Racism

From the nation’s harsh immigration policy – which its Prime Minister has attempted to export to the EU – to the proposed closure of indigenous communities, 2015 has not been a good year for Australia’s human rights reputation.

The face of this shame is Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who has become an easy target for comedy, with the satirical current affairs show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver making popular segments that mock the world leader.

Oliver himself has described Abbott as "a car crash of a human being", his flaws ripe for comedy.

The Prime Minister has certainly become an easy target. The man who won’t approve gay marriage despite having a lesbian sister, and enforces the harshest border policy in the world despite being a migrant himself is not looked upon kindly by international media.

So what kind of population is he leading?

How Aussies see themselves

A 2013 report from the University of Western Sydney titled Challenging Racism found that 87% of Australians believe in the benefits of cultural and racial diversity. From the repealing of the While Australia legislation to the enactment of the Racial Discrimination Act passed in 1975, the lucky country has come a long way. The Mapping Social Cohesion report from the same year showed that Australians overwhelmingly see themselves as “kind, caring and friendly”. So why do foreign perceptions negate this?

How the world sees Australia

Type “Why are Australians” in to Google and, if you wait a second, the autofill will complete your sentence: “Why are Australians so racist?”

On BBC News: Australian Football League (AFL) star Adam Goodes says he is taking time off, as a row over racism in the game shows no sign of dying down.

That’s right, enough people have asked Google this question that it is now the question Google suggests first.

We are all, of course, poor at judging ourselves, but it seems there are plenty of other people keen on finding out exactly how Australia has earned its reputation for racism, one that sits so sharply in contrast of how Australian nationals see themselves.

Indigenous rights threatened

Indigenous Australians have faced a long history of oppression at the hands of colonisation, from the Rabbit-Proof Fence to stolen generations, poorer quality of life and life expectancy, to lack of representation.

This year the struggle of Indigenous Australians played out on the world stage as protests took place around the globe against the proposed closure of rural Aboriginal communities.

The closures would result from the cutting-off of basic services in a bid to save costs. But it would also force indigenous people off their ancestral land, to which they hold a sacred connection.

After Tony Abbott said that Australian taxpayers should not have to subsidise the Aboriginal “lifestyle choice”, human rights activists, as well as ordinary Australians, took to the streets in protest. The issue remains unresolved.

Another indigenous issue currently playing out in the popular discourse is the display of Aboriginal culture during Australian Football League (AFL) matches.

Prominent indigenous AFL player and former Australian of the Year Adam Goodes has been consistently booed during his play in this year’s matches, following an incident where a 13-year-old crowd member called him an ape and he called her out for the racial slur. She was removed from the stadium and, although he refused to press charges, Goodes has been criticised for calling out such a young fan.

Since then, Goodes has been vocal about indigenous rights and the need for them to be supported by the sports league.

But this season, every time Goodes gets the ball during game-play, boos are heard throughout the crowd, no matter which part of Australia the match is taking place in.

Read on fairplanet: AUSTRALIA PREPARES TO SHUT DOWN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

At the end of July, the debate gained new momentum as another indigenous player, Lewis Jetta, performed a spear-throwing dance in response to the crowd’s hounding of Goodes. He told media he had done this in support of his teammate and their shared cultural cause.

But many took offense, saying the performance was threatening – although Jetta was throwing an imaginary spear.

This led supporters to ask: does an imaginary spear pose a greater threat than racism?

Meanwhile, Goodes continues to suffer abuse in his very public workplace – a fellow sportsman has even suggested he be deported, despite the 40,000 years his people have lived on Australian soil. Deported back to where, exactly?

Immigration policy shame

Indigenous affairs are not the only racial issue in Australia. Ironically, while the Abbott administration fights a native fire in one direction, it also fights a foreign one on the other side. If it’s not indigenous people or foreigners, then who really is welcome in Australia?

Australia’s Stop the Boats policy is among the harshest in the world, promising that no person seeking asylum in Australia who arrives by boat will ever be resettled there. It’s the policy Abbott was elected on in 2013.

Not allowing asylum seekers to claim asylum is in breach of international laws, and yet Australia continues to shift responsibility, making deals with poorer nearby nations to detain the asylum seekers on behalf on Australia for indefinite periods of time.

From the article Racism: An Ugly Truth in Australia on axisoflogic.com

Fear-mongering pervades the media landscape, describing asylum seekers as a burden that Australia needs to rid itself of. Claims of child abuse in detention centres abound, while doctors treating asylum seekers are threatened with jail time if they report abuse.

Press are prevented from reporting from the detention centres, and in Nauru, where many asylum seekers are being held, Facebook was recently shut down – the channel these people had been using to report on their own living conditions.

The reports of abuse, maltreatment and neglect are pervasive and threaten to permanently tarnish Australia’s international standing.

I’ll Ride With You

Sometimes, though, there is hope in a hashtag.

Last December a man took 18 people hostage in a Sydney café, and demanded that an ISIS flag be delivered to him, aligning himself to the extremist terrorist movement.

During the crisis, some Australians expressed concern that this could force an increase in violence and intimidation towards Muslims in Australia, disconnected as they are with ISIS. One woman wrote on social media that she had removed her head covering, hoping to more easily blend in with the public on her commute home from work.

This sparked the use of the #illridewithyou hashtag. People would tweet their public transport route with the hashtag, thereby offering to ride with anyone who felt threatened.

This display of solidarity on a dark day for Australia gives hope that there is room for change in the lucky country. As much as we can say Australian policy is racist, it’s the individuals that make up a culture and drive social change.

As Jermain Raffington, a black professional basketball player, grew up in Germany, he lacked role models with whom he could identify. Therefore Jermain and his wife Laurel started the project "Schwarz-Rot-Gold" and embarked on a journey to find these role models, for their own children and for all other black Germans to feel inspired to pursue their goals.

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.”
― Audre Lorde

THEODOR WONJA MICHAEL was born in 1925 in Berlin. He is one of the few black German survivors of the Nazi era. After the war, he worked as actor, journalist and official of the Federal Intelligence Service. 

HADNET TESFAI studied political science and Arabic and holds a Master's degree in North American studies. She began her career as a television presenter, among others, for the music channel MTV Germany (2008 to 2010). 

PATRICK MUSHATSI-KAREBA is a Media Executive with profound background in music, digital distribution, media partnerships, product launch and development. Since 2008 he works for the Apple GmbH as iTunes Head Of Music GSA, Italy & PAN Europe.

Since June 2009 SYLVIE NANTCHA is the first African-German councilor of the conservative party CDU in Freiburg. From 2009 to 2013, she was the first Afro-German CDU regional board member in Baden-Wurttemberg and in Germany. 

MARIE NEJAR is a Franco-German singer and actress. She played as black extra in UFA movies during the time of National Socialism. After the end of her career she got an education as a nurse. In this profession, she worked until her retirement. Video soon available!

South Africa experienced a spate of brutal and horrific xenophobic violence against foreign nationals in April 2015. The attacks broke out in the Isipingo and Kwa Mashu townships in Durban before spreading to the volatile townships of Primrose and Alexandria in Johannesburg.

The violence mostly affected nationals from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Nigeria, Somalia and Ethiopia who had fled the political and economic crises in their home countries.

I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a White man's court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and at home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice. - Nelson Mandela

In what seemed like the scenes of a horror movie, the violent mob searched for foreigners in the high density slum residences and in the central business district of Durban. They lit up many of the shacks belonging to foreigners. Those foreigners that were captured were subjected to horrific beatings which led to several deaths and left many injured.

Although the actual number of the foreigners that died remains unknown, the authorities have relied on the police figures which claim that only eight people died. Many of the accounts from victims and eye witnesses suggest that a larger number of casualties are highly probable.

Tinevimbo Shoko, a Zimbabwean who resided in the Kwa Mashu township when the violence broke out believes that more than eight people met their deaths during this tragic period.

“A lot of people died in the shacks in Isipingo and Kwa Mashu townships here in Durban,” lamented Shoko.

Other eye witnesses maintain that a greater number of people than that which was reported was both shot and hacked to death in Pinetown and other surrounding areas.

“A lot of people were struck with machetes and knives. More than ten people were shot by the attackers in Pinetown. Those who were lucky managed to be rushed to hospitals and survived,” said Sikhumbuzo Sigola, a Zimbabwean immigrant living in Isipingo, Durban.

“The attackers came into the area and asked if any foreigners lived in our compound. They commanded all the locals (South Africans) to leave so that they could ‘fix’ us for being in their country. They thrashed a lot of people and burnt our dwellings,” narrated a traumatised Shoko.

In interviews with Fairplanet, the victims claimed that a lot of people were killed and tortured but that their cases had not been recorded by the police and the media.

The xenophobic perpetrators even unleashed their terror on fellow South Africans who harboured foreign nationals in their compounds.

“The attackers warned us against hiding the foreigners in our houses," related a distraught Duduzile Mkize, a South African national residing in the most volatile township of Kwa Mashu in Durban, South Africa.

“Those who dared protect their foreign relatives and friends were beaten and had their dwelling shacks (most poor South African urban dwellers reside in plastic shacks where the violence was more widespread) burnt by the mobs,” explained Mkize.

“We did not sleep at home for more than two weeks, we were afraid the attackers would kill us since I worked for a Malawian family. My children did not go school and for our safety we went to our rural home,” Mkize further recounted her ordeal.

The xenophobic attacks sent shivers down the spines of even those that were in South Africa legally such as tertiary students.

A Zimbabwean tertiary student studying in Durban, Gugulethu Mlilo* (Not her real name) said the situation was so bad that even students feared for their lives.

“We stayed in our rooms on campus for more than two weeks as we were afraid that the violence could rapidly spread to campus. We avoided making use of public transport since the attackers were stopping and searching all public commuter buses for foreigners,” said Mlilo

Many of the survivors of the attacks cannot go back to their former settlements as they fear for their lives and have since been accommodated in different places on the farms surrounding Durban and Johannesburg.

Why xenophobia?

South Africa has witnessed a number of xenophobic attacks since 2008. Xenophobia is a fear of or hatred for foreigners. The recent attacks have led to a canny nicknaming of the phenomena within the context of South Africa as ‘Afrophobia’, that is the fear of and hatred for Africans not of South African origin. The locals blame foreigners for taking away their jobs and women as well as for the high youth unemployment and widespread criminal activities.

The recent bout of xenophobic violence that broke out in the Kwazulu-Natal province of South Africa has been linked to the utterances by the influential and well-respected Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini.

While addressing his followers in Kwazulu-Natal, the king told foreigners to go back to their countries.

“When foreigners look at them (South Africans) they will say let us exploit the nation of idiots. As I speak, you find their unsightly goods hanging all over shops, they dirty our streets. We cannot even recognise which shop is which, there are foreigners everywhere.... As king of the Zulu nation...I will not keep quiet when our country is led by people who have no opinion. It is time to say something. We ask foreign nationals to pack their belongings and go back to their countries”, said the Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini to the applause of his audience.

“I know it is hard for other politicians to challenge this, because they are after their votes. Please forgive me but this is my responsibility, I must talk, I cannot wait for five years to say this,” he added.

Reactions from neighbouring countries

The attacks on foreign nationals received condemnation from neighbouring countries. South African businesses in Mozambique and Malawi closed down in retaliation for weeks due to threats from the citizens in these countries. The diplomatic rupture

between South Africa and Nigeria erupted again with the former recalling their ambassador in protest.

The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who is also the chairman of the African Union (AU) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) described the attacks on foreigners as shocking and disgusting.

"I want to express our sense of shock and disgust ... The act of treating other Africans in that horrible way can never be condoned by anyone," said Mugabe while addressing scores of people at Zimbabwe’s heroes acre during the country’s independence celebrations.

"And whether these are followers of the Zulu king Zwelithini or the followers of some other misled members of the South African community ... that must never happen again, never happen again in South Africa or any other country," rebuked Mugabe.

Public Relations

The South African minister of home affairs, Malusi Gigaba, was reported in the South African Mail and Guardian as acknowledging that the xenophobic attacks had created a rift between South Africa and her neighbours across the African continent and beyond.

"The international community must not view South Africa as a xenophobic and Afro-phobic country.... And Africa in particular must not think that we hate fellow Africans so much that we are prepared to do the worst to cause them harm. We are taking steps to address this," said Gigaba.

During the year 2013, racist groups conducted at least 360 demonstrations in the country, which they chanted hideous racist slogans including the calls for massacre and forced repatriation of minorities. Racist groups have been spreading their messages both nationally and internationally through disseminating the video recordings of demonstrations among the internet. Although some members of racist groups have faced criminal prosecution for their misconducts, no case was ruled by court as an act of racial discrimination.

Moreover, no public officials and politicians, who made discriminatory remarks against minorities, have been sanctioned properly. Systematic discrimination against minorities can increase the risk of targeted violence and atrocity crimes. Ethnic Koreans, who have resided in Japan for generations since the colonial period, have suffered from structural discrimination such as the denial of the right to vote and the restrictions on access to public service jobs. Regrettably, the Government of Japan has strengthened institutionalised discrimination against ethnic Koreans.

In February 2010, the Government purposely excluded Korean schools from its new programme to make the high school education free of charge (“tuition waiver programme”). The right to education of ethnic Korean children to learn own language, history and traditional culture has been denied by the Government. Racist groups and individuals interpreted such attitude of the Government as an official justification of the discrimination against ethnic Koreans.

To prevent violence and atrocity crimes against minorities, the adoption of comprehensive and specific legislation prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of national or ethnic origin, colour, language, religion as well as descent is essential. Anti-hate speech legislation should be designed to protect human rights of minorities and punish perpetrators in accordance with the international human rights law.

This is an excerpt from an oral statement at the 7th session of the Forum on Minority Issues by Taisuke Komatsu

London Street and Fine Artist Ben Slow's unique style of mixing Fine Art with urban surroundings illustrate his passion for finding meaning in his work, spreading a message, telling stories. 

That is why he joined forces with "Stand Up to Racism" campaigners Rashida Islam and Barbara Ntumy to raise the profile of this year's UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,  by attempting to paint as many walls as possible with Anti-Racist art work.

To make this happen a crowdfunding-campaign was initiated. With £ 1000 for materials and support for the demonstration on March 21st  "Street Art Stands Up to Racism" aims to get the project from London to Paris and New York.

Support this outstandingly creative project, which represents a street art credo by uniting urban art and political activism and help them to stand up to racism.

Australia has a unique history that has shaped the diversity of its peoples, their cultures and lifestyles today. Three major contributors to Australia's demographic make-up are a diverse Indigenous population, a British colonial past and extensive immigration from many different countries and cultures. Although the majority of the population are Australian born, more than 75% of Australians identified with an ancestry other than Australian in the 2011 Census. In all, Australians come from over 200 birthplaces which makes the population of about 23 million one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse populations in the world.

It is no wonder, then, that the Racism. No way! Project had to be established since a very early anti-racist and pro-diversity education becomes essential in a state with that many different people. First it began as an initiative in 1998 and was launched two years later by the then Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, Sir William Deane. Since then, the work of the project continues to be supported by the expertise of teachers, parents and curriculum officers throughout Australia.

You can support the Racism. No way! Project by donating or contribute via an online pledge.

In early March 2014 the students called for a very similar photo session on the Oxford campus.

Until now, more than 90 students uploaded their photos on the blog. Many of them have an immigrant background, but are born British or have lived a long time in the UK. Nevertheless, they often experience situations where they are perceived as non-British or encounter other racial stereotypes. The quotes that they have chosen for their images display their experiences.

A university spokesman said Oxford was "committed to listening to our students and establishing what more can be done to ensure a fully inclusive experience" for all of them.

You can see the full selection here.

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, is announced annually on March 21st. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid pass laws. Proclaiming the day in 1966, the United Nations General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination!

Every year, March 21st marks “The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination”. In a joint initiative FAIRPLANET.org has teamed up with Tel Aviv-based SUAN.fm (Stayed Up All Night) to create the world’s longest crowdsourced mixtape in 2015.

602 people from 42 countries contributed 530 songs to give an universal statement against racism and discrimination. Click suan.fm/noracism to listen to the mixtape and check out the global Facebook event and Twitter #MixtapeAgainstRacism!

“Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.”
― Muhammad Ali

The concept of race was originally a product of the natural sciences, which attempted to scientifically underpin the dominant European cliché of a superior white race in the 19th century. The origin of racism goes back to the colonization of Africa and South America. The enslavement of millions of Africans to exploit the resources of the conquered territories solidified the European’s pretension of a moral and civilizational superiority of the "white race". 

In a short introductory video the Understanding Race project from the American Anthropological Association says race is a powerful idea and an enduring concept, invented by society. It has also fostered inequality and discrimination for centuries, as well as influencing how we relate to other human beings:

During the past 500-1000 years, racism on the part of Western powers toward non-Westerners has had a far more significant impact on history than any other form of racism (such as racism among Western groups or among Easterners, such as Asians, Africans, and others). The most notorious example of racism by the West has been slavery, particularly the enslavement of Africans in the so-called "New World" (slavery itself dates back thousands of years).

The origin of Racism

In the early 20th century, the "ethnographic World Maps" of German and French atlases showed a connection between the continents and the "races", who alleged lived there. According to these maps the human kind consists of races or populations which differ in certain hereditary characteristics from each other, and the most striking of which is the color of their skin.

In fact, contemporary scientists are not in agreement on whether race is a valid way to classify people. 

Read more about Population Genetics from the Stanford University

What may seem to be significant "racial" differences to some people - skin color, hair, facial shape - are not of much scientific significance. In fact, genetic differences within a so-called race may be greater than those between races.

The French-German broadcaster ARTE summerized the history of racism in a slide show:

BOOK TIP: Poverty is the new black by A Sivanandan

"Racism has always been both an instrument of discrimination and a tool of exploitation. But it manifests itself as a cultural phenomenon, susceptible to cultural solutions, such as multicultural education and the promotion of ethnic identities.

Tackling the problem of cultural inequality, however, does not by itself redress the problem of economic inequality. Racism is conditioned by economic imperatives, but negotiated through culture: religion, literature, art, science and the media.

... Once, they demonised the blacks to justify slavery. Then they demonised the “coloureds” to justify colonialism. Today, they demonise asylum seekers to justify the ways of globalism. And, in the age of the media, of spin, demonisation sets out the parameters of popular culture within which such exclusion finds its own rationale — usually under the guise of xenophobia, the fear of strangers."

A. Sivanandan, The Guardian, August 17, 2001