OMNI
United Nations WORLD REFUGEE DAY NEWSLETTER #11,
June 20, 2022.
Compiled by
Dick Bennett for a CULTURE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, and ECOLOGY
(OMNI Newsletter #1 June 20, 2008; #2 Dec. 4,
2011; #3 June 20, 2012; #4, June 20, 2014; #5, June 20, 2015; #6 June 20, 2017;
#7, June 20, 2018; #8, June 20, 2019; #9, June 20, 2020; #10, June 20, 2021).
UN World Refugee Day is held every year on June 20, a special day when the world
takes time to recognize the desperate needs and the resilience of forcibly
displaced people, and to plan ways to help them.
A time too to celebrate the UN for its idealism, compassion, and practical work.
USA for UNHCR
- Donate to UNHCR Today - Ukraine Emergency
Ad·https://give.unrefugees.org/ukraine/donate
Resilient families in Ukraine are fighting for survival. You can
help: donate today. Displaced people in Ukraine are devastated and afraid. Your
love will restore hope. BBB Accredited.
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People in Yemen Face Hunger & Violence.
Learn How You Can Help.
World Refugee Day is June 20 - World Refugee Day
Ad·https://www.womenforwomen.org/
Women refugees endure the deepest injustices.
Learn how we support them. How can you...
UNHCR New Refugee Report - UNHCR World
Refugee Day Report
Ad·https://www.hias.org/hias/unhcr
Conflict, persecution, human rights abuses, and climate change
displaced millions in 2021.
World Refugee Day NPO - When Is World Refugee Day -
icfdn.org
Ad·https://www.icfdn.org/world/refugeeday (619) 336-2250
Immigrant families are being separated at the U.S.-Mexico
border. Help today. Together...
World Refugee Day 2022 Feedback
World Refugee Day - UNHCR
https://www.unhcr.org ›
en-us › world-refugee-day
World Refugee Day is an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe. It
falls each year on June 20 and celebrates ...
Live blog 2022: World Refugee Day events held as ... - UNHCR
https://www.unhcr.org ›
en-us › news › stories › 2022
16 hours ago — Every World
Refugee Day, 20 June, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, joins millions of others
around the world in honoring those who have fled ...
World Refugee Day | United Nations
https://www.un.org ›
observances › refugee-day
World Refugee Day is an international day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe. It
falls each year on June 20 and celebrates the ...
Event: World Refugee Day 2022 | SDG Knowledge Hub | IISD
https://sdg.iisd.org ›
events › world-refugee-day-2022
World Refugee Day honors the strength and courage of refugees and encourages
public awareness and support of the refugees, people who have had to flee
their ...
Live blog 2022:
World Refugee Day events held as displacement tops 100 million
High
Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi's message on World Refugee Day, 20
June 2022
World Refugee Day 2022: History, significance and theme
June 20th marks
World Refugee Day 2022 under theme of ...
World Refugee
Day 2022 | UNHCR
YouTube · GKToday World Refugee Day – June 20, 2022 ... Each June
20, the globe comes together to honor World Refugee Day. The United Nations General Assembly launched the
holiday ...
World Refugee Day 2022 - Awareness Days Events Calendar ...
https://www.awarenessdays.com ›
awareness-days-calendar
World Refugee Day is held on June 20th. This is an annual event, held on the
same date each year. World
Refugee Day honours the
strength and courage of ...
World Refugee Day 2022 - The Council of Europe
https://www.coe.int ›
Home › Newsroom
Each year on 20 June, the world celebrates Refugee Day and the Intercultural Cities Network campaign together to
help focus attention on those who are fleeing ...
World
Refugee Day: This Year'S Theme Is 'Right To Seek Safety' https://www.cnbctv18.com ›
world
— The number is expected
to grow as geopolitical conflicts in Africa and Europe displace countless
others. To spread awareness about the issues ...
Food crisis could drive record displacements higher. UN WIRE (6-17-22).
Human rights abuses, persecution, violence and
war drove a record 89.3 million people to flee their homes in 2021, and with at
least 12 million displaced so far this year by the Ukraine war alone, more than 100 million people are currently
displaced by conflict, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees
warns. Food shortages driven by such factors as disruptions to Ukrainian
exports and drought in Africa's Sahel region could further increase the number
of people displaced from their homes, says UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi.
Full Story: Voice of America (6/16), The Associated Press (6/16), TeleSurTV (Venezuela) (6/16)
I
recommend Todd Miller, an excellent writer.
TODD
MILLER’s BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches
from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).
Empire of Borders: The
Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World. (Verso, 2017).
Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2019).
Build
Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders City
Lights, 2021. His latest book provides an
attractive narrative introduction to US Border Patrol Nation.
“Border
Militarization in a Warming World” By Todd Miller. From the Book: Asylum for Sale (2022).
“The Border-Industrial
Complex in the Biden Era: Robotic Dogs and
Autonomous Surveillance Towers Are the New Wall.” TomDispatch (5-5-22). https://tomdispatch.com/the-border-industrial-complex-in-the-biden-era/?utm_source=TomDispatch&utm_campaign=a37b00bd52-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_07_13_02_04_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1e41682ade-a37b00bd52-309346777#more
ROBIN AURA
KANEGIS. “As Global Horror Unfolds in
Ukraine, Why Is War Still Legal?” March 26, 2022.
Why is there no serious movement to abolish war?
Would you be able to attack and take over your neighbor's home over
a boundary line dispute? Could you legally threaten their safety, no matter how
angry you were? The answer is a resounding no. Then why is it that when a
conflict transcends national boundaries, we have no clear and immediate
recourse against aggression other than threatening or carrying out more
violence in return?
We have been conditioned to accept international
violence—essentially mass murder in the name of states' goals.
Our
societies—local, national, and global—choose the behaviors we normalize. We
have set murder and theft outside moral bounds in most societal contexts. So
why do our moral codes end at state boundaries? Why is there no
serious movement to abolish war?
The system of international law has been undermined
at every turn to protect the ability of strong countries to do what they
please. The United Nations has been
kept weak, with the system of Security
Council vetoes for the five permanent members making a farce of the idea of
global accountability. The International
Criminal Court (ICC) is an opt-in situation, applying only to those
countries that have accepted the jurisdiction of the court—and neither Russia
nor the United States have opted in. Most cases listed on the ICC docket target
African or Middle Eastern officials, putting a fine point on who the court is
and is not meant to scrutinize for crimes of aggression, war crimes, genocide,
or crimes against humanity. This week's preliminary decision of the UN
International Court of Justice ordering Russia to "suspend" military
operations in Ukraine has been met with a shrug from Russia, which simply
asserted that the court lacked jurisdiction.
The destructive
impact of war is not new. Major and minor conflicts rage across the globe
today, largely outside western headlines and sympathies. In the Sahel, Yemen,
Afghanistan, and the list goes on—hundreds of thousands of people have been
murdered and millions have had their lives destroyed by violent conflict, with
zero recourse. The scale of global attention which the war in Ukraine has
received makes evident the deep racism and Islamophobia at play in shaping
whose lives may be acceptably threatened by war.
But because major
powers across the world are paying attention, the attack on Ukraine
also offers an inflection point: should it be legal to attack our neighbor's
home and try to occupy it? If not, isn't it time to abolish
war?
We have been
conditioned to accept international violence—essentially mass murder in the
name of states' goals. While on the surface societies have moved beyond feudal
systems with war lords vying for territory, today we have terrible weaponry
that could destroy the whole of humanity many times over with the click of a
button. The fate of the world lies on a tenuous global "gentleman's"
agreement that we probably wouldn't click that button—but the threat of
annihilation still hangs over us, with no real recourse at the global level.
The only system of accountability we have invested in is the ability to
annihilate others just as many times as they could annihilate us. But why is it
still legal for states to compel their citizens to use violence at
all?
While a world
without war may seem unthinkable in our current political context, we sell
ourselves short if we refuse to imagine it and demand it.
We need systems of accountability and legal recourse that
allow us to nonviolently address conflicts that transcend national boundaries.
It is time to make international laws universal and binding—no matter how
powerful and influential a country violating those laws might be—and to invest
in developing tools and methods for peacebuilding that have the same level of
authority and resources that we have invested for generations in war-making. It
is time to invest in research and development for means to interrupt violence
without more violence. For examples of how non-violent responses can succeed
even in cases of asymmetrical power, we can look to the practices of
non-violent, civilian-based defense that have been successful in conflicts
across the globe.
[Instead of choosing war, choose peace.]
While a global
shift in approach will raise many questions—what enforcement will look like,
how disarmament could happen on a global scale, and what international bodies
could equitably provide this type of governance—the potential benefits are
enormous. We could make serious investments in systems of restorative justice
of the sort that could infuse all of our conversations about
accountability and justice. Without spending a trillion dollars annually across
the globe on militaries, we could take some amazing steps forward in healing
our planet and communities—and addressing some of the underlying issues that
drive violent conflict in the first place.
While a world
without war may seem unthinkable in our current political context, we sell
ourselves short if we refuse to imagine it and demand it. It is unthinkable
that more than 1900 civilians and an untold number of Ukrainian and Russian
soldiers have already died in Ukraine. It is unthinkable that more than 900,000
people have been killed in the U.S.-led "war on terror." But this is
the reality and will continue to be if we fail to envision and invest in
alternate paths.
Ultimately, human
history is one of trial, error, and evolution. Evolution starts with summoning
the imagination to envision a better way and making a decision to change. Isn't
it time for us to evolve beyond war?
Participants of a demonstration protest against the war and the Russian
invasion of Ukraine in front of the Federal Chancellery on February 25, 2022 in
Berlin, Germany. One hand holds a sign with the inscription "No War."
(Photo: Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)
“I wonder how the foreign policies
of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the
world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our
own.” Howard Zinn
CONTENTS 2021 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/06/united-nations-world-refugee-day.html
UNHCR: UN World Refugee Day 2021
UUSC Supports Refugees
UN Wire on Global Displacement
UN: Drought in North and South
America
Book: Giles Slade, American Exodus
Audubon: Climate Action Guide: Is Your Town Ready?
Border Walls
Sheridan, “Immigrant Day of
Resilience”
END UN WORLD REFUGEE DAY NEWSLETTER #11, June 20, 2022.
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