be born; they will also be Albanian and not Italian. It makes me sick to pass on to them this suspended rights status of mine," she says. "I hope the law will change quickly so my children, now in the third generation, will not be forced to stand in long lines at police headquarters and face the myriad bureaucratic problems I had."
Although considered by many to be a downward compromise, Jus Scholae has also won favor with experts in education.
"Children are more likely to be enrolled in kindergarten, it increases the time they spend in school, and it also usually pushes children to pursue higher education," says Milena Santerini, a professor of pedagogy at the Catholic University of Milan and one of the coordinators of the Interculture Group of the Italian Society of Pedagogy (Siped), which brings together teachers from Italian universities. "Conversely, not having the possibility to acquire citizenship increases the risk of dropping out of school."
For a country with a steadily declining population, a law that invests in schools would also mean a bet on the future of the so-called "new Italians."
In recent years, several studies have shown that social differences emerge strongly among schoolchildren. According to the Ministry of Education, 29.9% of pupils with non-Italian citizenship are behind in school (i.e., they attend one or more classes below their age) — in contrast to only 8.9% among Italian pupils. In addition, between the ages of 14 and 16, about 10% do not continue their studies after secondary school, and between the ages of 17 and 18, there are early dropouts.
At the entrance to the Via Guicciardini Comprehensive Institute in Rome, the colorful "Welcome" sign takes up half the wall. It had been hung two years ago for the open day dedicated to the youngest children, then remained on the door to emphasize the idea of a school that is always inclusive.
Nestled in the historic Monti district, there are about 900 students here between primary and secondary, many of whom are of foreign origin. Different geographic backgrounds are compounded by social ones.
"I am in favor of the Jus Scholae because I think it can be a driver to ignite a discussion about what school represents today, what it should do and how school policies should be supported. But it is a reform that must go hand in hand with an investment in education and welfare," says head teacher Simona Di Matteo, who has also incorporated a Chinese-language course in the school to create a bridge with families of Asian descent.
Une publication partagée par QuestaèRoma (@questaeroma)
For Leaticia Ouedraogo, 25, being considered a foreigner in the country where she grew up is an open wound. Born in Burkina Faso, she arrived in Italy at the age of 11. When she attended a scientific high school in the city of Bergamo in northern Italy, she was the only black person in her class.
"Mine is a path of excellence. I have always been at the top of the class, but only I know the price," she says. "I always had to do more than my classmates, demonstrate more, work harder. At the end of middle school, the teachers told my mother that I should go to a technical school, because it would be better for people like me to get a job right away. Yet I had high grades in all subjects. I eventually enrolled in high school and then in college, but second-, third- or fourth-generation kids are often pushed into vocational paths. So many also give up their personal aspirations."
Ouedraogo now attends a master's program in geography at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, one of Europe's most prestigious universities.
"My father arrived in Italy 25 years ago, but he is still waiting for citizenship," she explains. "Today I find myself in the paradoxical situation of being able to apply for citizenship in France, which facilitates recognition for those who attend schools of excellence, but not being able to do so in the country I consider my own."
As a civil rights activist, she considers it only partly a smart choice to tie citizenship to schooling: "For this law to make sense, we need to make schooling truly inclusive. Currently it is not. I experienced it… and my brother, who is 12 years old, experiences the same difficulties in school."
For Zeliha Compaore, 24, the system is built to tell a section of the population that it does not really exist.
Also born in Burkina Faso, she arrived in Italy at the age of two. "Twenty-two years later, I am the only non-EU member of my family. My father managed to obtain citizenship when I was already 18 years old," she explains.
"My parents and siblings are Italian, while I am not. And I pay for this difference every day. A few months ago, after graduating from nursing school, I applied for registration. But unlike my peers, my practice needed additional clearance, because I am in fact a foreigner and my application was equated with those who took a degree abroad, even though I graduated in Bologna."
These small episodes of everyday segregation, added to forms of institutional discrimination, mirror a short-sighted society for Compaore. This was illustrated during the peak of the pandemic when, despite the shortage of staff, non-Italian doctors and nurses were excluded from applying to work at hospitals.
"Not recognizing those who trained here even during an emergency of that magnitude is really absurd," Compaore says. "We are not a country that can afford to make such distinctions. The recurring rhetoric is that we should deserve citizenship as a prize. But it is not a prize, it is our right, we are already part of this society."
Italy is debating a new bill that would allow foreign-born students to become Italian citizens, linked to their status within Italy's school system.
National high school final exam day in Milan
ROME — "Joseph, are you Italian?"
The question hangs in the air for just a few seconds, before the boy replies confidently: "Of course!"
Before starting to shoot the basketball again, his expression turns worried and asks: "Why? Am I not?"
Twelve years old, a lover of basketball and fan of AS Roma soccer club, Joseph was born in Italy but his document states the nationality of his mother, who arrived from Nigeria shortly before he was born.
In Rome's multi-ethnic Esquilino neighborhood, he attends primary school where — like many of his classmates — he is among the 877,000 "foreign" pupils attending Italian schools.
Children of immigrants who are born or raised in Italy could obtain Italian citizenship thanks to the proposal dubbed: Jus Scholae, or right to school (using the Latin formula of Jus soli, for birthright citizenship), which would update the current Law 91 of 1992 on how Italian citizenship can be acquired.
The bill would make it possible for children of immigrants who were born in Italy or arrived before the age of 12, and who have attended at least five years of school, to apply for Italian citizenship. One of the parents, legally resident in Italy, has to apply for citizenship before the child turns 18.
After months of delays and parliamentary obstruction, the bill was scheduled for debate, which began on June 29, though not expected to move forward until after Italian national elections in late September.
The first stumbling block to be overcome was the clear opposition of the right-wing parties, Brothers of Italy and Lega Nord, which first tabled more than 700 amendments in the constitutional affairs committee, then — as soon as the discussion in parliament began — decided to raise their voices against it.
With elections in September, the bill now remains on hold — until new members of parliament decide whether to put it forward or not.
Giuseppe Brescia, a member of the 5-Star Movement, part of Italy's coalition government, explained that the bill is based on "a choice of trust not only in foreigners," but also "in the work of the educational community, in the dedication of school leaders and teachers."
And it is precisely the school community that has been lobbying for the reform bill to reach final approval.
Meanwhile, some schools have launched a mobilization drive that will continue in the coming months under the slogan #ItaliaDimmidiSì (#ItalyTellMeYes). The slogan was coined by the campaign On the Right Side of History, which brings together more than 30 associations and NGOs.
"It is definitely good to link citizenship to the education path, because it calls on schools as an active part of society," says Natalia Vetta, a teacher at Di Donato School in Rome.
"We teachers will be responsible for accompanying a process that is actually already underway in our classrooms: the children we call foreigners rightly feel they are Italian, even if they are not by right. The real challenge is broader and concerns the learning difficulties and social differences of pupils with migrant backgrounds."
In the courtyard a few steps from the multi-ethnic Piazza Vittorio in central Rome, parents exchange views and opinions.
For some, the citizenship law will never be changed: "We are a racist country," says one of the mothers.
For Girma Abay and her two children, Amca and Kirble, eight and six years old respectively, nothing would change even with the approval of Jus Scholae.
She arrived from Ethiopia in 2008 and now lives at the Hotel 4 Stelle, a squatted hotel in the capital's eastern suburbs, along with 300 other people, most of them foreigners.
"I was forced to leave my country and today I am a political refugee. I do not have the minimum income required to apply for Italian citizenship and I gave it up long ago. But it is different for my children: they were born here, their home is here, their culture is Italian. They are totally Roman, even in the way they speak. So why can't they be Italian like their classmates? It should just be a right."
The current reform proposal stipulates that in order to apply for a child's citizenship, the parent must have legal residency. This excludes those living in squats or in other housing arrangements.
Some schools have launched a mobilization drive under the slogan #ItaliaDimmidiSì (#ItalyTellMeYes)
Claudio Riccio
Flore Temanu, 40, arrived from the Horn of Africa in 2012. Until 2017, she lived in a squatted building until they were violently evicted.
"They literally threw us out on the street when my son Adonai, who was born there, was two years old. So together with my husband we were hosted by a friend and then ended up in another squat… where we still live now," she says. "My son feels Italian, but we cannot apply for citizenship because we have a fictitious residence in via Modesta Valenti," she explains referring to the residence usually assigned to homeless people.
The Di Donato School Parents' Association, together with representatives of the Spin Time Labs squat, met with some parliamentarians to ask for changes to the bill. They were particularly worried about the criterion that requires parents to have a legal residence, and asked for that to be scrapped because it does not take into account how difficult it is for foreign-born families to afford proper accommodation.
While that requirement remained in the final text, at least the one for both parents to apply on behalf of the minor was scrapped.
The text has several other limitations: it only covers minors and does not change the rules for adults who have lived in the country for years. In addition, the law is not considered retroactive, so even those who have already finished their schooling would be excluded from the pool of beneficiaries.
"It is not the bill that we would have written, but it is nevertheless a small step forward, after years of immobility," points out Fioralba Duma, an activist with the Italians Without Citizenship Movement.
Duma was born in Albania and came to Italy in 2001, when she was 11 years old. She has been involved in the battle for citizenship rights for many years.
"In a few months my twins will be born; they will also be Albanian and not Italian. It makes me sick to pass on to them this suspended rights status of mine," she says. "I hope the law will change quickly so my children, now in the third generation, will not be forced to stand in long lines at police headquarters and face the myriad bureaucratic problems I had."
Although considered by many to be a downward compromise, Jus Scholae has also won favor with experts in education.
"Children are more likely to be enrolled in kindergarten, it increases the time they spend in school, and it also usually pushes children to pursue higher education," says Milena Santerini, a professor of pedagogy at the Catholic University of Milan and one of the coordinators of the Interculture Group of the Italian Society of Pedagogy (Siped), which brings together teachers from Italian universities. "Conversely, not having the possibility to acquire citizenship increases the risk of dropping out of school."
For a country with a steadily declining population, a law that invests in schools would also mean a bet on the future of the so-called "new Italians."
In recent years, several studies have shown that social differences emerge strongly among schoolchildren. According to the Ministry of Education, 29.9% of pupils with non-Italian citizenship are behind in school (i.e., they attend one or more classes below their age) — in contrast to only 8.9% among Italian pupils. In addition, between the ages of 14 and 16, about 10% do not continue their studies after secondary school, and between the ages of 17 and 18, there are early dropouts.
At the entrance to the Via Guicciardini Comprehensive Institute in Rome, the colorful "Welcome" sign takes up half the wall. It had been hung two years ago for the open day dedicated to the youngest children, then remained on the door to emphasize the idea of a school that is always inclusive.
Nestled in the historic Monti district, there are about 900 students here between primary and secondary, many of whom are of foreign origin. Different geographic backgrounds are compounded by social ones.
"I am in favor of the Jus Scholae because I think it can be a driver to ignite a discussion about what school represents today, what it should do and how school policies should be supported. But it is a reform that must go hand in hand with an investment in education and welfare," says head teacher Simona Di Matteo, who has also incorporated a Chinese-language course in the school to create a bridge with families of Asian descent.
Une publication partagée par QuestaèRoma (@questaeroma)
For Leaticia Ouedraogo, 25, being considered a foreigner in the country where she grew up is an open wound. Born in Burkina Faso, she arrived in Italy at the age of 11. When she attended a scientific high school in the city of Bergamo in northern Italy, she was the only black person in her class.
"Mine is a path of excellence. I have always been at the top of the class, but only I know the price," she says. "I always had to do more than my classmates, demonstrate more, work harder. At the end of middle school, the teachers told my mother that I should go to a technical school, because it would be better for people like me to get a job right away. Yet I had high grades in all subjects. I eventually enrolled in high school and then in college, but second-, third- or fourth-generation kids are often pushed into vocational paths. So many also give up their personal aspirations."
Ouedraogo now attends a master's program in geography at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, one of Europe's most prestigious universities.
"My father arrived in Italy 25 years ago, but he is still waiting for citizenship," she explains. "Today I find myself in the paradoxical situation of being able to apply for citizenship in France, which facilitates recognition for those who attend schools of excellence, but not being able to do so in the country I consider my own."
As a civil rights activist, she considers it only partly a smart choice to tie citizenship to schooling: "For this law to make sense, we need to make schooling truly inclusive. Currently it is not. I experienced it… and my brother, who is 12 years old, experiences the same difficulties in school."
For Zeliha Compaore, 24, the system is built to tell a section of the population that it does not really exist.
Also born in Burkina Faso, she arrived in Italy at the age of two. "Twenty-two years later, I am the only non-EU member of my family. My father managed to obtain citizenship when I was already 18 years old," she explains.
"My parents and siblings are Italian, while I am not. And I pay for this difference every day. A few months ago, after graduating from nursing school, I applied for registration. But unlike my peers, my practice needed additional clearance, because I am in fact a foreigner and my application was equated with those who took a degree abroad, even though I graduated in Bologna."
These small episodes of everyday segregation, added to forms of institutional discrimination, mirror a short-sighted society for Compaore. This was illustrated during the peak of the pandemic when, despite the shortage of staff, non-Italian doctors and nurses were excluded from applying to work at hospitals.
"Not recognizing those who trained here even during an emergency of that magnitude is really absurd," Compaore says. "We are not a country that can afford to make such distinctions. The recurring rhetoric is that we should deserve citizenship as a prize. But it is not a prize, it is our right, we are already part of this society."
Pro-LGBTQ+ rights demonstration in Havana, Cuba
Welcome to Worldcrunch’s LGBTQ+ International. We bring you up-to-speed each week on a topic you may follow closely at home, but can now see from different places and perspectives around the world. Discover the latest news on everything LGBTQ+ — from all corners of the planet. All in one smooth scroll!
Featuring, this week:
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Greece’s parliament approved a law last week banning “sex-normalizing” surgeries on babies born intersex, thus preventing doctors from performing such surgeries on children under the age of 15, “unless there is a court decision stating otherwise.”
The BBC revealed exclusive details about a secret mission in Afghanistan to save LGBTQ+ Afghans when the Taliban took over the country. The UK was the first government to offer an evacuation program specifically for LGBTQ+ people, working with charities such as Stonewall and Micro Rainbow in addition to the Canadian organization Rainbow Railroad.
Three of the evacuees included Bella, a teacher who hid that she was transgender all her life; Ali, who lived cautiously to keep officials from finding out he was bisexual; and Ahmed, a former youth worker who is gay (Ali and Ahmed’s names have been changed for security reasons). When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last year, LGBTQ+ Afghans began being hunted practically overnight. Ali said that “even a simple song could have been enough to get you in trouble.”
The charities involved in the mission worked with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to secure spots for LGBTQ+ Afghans on the final flights out of Kabul. Upon arrival in the UK after staying in an undisclosed country to await paperwork, Bella, Ali, Ahmed and the others were housed in quarantine hotels. The charity Micro Rainbow has been helping the group settle with lessons and workshops to help them adapt to the new country.
Daria Kasatkina
Peter Menzel/wikimedia commons
Interviewed by Russian blogger Vitya Kravchenko in Barcelona, Daria Kasatkina, the highest-ranked Russian female tennis player, came out as gay, and went on to criticize her country’s stance regarding LGBTQ+ people. Kasatkina, 25, currently ranked No. 12 in the world, also expressed empathy for Ukrainian tennis players in the context of the war, which she called a “full blown nightmare.”
On September 25, Cuba will hold a binding referendum on the New Family Code, which would replace the law in force for 47 years. As independent news website El Toque explains, the voters' ballot will contain a single question: Do you agree with the Family Code?
To be considered approved, the Code must reach more than 50% of the valid votes in its favor. If the Yes is imposed, it would legalize, among other measures: same-sex marriage, adoption between same-sex couples, as well as outlining regulations for surrogacy and the role of the family in the care of the elderly.
Even so, this new referendum family code has been criticized, as LGBTQ+ activist Sandra Heidl told Deutsche Welle "the Code includes certain progressive content for the first time, and somehow the government didn't want to take responsibility for it. It seems to me a huge mistake, because they are talking about human rights, and human rights cannot be taken to a referendum."
A record 1,008 LGBTQ candidates are seeking political office in the U.S., according to data from LGBTQ Victory Fund. This, CNN notes, “coincides with a more sobering statistic,” as this year also sees a record 162 anti-LGBTQ state bills being introduced. It also comes just weeks after the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v. Wade, sparking fears that same-sex marriage could be the next target.
The German parliament will commemorate for the first time those who were persecuted, imprisoned and murdered because of their sexual orientation in the Nazi state. The event will be held Jan. 27 during the annual memorial hour for the victims of National Socialism. For years this has been demanded by many groups, associations and individuals. German parliament members will put those victims “as the focus of the commemoration ceremony”, SPD politician Bärbel Bas told German daily Tagesspiegel.
Henny Engels, member of the federal board of the Lesbian and Gay Association (LSVD), stated “In order to draw lessons from all of its facets, history must be kept alive comprehensively. Unfortunately, after the end of National Socialism, the exclusion and suffering of sexual and gender minorities in Germany continued.”
The activist highlighted in the press release, that gay and bisexual men continued to be prosecuted in both West and East German states for years. Section 175 of the Criminal Code was finally abolished on June 11, 1994. The so-called "gay paragraph," dated back to the 19th century. According to Deutsche Welle, “this put an end to the legal persecution of male homosexuals in Germany, which had lasted more than a century.”
For the first time, drag queens performed at a public theater in Guatemala. Last week, the Lux, one of the main cultural spaces in Guatemala City, used to hosting film shows, concerts, literary festivals and plays, welcomed a drag event for the first time.
As Guatemalan independent media Agencia Ocote reports, the venue is located in the historic center of the Guatemalan capital, opened in 1936. The night’s objective was to reach audiences beyond the young LGBTQ+ community, with the aim of fitting a bigger crowd than in a bar or other spaces where drag events usually take place.
“We are making history,” Gloria, one of the drag queens declared.
A gay high school senior from Florida delivered his banned valedictorian speech last week at the invitation of U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Last May, Zander Moricz was informed by his school principal that his microphone would be silenced if his speech to graduating seniors mentioned LGBTQ+ issues, advocacy or his sexual orientation, according to news site LGBTQ Nation. Moricz resorted to using a metaphor for the banned subjects, but was invited to deliver the original version in Washington, D.C. at the U.S. Department of Education.
One Love Sisters Ghana, an association seeking to empower women to embrace diversity in Islam, is launching a gender-based violence hotline. On their Facebook page, they have encouraged lesbian, bi, queer and transwomen to report all forms of violence they may experience. This is a welcome move in a country where the LGBTQ+ community often suffers from abuse.
The 5 hotlines operate 24/7 with correspondents “ready to listen and render the assistance needed.” One Love Sisters Ghana creates safe spaces for conversations about gender-based violence within Muslim communities and is trying to reach people on multiple platforms.
See on Instagram
Seven members of the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles team, playing in the Australian National Rugby League (NRL), decided to boycott a game against the Sydney Roosters this Thursday, important for the qualification to the NRL finals. The reason: they refused to wear a jersey carrying the LGBTQ+ rainbow on “religious and cultural grounds,” as part of the club’s initiative to promote inclusivity and diversity in sports.
During a press conference, Manly’s coach Des Hasler apologized on behalf of the club and said it had made a “significant mistake” for not consulting the players beforehand. The situation is seen as an embarrassment for the club, as the first NRL rugby player to openly come out as gay in 1995, Ian Roberts, was playing for the Eagles.
The first 5,000 Monkeypox vaccines are arriving in Israel this week, where at least 105 cases have been confirmed. Health authorities have declared that they will be offered in priority to gay men at risk, since this category of the population has been particularly affected by the virus, which is transmitted through physical contact.
HIV positive men born after 1980 are particularly at risk, as well as men who take pre-exposure prophylaxis medication to avoid contracting HIV. Men who have tested positive for syphilis, chlamydia or gonorrhea since the beginning of the year are also included. Health authorities hope to be able to prevent a larger outbreak by taking such preventive actions.
Strangers hug trans woman Do Ba Duy on Nguyen Hue Street
Duy
As part of communication contest in a transgender beauty pageant, 22-year-old Vietnamese Do Ba Duy recorded a social experiment on Nguyen Hue Street in Saigon. She stood with a sign reading "I'm transgender person, you want to hug or throw water?” and waited anxiously for people to react. She was hugged by over 100 people in an hour and a half, and no one threw water at her. The video clip has now gone viral on social media.
• South African news site MambaOnline focuses on LGBTQ elders and the importance of learning old tricks
• Feminism in India offers a review of Hindi comedy-drama Badhaai Do which highlights “the suffocation of being queer in a homophobic society.”
• Take a look at Japanese photographer Takashi Homma’s portraits of young members of the queer community in Tokyo.
• Comic book writers, podcasters … Head here to read about some great “Advocates for Change Working to Better Queer Lives.”
• Check out this list of 21 cultural varieties of same-sex unions that have been part of traditional African life.
More than 20 missiles were fired in just over an hour, leaving at least 15 injuries, and may be a sign that Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko is ready to join the invasion as an active participant.
Finland has recently joined Sweden in seeking NATO membership in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Now Finnish politicians say they also support blocking Russian tourists from coming across the 1,340-km-long border the two countries share. It would be a bold move.
Central to the tragic absurdity of this war is the question of language. Vladimir Putin has repeated that protecting ethnic Russians and the Russian-speaking populations of Ukraine was a driving motivation for his invasion.
Yet one month on, a quick look at the map shows that many of the worst-hit cities are those where Russian is the predominant language: Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson.
Then there is Mariupol, under siege and symbol of Putin’s cruelty. In the largest city on the Azov Sea, with a population of half a million people, Ukrainians make up slightly less than half of the city's population, and Mariupol's second-largest national ethnicity is Russians. As of 2001, when the last census was conducted, 89.5% of the city's population identified Russian as their mother tongue.
Between 2018 and 2019, I spent several months in Mariupol. It is a rugged but beautiful city dotted with Soviet-era architecture, featuring wide avenues and hillside parks, and an extensive industrial zone stretching along the shoreline. There was a vibrant youth culture and art scene, with students developing projects to turn their city into a regional cultural center with an international photography festival.
There were also many offices of international NGOs and human rights organizations, a consequence of the fact that Mariupol was the last major city before entering the occupied zone of Donbas. Many natives of the contested regions of Luhansk and Donetsk had moved there, taking jobs in restaurants and hospitals. I had fond memories of the welcoming from locals who were quicker to smile than in some other parts of Ukraine. All of this is gone.
According to the latest data from the local authorities, 80% of the port city has been destroyed by Russian bombs, artillery fire and missile attacks, with particularly egregious targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital, a theater where more than 1,000 people had taken shelter and a school where some 400 others were hiding.
The official civilian death toll of Mariupol is estimated at more than 3,000. There are no language or ethnic-based statistics of the victims, but it’s likely the majority were Russian speakers.
So let’s be clear, Putin is bombing the very people he has claimed to want to rescue.
Putin’s Public Enemy No. 1, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is a mother-tongue Russian speaker who’d made a successful acting and comedy career in Russian-language broadcasting, having extensively toured Russian cities for years.
Rescuers carry a person injured during a shelling by Russian troops of Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Ukrinform via ZUMA Press Wire
Yes, the official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, and a 2019 law aimed to ensure that it is used in public discourse, but no one has ever sought to abolish the Russian language in everyday life. In none of the cities that are now being bombed by the Russian army to supposedly liberate them has the Russian language been suppressed or have the Russian-speaking population been discriminated against.
Sociologist Mikhail Mishchenko explains that studies have found that the vast majority of Ukrainians don’t consider language a political issue. For reasons of history, culture and the similarities of the two languages, Ukraine is effectively a bilingual nation.
"The overwhelming majority of the population speaks both languages, Russian and Ukrainian,” Mishchenko explains. “Those who say they understand Russian poorly and have difficulty communicating in it are just over 4% percent. Approximately the same number of people say the same about Ukrainian.”
In general, there is no problem of communication and understanding. Often there will be conversations where one person speaks Ukrainian, and the other responds in Russian. Geographically, the Russian language is more dominant in the eastern and central parts of Ukraine, and Ukrainian in the west.
Like most central Ukrainians I am perfectly bilingual: for me, Ukrainian and Russian are both native languages that I have used since childhood in Kyiv. My generation grew up on Russian rock, post-Soviet cinema, and translations of foreign literature into Russian. I communicate in Russian with my sister, and with my mother and daughter in Ukrainian. I write professionally in three languages: Ukrainian, Russian and English, and can also speak Polish, French, and a bit Japanese. My mother taught me that the more languages I know the more human I am.
At the same time, I am not Russian — nor British or Polish. I am Ukrainian. Ours is a nation with a long history and culture of its own, which has always included a multi-ethnic population: Russians, Belarusians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews, Greeks. We all, they all, have found our place on Ukrainian soil. We speak different languages, pray in different churches, we have different traditions, clothes, and cuisine.
Like in other countries, these differences have been the source of conflict in our past. But it is who we are and will always be, and real progress has been made over the past three decades to embrace our multitudes. Our Jewish, Russian-speaking president is the most visible proof of that — and is in fact part of what our soldiers are fighting for.
Many in Moscow were convinced that Russian troops would be welcomed in Ukraine as liberating heroes by Russian speakers. Instead, young soldiers are forced to shoot at people who scream in their native language.
Starving people ina street of Kharkiv in 1933, during the famine
Diocesan Archive of Vienna (Diözesanarchiv Wien)/BA Innitzer
Putin has tried to rally the troops by warning that in Ukraine a “genocide” of ethnic Russians is being carried out by a government that must be “de-nazified.”
These are, of course, words with specific definitions that carry the full weight of history. The Ukrainian people know what genocide is not from books. In my hometown of Kyiv, German soldiers massacred Jews en masse. My grandfather survived the Buchenwald concentration camp, liberated by the U.S. army. My great-grandmother, who died at the age of 95, survived the 1932-33 famine when the Red Army carried out the genocide of the Ukrainian middle class, and her sister disappeared in the camps of Siberia, convicted for defying rationing to try to feed her children during the famine.
On Tuesday, came a notable report of one of the latest civilian deaths in the besieged Russian-speaking city of Kharkiv: a 96-year-old had been killed when shelling hit his apartment building. The victim’s name was Boris Romanchenko; he had survived Buchenwald and two other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. As President Zelensky noted: Hitler didn’t manage to kill him, but Putin did.
Genocide has returned to Ukraine, from Kharkiv to Kherson to Mariupol, as Vladimir Putin had warned. But it is his own genocide against the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine.