Ráday Salon

Ráday Salon evening -- Canada's Mobilization for Migrant Justice -- Thurs., 12 Nov., 7pm

Although many of our friends have been involved with refugee issues for several years, this year, as we all have seen, the crisis has become more and more acute around the world. As the numbers of refugees and migrants have grown, so have many grassroots efforts aiming not only to address the immediate needs of refugees, but also to challenge existing policies that create barriers to migrants gaining safety and stability in a new home.

For our next Salon, our guest speaker Sharmeen Khan will discuss some of this grassroots work, in Canada, in her presentation:  “Internationalism and Refugees Welcome: Lessons from Canada's Mobilization for Migrant Justice”

About the presentation:

When images of the body of Alan Kurdi exposed the hardship and dangers of migration, the international migrant justice movement experienced a resurgence of activism and organizing. There were urgent calls and pressure demanding action from international and state governments to adequately respond to the largest refugee crisis since World War II.

In Canada, where the Kurdi family was trying to migrate to but were denied, migrant justice organizers mobilized over 50 coordinated and spontaneous actions across 40 cities in Canada. From large centers to small towns, communities have not only been demanding that the government open the borders to refugees, but are linking those demands to broader anti-colonial and anti-imperial struggles against displacement in Canada and across the globe.

 

Photo credit: No One Is Illegal

Under the slogan "Freedom to move. Freedom to stay. Freedom to return" - communities across Canada mobilized quickly to challenge the current refugee policies of Canada and to expose the complicity of Canadian government policies and corporations in displacing people from their homes in the first place, in the form of resource extraction, militarism, and environmental destruction. Demanding dignity and safety for refugees and migrants, a national movement has emerged in Canada that engages in various forms of protest, direct action, consciousness raising, and mobilization.

Active in No One Is Illegal and Refugees Welcome, Sharmeen Khan will be in Budapest to share the lessons in Canada and its struggle to maintain momentum. As a way to connect the Canadian refugee migrant justice struggle internationally, she will explore how anti-racist and anti-colonial struggles need to be shared internationally for real gains to be achieved.

Sharmeen Khan is a member of No One Is Illegal, Toronto, an anti-capitalist, anti-colonial and anti-racist migrant justice group. She is also a founding editor of Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action (uppingtheanti.org). She has been active in activist media and community radio broadcasting for 15 years and is also a trainer and facilitator in grassroots media and anti-racism. She currently works at a labour union in Toronto and is also a researcher with the Media Action Research Group.

For more information on the struggles of migrant justice in Canada, please check out:
http://www.refugeeswelcome.ca/
http://toronto.nooneisillegal.org/
http://www.neverhome.ca/

Ráday Salon evening -- Stereotyping and Discrimination-- Thurs. Nov. 20, 7pm

For our next Ráday Salon event, happening Thursday, 20 November, we will be screening a short episode from a US news program called "What Would You Do?" The program is a series of hidden camera episodes where unsuspecting people are put into a situation involving an ethical dilemma. The episode we will be watching challenges viewers to examine how stereotypes and discrimination influence our behavior.

As we mentioned in our previous post, the day after our Salon, on Friday, 21 November, McDaniel College Budapest will be hosting a Human Rights Forum, where the theme will be “Inclusion, Mobility, and Cultural Encounters”. We hope to have many of the conference participants present at the Salon, and we encourage our Salon friends to attend the conference (click to see the conference poster and schedule with paper abstracts). Anyone may attend either event or both, but we hope that for those who do attend both events, the Salon will be an opportunity not only to discuss topics related to the conference theme, but also to meet and get to know other participants over food, drink, and friendly conversation. 

As an added treat, one of our Salon friends will be opening the evening with a little Latvian folk music, too!

Special Ráday Salon event -- Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation -- Sat., Oct.18

Our first Ráday Salon event of Autumn 2014 isn’t exactly a typical Salon. Our guests are two friends from the U.S., Pat Clark and Inelle Cox Bagwell, who will have only a very short stay in Budapest at the beginning of a longer trip through the Danube valley. Pat and Inelle are both human rights and social justice activists, and within the short time they will be here, we are hoping to give them the opportunity to meet as many people interested in human rights as we could. So, we’re expecting this evening to be a little shorter on politics but long on social interaction. For the more “formal” part of the evening, Pat will speak about her work and we’ll have a question and answer period, and after the formal part, both Pat and Inelle are looking forward to talking one-on-one with our Salon friends.

The event date and time are a little different than usual, but we do hope that you will be able to join us. 

A little more information about our main presenter: 

Pat Clark currently serves as a Program Officer for the Themis Fund, an initiative that works toward the abolition of the death penalty in the US. Issues she has worked on in the past include prison control units, hate violence and restorative justice, juvenile justice, prisoner reentry, prison reform and alternatives to incarceration, racial and economic justice, demilitarization, nuclear disarmament, peaceful resolution of conflicts, and the development of the concept of a center for healing and transformative justice. Pat has has also been involved in truth and reconciliation work, serving as consultant to the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission and as a commissioner with the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Organizations she has worked with include the American Friends Service Committee, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Habitat for Humanity.

To learn more, click to read Pat's full bio (PDF)

Ráday Salon evening -- Murder on a Sunday Morning -- Thurs. Apr. 30, 7pm

For our April Salon we will bring back one of our favorite human rights films, Murder on a Sunday Morning, which we first showed in 2006. Winner of the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Film, Murder on a Sunday Morning tells the story of a 15-year-old African-American boy who is arrested and put on trial for the murder of a Florida tourist – even though the only thing he appears to be guilty of is being an African-American male walking near the neighborhood where the crime happened. The one piece of luck the young man has is that he is assigned a particularly sharp, determined, and committed public defender as his lawyer – and the story of how they take on a "justice" system with injustice at every level makes for suspenseful and often jaw-dropping watching. To repeat what we have said before about the film, regardless of what you think you know about the racism in the US, this film will both shock and uplift you.

Ráday Salon evening -- Women's Rights Are Human Rights -- Thurs. Mar. 26, 7pm

As promised, we have prepared a special program for this coming Thursday, March 26th, at 7pm, commemorating International Women's Month. For this evening, we will be joined by a team of presenters from Central European University -- Maria Lis Baiocchi (Argentina), Robin Chaurasiya (USA), and Rachel Horst (USA) -- to give us a multi-faceted international perspective on some pressing problems affecting women around the world.

Women's Rights Are Human Rights:
International Perspectives on Domestic Violence, Criminalization of Abortion, and Human Trafficking

March has come to be recognized globally as International Women's Month — in acknowledgment of women's worldwide struggles for political and economic rights. It is a month to bring about awareness in societies around the world of the gender-based disparities that are still present and to reflect on the struggles women must still fight in order for the promise that "women's rights are human rights" to be fulfilled. This Ráday Salon will invite participants to learn about and reflect on some of the major types of discrimination women still face, including domestic violence, criminalization of abortion, and human trafficking — using the cases of the USA, Argentina, and India as specific examples.

Rachel Horst will focus on domestic violence as a problem in the United States (as it is globally), with a special focus on the state of Pennsylvania. The presentation will describe the institutions in place and the legal options for women who are victims of domestic violence as well as the community efforts to combat it and the public/private sphere implications of the problem. She will also address how this problem cuts across societal lines — which include but are not limited to the divisions present between urban and rural areas, low income and high income regions, as well as immigrant populations, white communities, and communities of color.

María Lis Baiocchi will address the criminalization of abortion in Argentina and its impact on the lives of women. The presentation will give a brief overview of the legislation in place as far as abortion is concerned and provide a background of the devastating consequences of it. It will provide a historical overview of how, over the course of the past two decades, the issue of abortion went from being completely absent from public debate to being located at the very center of it as primarily an issue of public health. The presentation will consider sociological explanations for the impossibility of pro-choice social actors to frame the issue as a matter of women's human rights and full citizenship rather than of public health, and the detriments and benefits of such framing as far as the advancement of the right to legal, safe, and free abortion is concerned.

Robin Chaurasiya will provide an introduction to the global scale of human trafficking, with an emphasis on sexual trafficking of women. The presentation will then focus on trafficking in India and cover Hindu practices that enable trafficking within the country when girls are designated as Devadasis, Joginis, and Mathammas. The presentation will include a short audio slideshow covering the Devadasi system, as well as several examples from Robin's work in Mumbai at an NGO. She will conclude with a discussion and critique of anti-trafficking NGOs in India, her current research topic at CEU.

The presentations will be followed by an open discussion in which we especially encourage our guests to provide perspectives on womens' issues in their own countries and regions. We are sure it will be a thought-provoking and enlightening evening, and we look forward to seeing you there.

Ráday Salon evening -- Standing In The Shadows Of Motown -- Thurs., Dec 18, 7 p.m.

In keeping with the holiday season, we decided to end the Ráday Salon Fall 2008 season with an event to get us all in a happy holiday mood. This Thursday night, December 18th, We will be screening the 2002 documentary film Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, which, although not directly human-rights related, is an uplifting, energizing, feel-good celebration guaranteed to put a smile on every face.

The film is about The Funk Brothers, the group of musicians that played the music for almost all of the musical acts on the famous Motown record label from 1959 until 1972. As a group, the Funk Brothers were behind more Number 1 songs than any other music group in history. These hits included such well-loved songs as "My Girl", "Heard It Through The Grapevine" and "Dancing in the Streets" - yet the Funk Brothers have been virtually unknown in the United States.  Standing In The Shadows Of Motown tells the story of these remarkable musicians, through interviews, archival footage, and even a few live performances of classic hits. The musicians' story is so compelling, you may find yourself wishing you could have been a "fly on the wall" during some of their recording sessions -- and the music is so delicious, you may find it hard to resist tapping your toes and singing along.

We hope to see you all there, but we realize that some of you may have already left Budapest for the holidays. To those of you we won't be seeing, we wish you the very best for the holiday season, and look forward to seeing you in 2009.

Ráday Salon Evening -- The 2008 American Presidential Election: Getting Over It -- Tues., Nov 25, 7pm.

November 2008 was a special month for us Americans – after nearly two years of non-stop campaigns, we were finally able to bring an end to our hopeful waiting and celebrate the election of Barack Obama as our 44th president. For our next Salon, we have a special event organized with students of McDaniel College here in Budapest, to give everyone the opportunity to engage in discussion on several topics related to the US election.  This special Salon also has a special format – instead of one single discussion, our guests will have the choice of 4 different discussion groups addressing 4 different topics. Come join us, grab a glass of wine and a plate of snacks, and head for a group – stay in one place for an in-depth discussion of one topic, or move between different groups to get a little bit of everything.

For a full explanation of the topics we will be discussing, please see the students' own introduction below.

The 2008 American Presidential Election: Getting Over It

Are you suffering from post-election withdrawal? Come join Michael, Linda and students from McDaniel College Budapest by giving into your weaknesses, doing what's natural and falling entirely off the wagon. We won't try to reform or to resist: we will consider every facet of the campaign, analyzing the success of the victors and carrying out post-mortems on the losers, dissecting the American voter and American society, and even contemplating whether Barack Obama's victory will change the world. We do not know small doses: there will be four different discussion groups, all going at the same time, each inviting the Ráday Salon's participants, shy or outspoken, to join together and voice their own opinions on the topics below.

How did Obama win? How did McCain lose?

      At first glance, it appears that Obama won the 2008 presidential election because he had a better campaign than McCain, but there is more to it than meets the eye. This group will focus on this by discussing campaign finance and campaign staff.
      Did Obama have an advantage in terms of campaign finances? He may have raised more money than McCain, but did he lose credibility by asking for donations during a time of economic crisis? Was campaign finance an issue during the campaign, and if not, should it have been? Does this set a negative precedent for future campaigns?
     When we look at the way the McCain and Obama campaigns were staffed, run, and structured, there are a number of elements which seem to have had an impact on the election outcome. Examples of this include organizational approaches and internal dynamics. How did this play out for each candidate, including Hillary Clinton? What did it do for Obama? Did it do anything for McCain?
     We will also consider the racial component as it played out in the Obama and McCain campaign strategies

Subliminal Messaging: The Role of Race

Our group explores the role of race in the recent U.S. Presidential Election. Did race play a role in the election? We'll be discussing which candidate attempted to use race to their advantage more often and more effectively. We will try to define the actual meaning of the "race card" for others to clear up any of the fog of confusion. Besides Obama being an African American, what others of his characteristics may have had an effect on the choice of voters? If Obama has pulled some of the stunts that Palin did, would the outcome of the election have differed? Go ahead…Just ask. In addition, we will be discussing whether or not Obama's victory can be attributed to shifting voting blocks, and the loosening of the foundation of the Republican Party due to his multicultural background. Who would have won the black vote if Candoleeza Rice were the Republican candidate facing Democrat Hillary Clinton?

Change. Maybe you/we can?

     "You're crazy, virtually nothing has changed," said Orsi. "The 'silent majority' still exists, and it still believes what it always did."
     "Well, it depends on what you mean by change," replied Jenai. "America's not the same anymore. Its demographics are changing completely."
     "Wait a second—the only person who really knows how America is changing is Ron Paul," said Phillip. "America is finally becoming rational. A growing minority is finally starting to see the big picture. 9/11 and the current economic crisis might be the results of mistaken U.S. policy."
     Orsi again: " O.K, but what does this have to do with the 2008 presidential election?"
     Jenai: "Well..."

Is the American electorate beginning to shift ideologically? Demographically? Both? And is there an underlying change ongoing which the result of the 2008 presidential election doesn't actually reflect?

Does the outcome of the U.S. election matter to the world?

Our group will discuss the effects of the election on the rest of the world. Come to the Raday Salon's "Kitchen of Change" to taste the future for the rest of the world now that Barack Obama is Commander in Chief. Questions on the table for discussion include the following. Will the nations of the world coexist in harmony, prosperity, and mutual respect, working cooperatively to solve global problems, or will they descend into disharmony, distrust, disrespect, and mutual military destruction? Will Obama's presidency alleviate the world's dissatisfaction with the US and help restore America`s shattered image? Will the Obama presidency be able to quell the financial turmoil? How will the Middle East conflict be affected, particularly Israel and Palestine?

As you can see from this list of topics, Tuesday's Salon will surely be a night of lively, spirited discussion!

We hope you'll be able to join us :)

Ráday Salon Evening -- Screening of "Freedom's Fury" -- Thurs., Oct. 30

In 2006, in the context of the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, we held a special event at the Salon, focusing on personal stories of this momentous political and historical event. This year, in keeping with our interest in seeking out the "human" side of such events, we would like to mark the 1956 anniversary with the screening of a film that tells the story from an unexpected perspective.

Freedom's Fury is a US-made documentary film released in 2006 (audio in English, Hungarian, and Russian, with English subtitles). It follows the unfolding story of the '56 Revolution with a parallel focus on the Hungarian men's water polo team as they prepared to take part in that year's Olympics games in Melbourne, Australia – where, as fate would have it, they would meet their country's political nemesis, the Soviet Union, on a different field of battle, the water polo pool, in the Olympic semi-final match. The match that resulted still stands as probably the most famous water polo match in history, known for the "blood in the water" that resulted from the rough play between the teams, and especially the famous injury to one player that brought the game to an end. To tell their story, the makers of Freedom's Fury gathered together many of the players from both the Hungarian and Soviet sides of the match, and their interviews make the film a compelling look at the dramatic events of 1956.

We will be joined by journalist and human rights activist Balázs Nagy Navarro, who will offer a brief presentation and moderate our discussion. Balázs is a radio, TV, and newspaper journalist with extensive experience in international affairs, and spent ten years covering Asia and Europe for Hungarian public television. As an activist, Balázs has many years of experience working with many different organizations, including Amnesty International, and is a former Chair and current member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International Hungary. He also brought and won an important discrimination lawsuit against Hungarian public radio on the issue of equal pay for equal work. Balázs can currently be heard as host of Mindenki joga (Everybody's rights), a weekly talk show on human rights issues on Civil Radio 98FM, airing every Monday from 10am to 12pm.

For more background on Thursday's salon, we invite you to explore the following links:

• Visit the official website of Freedom's Fury
• Read Wikipedia's page on the "Blood in the Water" match
• Visit Civil Radio on the web at http://www.civilradio.hu
• View the program webpage for Mindenki joga (in Hungarian)
• Read about our 2006 event on the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution
• Listen to the audio of our 2006 event – highly recommended!

Ráday Salon Evening -- Kosovo/a: Beliefs and Misbeliefs -- Thurs., Oct. 9

Dear Friends,

Yes, it’s true! The Ráday Salon finally returns for a new season in Budapest!

We are extremely pleased to be starting up our new Salon season next Thursday, October 9th, with a presentation by Professor Tibor Varady on Kosovo/a – Beliefs and Misbeliefs.

Professor Varady is a highly-esteemed legal scholar whose name should be known to many of you, especially those of you who are or have been students at Central European University. 

For a “formal” introduction to Professor Varady, we offer you the following profile from the CEU website:

Tibor Varady is an internationally-recognized scholar and expert on international commercial arbitration, private international law, and international business transactions. He was on the faculty of the Novi Sad Law School in the former Yugoslavia and served as director of its Center for International Studies for many years. Since 1993 he is a professor at the Legal Studies Department of the Central European University in Budapest, and Chairman of the International Business Law Program. He is holding the title of a “university professor” at the CEU, and he was also been appointed by the President of Hungary as a “university professor” in Hungary. Professor Varady was appointed as a full professor at Emory University (Atlanta) in 1999, and teaches each Spring courses on international commercial arbitration and international business transactions. Professor Varady is a Member of the Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration, and he is on the list of arbitrators of eight arbitral institutions including institutions in the former Yugoslavia, in Hungary, in Egypt. He has been acting as agent, counsel and advocate in 11 cases before the International Court of Justice. He has about 250 publications written in five languages. His most recent publications include: International Commercial Arbitration (co-authors: J. Barcelo and A. Von Mehren) 3d Edition Thomson & West 2006; Language and Translation in International Commercial Arbitration, T.M.C. Asser Press 2006. Professor of Law. Law graduate and LL.M Belgrade Law School (1962 and 1967); LL.M and S.J.D Harvard Law School (1968 and 1970).

 

That is indeed a formal introduction, but our purpose at the Ráday Salon is to bring people together to discuss important issues in an informal context. To echo what we wrote when we hosted a discussion on Iraq last year, Kosovo/a is a region about which much may be heard in the news, but which is often little understood. So we encourage you to take the opportunity to join us next Thursday, to hear Prof. Varady’s insights on Kosovo/a, and to participate in an active discussion afterwards. 

Ráday Salon evening -- NO! -- Thursday 13 March

Dear Friends,

We begin by offering warm and long-overdue greetings to all our Salon friends, old and new. It has been quite a long time since many of you have heard from us. As many of you already know, for family reasons, Michael and Linda returned to the US for an extended period several months ago. In that time we have sorely missed Budapest, our friends, and our Salon. Finally, however, your Salon hosts are almost all the way back – that is to say, Michael is back in Budapest, and Linda will be joining him in just a few weeks. And even though we're not both back yet, we just couldn't wait to start our Salon evenings back up again!

Given our long absence, we thought we might start things up with one of our most popular events – a showing of Aishah Shahidah Simmons documentary film NO! Some of our Salon friends who have been with us the longest may have seen the film before, perhaps in the earlier, unfinished "rough cut" version. However, we also have developed many new ties with folks who are new to Budapest or just new to our Salon, who have expressed an interest in seeing the film. We would be happy to see both old and new Salon friends at this showing, especially as the discussion is always different and brings up new observations every time we show the film. Even if you have already seen the film we encourage you to invite others you may know who would be interested in the film. And for those of you eager for something new, never fear, we already have plans for more Salon evenings in the works. We are planning a showing of one episode of the civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize on April 3, and a presentation and discussion on the Philippines for April 24.

In the meantime, without further ado, the Ráday Salon invites you to a commemoration of women's History Month with a showing of the award-winning documentary, NO! by Aishah Shahidah Simmons, on Thursday, 13 March. Eleven years in the making, NO! is a feminist educational organizing tool which is being used in the global movement to end violence against women and children. This groundbreaking documentary explores the international reality of rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship spirituality, activism and cultural work of African Americans. Winner of an audience choice award and a juried award at the San Diego Women Film festival, NO! also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia.

Since its official release in 2006, NO! has been screened and distributed to racially and ethnically diverse audiences at film festivals, community centers, colleges/universities, high schools, correctional facilities, rape crisis centers, battered women shelters and conferences throughout the United States, Spain, Rwanda, Kenya, Nepal, South Africa, Jordan, Burkina Faso, Peru and Mexico. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center—the comprehensive center for information, research, and emerging policy on sexual violence intervention and prevention in the United States—designated screenings and discussions of NO! in community settings as the Featured Event during their 2007 Sexual Assault Awareness Month Campaign.

For those of you who are new to our Salon, you can find all the information we have posted on previous showings for the film by clicking on NO! in the "Categories" section in the right-hand column of this page. -->

We also have a couple of new items to share with you all.  In February 2008, Michael and Aishah participated in a screening and panel discussion of NO! at the Brecht Forum in New York City.  One of the people who attended is a member of an organization called "SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape)", an advocacy group in the US which works to improve universities' response to sexual assaults in the campus environment.  After attending the event, she wrote two reaction pieces on the SAFER organization's blog, which you can read here:

NO! A Documentary about Rape
NO! Part 2

And, for the most up-to-date information on NO!, we encourage you to visit the NO! website, at www.notherapedocumentary.org.

Every time we have shown NO!, it has sparked an active and challenging discussion.  We look forward to seeing many of you there!