BasBasBas.com

Tag: protests

  • Bulgarian employees sick a lot, Turkish not – Work mentalities compared

    Graph of average annual sick days taken per employee around the worldResearch done by consultancy firm Mercer for The Economist has shown that out of their selected countries for research, Bulgarians take the most sick days per year.

    Have a look at the graph on the right, you can click it for a larger version.

    Coincidentally, I  don’t just live in the country with the highest number of sick days, but have also lived in the country with the lowest number of sick days taken per year; Turkey. Whereas Bulgarians take an average of 22 sick days per employee per year, Turks take just 5. This might be due to very different work mentalities.

    In Bulgaria there is a saying: “They pretend to be paying me and I pretend to be working.” As you probably know, Bulgaria is a rather poor nation (the poorest of the EU), but besides that I’ve also noticed something else in the work mentality of many people. I’ve heard a lot of expressions of powerlessness. People believe they can’t change things, things are just the way they are… This is logical, given the history of Bulgaria, which consists of 500 years of Ottoman occupation, about 40 years of freedom, followed by roughly 50 years of a communist system.

    I’m not saying everyone in Bulgaria is like this, but having worked in Bulgaria, I completely understand the above mentality… The pay for most jobs is quite low and when you try to make a difference, it’s really tough to seriously get things done. The high number of sick days could also be explained in a different way also. Since Bulgaria is a country with a very tough climate and it’s also quite poor, maybe the national health level is not so high. Who knows (research firm Mercer doesn’t).

    For Turkey it’s very different. When I started a job in a restaurant, they wanted me to spend all the time that I wasn’t in university in the restaurant. I was working from 10 in the morning until 10 in the night on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and was working from 3 in the afternoon until 10 at night on Wednesday and Thursday. I had class from 9 to 5 on Monday and Tuesday and from 9 until 2 on Wednesday and Thursday. Every day I started early in the morning and finished late at night. It was very exhausting. This is the work mentality in Turkey though. They’re not the most effective workers, but they work a lot and they work very hard generally – even when they’re sick.

    It’s a rather dangerous thing comparing Turkey to Bulgaria, so let me add that I don’t think either of the work mentalities is better than the other. The Turkish work mentality is quite fanatical and insane, although worthy of admiration. People seem very stressed and they need a break (come on, let people take a day off when they’re sick). The Bulgarian work mentality is generally lazy and a bit powerless. Most people I know here would agree with me. Bulgarians need to be given the feeling that they can actually change something, can actually make a difference, can actually achieve something, plus they shouldn’t feel like their bosses are “pretending to be paying” them.  The Bulgarians I know that feel like this, are achieving great things and inspire me constantly. An injection of motivation would be great for the work mentality and with recent protests of farmers and students, things are looking up, because who would take to the streets when they feel powerless?

    Bulgarian protestPhoto by kozzmen

    Is your country listed? How do you think your country racks up? What’s the work mentality in your country? Does it match with your own work mentality?

    BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If you’d like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.

  • Dutch Police Union Head Calls for Web Censorship

    In response to the intimidation of a Dutch police woman, both on- and offline, head of police union ACP, Geert van de Kamp, has called for web censorship.

    An investigation has been launched into the intimidation of the police woman, who works for the foreign police of The Netherlands. In the night of Monday to Tuesday, unknown people vandalized the front door of the police woman’s house with red paint.

    Also, the tires of the police woman’s car were slashed.

    A group called the Winterschilders (Winterpainters) claimed responsibility for the act by posting a message on indymedia.nl, which included the full name and address of the police woman (and a picture, claims the police union). Their message reads:

    Tonight The Winterpainters visited XXX, foreign police, XXX, XXX. (XXX replacing her personal data which have been removed by indymedia)

    Her frontdoor got some red paint on it; symbol for the blood of the people that suffer due to the practices of the foreigner police.
    We also made sure she couldn’t get to her work quickly today (flat tires).
    This is a warning to all her colleagues of the modern gestapo (foreign police, immigration and naturalisation service, justice dept.).

    You are responsible for what you are doing.
    Stop it.

    The Winterpainters

    Gerrit van de Kamp, head of police union ACP, calls the incident “unheard of”, saying this “absolutely cannot and may not happen again.” And what better way to react to Gestapo accusations than calling for censorship?

    Van de Kamp wants to ask the ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs to make it impossible to publish messages like the above on the internet, saying it should be “technologically possible” to filter such messages.

    Gerrit van de Kamp, you are either unaware of what exactly is “technologically possible” or you are calling for censorship. In a statement on ACP’s website, you call for “preventive measures to prevent name & address data of police people to be posted on the internet”. That’s a lot more nuanced and understandable, yet it is impossible to put such filters in place without seriously endangering the freedom of the citizens you’re serving. You are asking for ISPs to filter what their users are posting to the internet:

    • Should the ISPs report every filtered instance to the police?
    • How will the “technologically possible” filter prevent innocent people from being censored?
    • What prevents the government from adding more and more terms to the filter once it is in place?

    Such a filter would be a step towards fascism. Yes, you have the duty to protect police staff, as do we, as Dutch citizens, but you are calling for a very extreme measure. The internet shall not be filtered, instead, prosecute websites or people that post this data on the internet. Call for tough laws and higher penalties to discourage people from committing these acts. That way it will be the websites’ responsibilities to filter the content posted to them.

    Also, there have been many reports over the last 5 years about ill-treated asylum seekers and there has been a lot of protests about this, this incident being the most extreme protest thus far. Maybe it actually is time for the government to have another look at what’s going on and punish those responsible for incidents.

    The suggested measure in your reaction is disproportionate. Please reconsider.

    That will be all.

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  • One World, One Dream?

    Even though they haven’t caught the spotlight of the big media, there’s quite a bit of ‘Tibetan’ protesting going on in Beijing. One of the protests was on Tiananmen square and lasted for ten minutes before the participants were detained and deported. Have a look at this video:




    Students for a Free Tibet sent the following statements:

    As China kicked off the 2008 Beijing Olympics yesterday, Tibetans and supporters in every part of the world staged hunger strikes, protest marches, solidarity vigils, and other direct actions to highlight China’s oppression in Tibet.

    Just hours ago, five Tibet supporters held a dramatic protest in Tiananmen Square, calling for an end to the Chinese government’s occupation of Tibet. Four of the activists, lying down and draped in Tibetan national flags, staged a mock die-in with the famous portrait of Chairman Mao in the background. A fifth activist spoke about their reason for protesting there today. They were detained by security ten minutes after the protest began.

    Yesterday, three Tibet supporters, including SFT’s Grassroots Coordinator Kalaya’an Mendoza, protested near the entrance of the Bird’s Nest stadium, wearing Team Tibet t-shirts and holding up Tibetan flags in the air. Within 40 seconds, security guards tackled them to the ground. They were detained for several hours before they were deported. We are also happy to inform you that Iain, Lucy, Phil and Tirian – the four activists who were part of the banner hang action outside the Olympic stadium – are safely home after receiving a warm welcome from their friends, family and local Tibetans in their respective home countries.

    Meanwhile, Chemi Dolkar, a Tibetan-American who traveled to Beijing to speak out for Tibetan freedom, was detained at Beijing Airport for 15 hours and eventually deported. Chemi arrived in her hometown Minneapolis last night, and right now she is speaking with the media to keep the Tibetan plight in the spotlight. Many dozens of Tibetans planning to go to Beijing to protest against the Chinese government have been denied entry into China.

    The world is watching China today as the Olympics begin, and with the hundreds of actions taking place around the world – from Delhi to Kathmandu, Brussels to London, New York to San Francisco, Hong Kong to Toronto, and many more – the voices of the Tibetan people will be heard loud and clear despite the attempts of the Chinese authorities to silence them.

    Continue to check out www.freetibet2008.org for further updates on the global uprising for Tibet and to find out how you can join actions in areas near you.

    To support SFT’s continued efforts for Tibetan freedom, please make a donation today.

    Tibet will be free,

    Lhadon, Tendor, Kate, Heather, Han, Amy and the whole SFT HQ crew

    Great message I’d say.

    Meanwhile, during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, some Burmese people were commemorating the 08/08/’88 events.

    The demonstrations of 1988 culminated in a massive nation-wide show of People Power on August 8 in which hundreds of thousands of people marched to demand a change in government. These peaceful demonstrations were violently crushed by army troops who fired relentlessly on the unarmed crowds in Rangoon and other cities killing more than 10,000 student, civilian and Buddhist monk protesters throughout the country. Thousands were arrested. (Burmawatch)

    It’s a shame that we seem to have forgotten about Burma and I’m taking this opportunity to put another spotlight on the situation there. Burma Global Action Network just released an exclusive video from the International Burmese Monks Organisation containing a plea to the international community.



    Visit the sites mentioned and find out what you can do.

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