Welcome to the I-A-N Blog!

The International Networks (I-A-N) project deals with untapped resources in the media capital of the world. Those untapped resources offer the potential for the unleashing of an enormous talent within the communications field and to make the media industry in New York City unique in the world market. The United Nations is already in a city that is the united nations, a culturally rich and diverse society that is as yet not communicating with itself in a way that truly enhances and combines all the elements of media, community and academis. All of these things are already here but nobody, no organisation has gone about making those community connections. This is the promise of I-A-N to build a truly unique and new culture of reporting

And so with this, the INTERNATIONAL ACCESS NETWORKS / I-A-N, Inc. web site and blog is officially launched with one of our key and signature projects...... It is the CD known as REMEMBER 9 / 11 a look back and look forward and a look at what is happening now. We will be getting comments and contributions and observations from around the world. One such area we will be looking at is the recent civil unrest and economic questions touching Western Europe, and what it will mean for that continent in the years ahead. We open this with the following comments from one of our scores of contributors, courtesy The New York-based newspaper known as THE BLACK STAR NEWS...... Here it goes:

Commentary From the Black Star News (New York) November 18, 2005

By Ocaya p Ocure

Stockholm, Sweden - Yes, France is on fire but ask yourself why? There is racism and complete neglect of Africans in France. One needs not be a Rocket Scientist to know the reason why Europe has become a center of racism. Recently, we saw in Spain, whereby refugees are packed in trucks and taken to Morocco whereby they are transferred and left in the desert towards Tunisia or Algeria. Now France has invoked the 1955 French Colonial Law to govern the Paris city suburbs where most of the non-white French citizens reside. What an irony? In England Tony Blair is asking for powers to allow government to detain Muslims for 90 days without any charge simply because they might be suspected of belonging to “anti-people” groups.

One can’t understand what Blair means by belonging to anti-people groups,” or how he can negotiate with repressive regimes to take these refugees back to their own home countries whereby they risk being arrested or killed on arrival.

Yes, there are some refugees who might have done wrong on British soil such as the perpetrators of the July 11^th bombings. But I think their children or families have not committed any crime against the people of Britain. Arresting somebody as a suspect and putting that person behind bars incommunicado for 90 days does not auger well on democratic norms of rule of law. Look how the British police murdered a Brazilian man simply because he looked like a refugee from the Arab or Asian world.

Throughout Europe political parties are competing for power while using brutal vocabulary to describe immigrants. This is there best tool to gain office in their countries through denigrating immigrants as the cause of all of Europe’s ills. We are back to the days of when Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Party accused the Jews of everything going wrong under the sun in several European countries. In the Scandinavian countries the current regime in Denmark came to power because its party members were ultra racists.

In Sweden where I reside, I am quite worried about the future of our immigrant children. Africans and foreigners can’t get employment or have a decent home in a Swedish neighborhood with a Swedish surname. In short, racism in Sweden is quite deeply institutionalized. As it stands today one Swedish political party – the Liberals ( Folk Party) is borrowing the lesson from Denmark. I think discrimination in Sweden is much higher than in the whole of Europe.

While Europe and America prides itself in levels of economic and social development, those societies forget the foot soldiers from Africa and elsewhere were the ones who labored, with minimal or no compensation, for the prosperity the West enjoys. These so-called “savages,” as Africans are regarded by people like the French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, and followers of racist party of Jean Marie Le Pen’s teachings, have as much right to enjoy the wealth their forefathers created.

Looking forward to hearing your comments. Thanks for taking a look at us. Do visit the web site as well. That address is: www.internationalaccess.org

See you next time!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ( To whatever you celebrate or don't celebrate! Ha! )

All the best,

Eric K. Williams, Executive Director
The INTERNATIONAL ACCESS NETWORKS / I-A-N, Inc.
Late December 2005