[IP] Our latest exports: calumny and injustice
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: October 21, 2004 12:33:36 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dfarber@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Our latest exports: calumny and injustice
Dave,
MacDonalds burgers are not the only thing our country is spreading
abroad. Closed borders, intransigence, calumny and injustice are
oozing out in Europe and elsewhere, transforming ugly concepts peculiar
to Bush America into standard operating procedure. The idea that
education may know no borders is being replaced by a massive shut door.
Remember how the US demanded that Russia (then the Soviet Union) open
its borders and let its people see the world? Well, the liberty to
travel is now real, but the number of possible destinations is drying
up.
This summer a bright Russian university student flew to France, where
he was accepted for his fourth year at American University in Paris
(AUP). His university in St. Petersburg signed documents transferring
the student to AUP, but then the French vice counsel in St. Petersburg
actually refused a student visa for the individual, declining to put
any reason in writing because there was none; but falsely claiming
verbally that the student probably had applied and been refused
admission to the US, and ranting that a Russian would never wish to
study at an English university in France. Suddenly the student was
without any university at all and was thus told to report for
conscripted duty into the Russian military, where 12,000 soliders'
lives have been lost just in the latest stage of fighting against
Chechen separatists. The student is now working desperately to get a
deferment and entrance into another university. No one at the French
ministry of foreign affairs has lifted a finger to undo this manifest
injustice.
Canada, which claims to be an open nation, has issued only 10,000 visas
to Russians in the past year. Since many of the visitors have been to
Canada on multiple visits, the number of Russians actually allowed in
is miniscule. The Canadian consulates in Russia even refuse visas to
individuals who have visited previously, obeyed the law and returned on
time.
We should be aware that the Bush policies are being exported because
these concepts bode ill for all of western civilization.
Dave, if you wish to use this note on IP, kindly withhold my name
because it will easily be linked to the Russian student, thus landing
him in still greater danger.
Regards,
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