27 November 2011
Two
racially prejudiced reports broke out last week. The first one came out of a
Mayor in the Western Part of Europe, from a country called Ireland that has one
of the fewest numbers of black people in Europe. Darren Scully, the mayor of Naas, a small
town in the Republic of Ireland came out on the radio and said this:
I will not be representing black Africans in my
consistency/county because they are aggressive and bad mannered people (22 Nov
2011).
This
statement caused a huge uproar from pro immigrant and anti racism groups. He
later resigned from his post but continued to be a councillor and member of his
party. Christine Bohan writing on the Guardian, considering his statements,
the situation, and the economy the country, fears a social tension and unrest
in the country. Like a time bomb. Thousands of people commented on local media
supporting the mayor’s statement. In a surprising manner, the majority of the
feedbacks were anti- black African sentiments that cannot be expected from a 21st
century democratic and integrated society and nation, putting the small number of black residents of the nation
in total fear and vulnerability. Xenophobia against black Africans being
legitimised by an elected state official. This is what they call “institutional
racism” and ‘’racist state’’, Dominican Republic is a good example of State
Racism , today’s Dominican Republic employs a de facto system of separatism for children and grandchildren of Haitians and black
Dominicans, denying them birth certificates, education and access to health care. People living in a racist state can
move to a non-racial state and claim protection under the 1951 UN Convention.
Last
week (23 Nov 2011),
news broke out. Relates to racism and insult. The Daily Telegraph reported this.
A top Russian female newsreader has offensively showed US
President Barack Obama her middle finger during a live newscast.
The report states that Tatyana Limanova, an award-winning senior newsreader, REN TV was later sacked by the station. "On 14 November during the 'News 24' programme the
presenter Limanova made an unacceptable gesture that was a synonym for an
offensive expression," it said in a statement. Although the station stated
that her middle finger was not intended to the President but to her co-workers
in the studio, the over 1523 Comments overtly
showed the cover racism that remains undertone. Racism and bigotry were little
evident in the mainstream media since the liberation movements of the 1960s and
end of Apartheid in South Africa. Although it existed to a certain scale, it
was not as glaringly rampant and public as it is now.
According to the United
Nations Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,
the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any
distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race,
colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin
that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition,
enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political,
economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
In
both the above cases, including our Ethiopia, aspects, and descriptions of the
above definition has been portrayed.
Black
The election of the first African American President, Barack
Obama to lead the most powerful nation in the world, was considered by many as good
event in ‘bringing integration’. It surely did so. However, as time went and
his hype starts to die out, the covert feelings of people began to surface.
Jews, blacks, Irish, Asians, and many more minorities have been victims of
racism. The case of blacks is extreme. Division and hate based on the colour of
the skin is the prime case of racism in today’s world. If you go to India,
Ethiopia, and/or Western Europe the darker, the skin you have, the higher you
experience racism and bigotry.
Since the first racist statements of Western philosophers
such as Hume, Kant and Hegel, racism, and colour discrimination have enjoyed
their place in the academic circles and public discourse. I would say, it is
partly the role of these philosophers that has created this world of racism and
superiority.
In the 19th century, the German philosopher Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel declared
"Africa is no historical part of the world." Hegel further claimed
that blacks had no "sense of personality; their spirit sleeps, remains
sunk in itself, makes no advance, and thus parallels the compact,
undifferentiated mass of the African continent" (On Blackness Without
Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany, Boston: C.W. Hall,
1982). Scottish philosopher and economist David Hume said, "I am apt to suspect the
Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a
civilised nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in
action or speculation. No ingenious manufacture among them, no arts, no
sciences." German philosopher Immanuel Kant stated: "The yellow Indians do
have a meagre talent. The Negroes are far below them, and at the lowest point
are a part of the American people."
These illiterate and unphilosophical comments had planted their virus
that gave basis for today’s nutters who come up with new versions of neo-hatism. Few black philosophers or
writers have argued against these views.
The earliest
philosopher and writer to write about the superiority of blacks was (Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr
al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri). The Afro-Arab author, aka Al-Jahiz (born in Basra, 781 – December 868/January 869) was an Arabic prose writer and author of works of literature, Mu'tazili theology, and
politico-religious polemics. His books entitled Superiority Of The Blacks To The Whites, and Risalat mufakharat al-sudan 'ala al-bidan
(Treatise on Blacks) he explained why the Zanj
were black in terms of environmental determinism and why and how blacks were superior to other races.
Since then, many other writers, philosophers, and anthropologists wrote in the
two extremes. Nevertheless, few had brought to the centre; integration,
multiculturalism, interculturalism and globalised worldviews; new world order. The
radical and extreme race debates have continued to win. Other sociologists and
researchers have argued that cause of colonialism and racism is scarcity of
resources. Colonisers or those in power treat the colonised or those who work
under them as ‘subhuman’ in order to continue their hegemony.
Every nation and
country has its relative own inter and intra ethnic racism and discrimination.
Even within homogenous, one-coloured, one-cultured nations, racism lives. Immigrants
and foreigners are discriminated and racially abused in many countries they
live as blow in. NEVERTHELESS, the racism against blacks is incomparable by any
standard. Although, there has been a decrease in level of racism worldwide
since the Second World War, racism against blacks in both Africa and the West
has not. Still it is mainly against blacks. However, why is it that racism is
against us? There is no black dominated nation in the world that is likely to
be a super power, in terms of economy, military, or intellectuals. The majority
of us, blacks live under the poverty threshold. Why be afraid of us then, if
fear emanates from the strength of the other (opponent). Why does one hate a
powerless, unabusive, helpless, and poor one? The contemporary world, most of
the extreme cases of racism has been recorded within Africa or Asia, all being
against black people. Indeed, most Western states have been able to adapt
themselves to an integrated and tolerant way of life with Africans. If there
were racial tensions or acts, they were mostly between minority immigrants
communities. The Western world had nurtured a democratic, humane treatment of
all races and ethnics offering the best kind of justice system that has little
race bias. Within this fairness and ‘equality’, black Africans continue to take
the hard times. Even if it is there, the contemporary racism of the West are
less detectable and hard to explore. When
will the Congolese think like a Congolese, the Algerian like an Algerian, the
Irish like an Irish and the German like a German than a black and white? When
will this interrelationship of colour change into humanity, opinion,
compassion, tolerance, equality, and respect? When will humanity be beyond
colour? Inflated racism leads to endless war.
Where
is the place for us?
Dawit Kebede, one of Ethiopia’s enduring and award winning
journalists wrote his piece entitled “Candidly, Whose country is this?” before
he was forced to seal his paper, Awaramba
Times and fled last week. In the article, he says that in the absence of
justice, democracy, and equality, citizens opt to leave their own country and
live as foreigners in another man’s land. Whose country is this then? Who will
feel ownership of it? Who has the right to govern and be governed? To whom do
we leave this country and go? Whose country is this? Damn yes, whose country is
Ethiopia? Whose country is the world? Who owns which land?
A journalist from the now defunct newspaper, Addis Neger,
asked this same philosophical and fundamental question once. I ask myself that
same question, whose country is Ethiopia, whose country is this European
country that I am living in now? Whose country is each country?
A social policy expert once suggested to me during a
conversation in a pub that all these things are social constructions. We
constructed them to be so. It is a result of perceived social reality. Who
created citizenship and when? This indistinguishable concept of citizenship
resulted in dividing people according to races, class, and border, thus passports.
Why should not there be such a thing as
"Citizen of the planet" as none of us own any country and land? Well,
had we this thing in our mind there would not have been a place for racism, I
suppose.
Some part of it is yes a result of social constructivism
however, principally; people of African origin have remained less of since the
days of colonialism due to external conspiracies and their own faults. As HIM
Hailesellasie said once the cause of racism is “economic inequality” and unless
nations achieve equality and become better off, class based citizenship is
scraped, there will be “war”.
Today, like yesterday, if you were of a different colour, say
black, you would take the brunt of discrimination, racism, suspicion, bully,
and what have you is racially discriminatory and disrespectful. The
perpetrators would not know who you are, how wealthy you are, decent, elegant
you are, educated you are, important you are to the peace of the world; they
label you by the colour of your skin. When will this truly end?
Supporters and members
of the Meles regime in Ethiopia accuse freedom fighters in the Diaspora, as
fake fighters who want to bring change sitting the cafes of Washington through their
laptops. This metaphor is used to describe the West as the heaven for
foreigners and had they been real fighters, they would have lived and fought
from the bushes of Ethiopia like them. Nevertheless, they make a big mistake.
Life in the West is not easy for a foreigner; those who live it know it. They do
not know that fighting from the bush of your motherland is easier than the
hustle and bustle of the West. Fighting for a change from a distant place, the West
is much tougher and hard than fighting from the bushes of the homeland.
We have left Ethiopia to those who think Ethiopia is theirs
because they won the battle and hold the keys of leadership. People who are not
from the ethnic group of the ruling regime find themselves as second and third
citizens in their own ancestors land/ planet of humans. If you are treated as an
alien in your own birthplace, you chose to relocate and be a second citizen in
another man’s land that you deem would be better than the original. What would
you say when this second country of sanctuary that you went to dehumanizes you
in turn just because you are of a different colour. Where is the place for
us??? Where should we live without bigotry? Where is the best place for a black
person? Should we/I fight for the liberation of my/our poor country or the
equality and respect of blackness? Which
one precedes?
I believe that white men should be white,
yellow men should be yellow, and black men should be black in the great
panorama of races, until each and every race by its own initiative lifts itself
up to the common standard of humanity, as to compel the respect and
appreciation of all, and so make it possible for each one to stretch out the
hand of welcome without being able to be prejudiced against the other because
of any inferior and unfortunate condition. (The Philosophy and Opinions of
Marcus Garvey or Africa for the Africans, 1923).
I am planning to relocate. Please people; help me in finding
a place where I will not be bigoted due to my colour or opinions. Recommend me
a place of relative egalitarianism!!!
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