Racism in Africa

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[edit] Botswana

Since the mid-1990s the central government of Botswana has been trying to move Bushmen out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve even though the national constitution guarantees the Bushmen the right to live there in perpetuity. As of October 2005, the government has resumed its policy of forcing all Bushmen off their lands in the Game Reserve, using armed police and threats of violence or death.^[1] Many of the involuntarily displaced Bushmen live in squalid resettlement camps and some have resorted to prostitution and alcoholism, while about 250 others remain or have surreptitiously returned to the Kalahari to resume their independent lifestyle.^[2]

“How can you have a Stone Age creatures continue to exist in the age of computers?“ asked Botswana’s president Festus Mogae.^[3] A report released by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemns Botswana's treatment of the 'Bushmen' as racist.^[4][5]

[edit] Democratic Republic of Congo

On 5 July 1960, five days after the Congo gained independence from Belgium, the Force Publique garrison near Léopoldville mutinied against its white officers and attacked numerous European targets. This caused the fear amongst the approximately 100,000 whites still resident in the Congo and mass exodus from the country.^[6]

During the Congo Civil War, Pygmies were hunted down like game animals and eaten. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers. UN human rights activists reported in 2003 that rebels had carried out acts of cannibalism. Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, has asked the UN Security Council to recognise cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide. The Pygmies are believed to be the original inhabitants of the vast rainforests of Central Africa.^{[7][8][9][10]}

[edit] Ivory Coast

In the past recent years the Ivory Coast has seen a resurgence in ethnic tribal hatred and religious intolerance. In addition to the many victims among the various tribes of the northern and southern regions of the country that have perished in the ongoing conflict, foreigners residing or visiting the Ivory Coast have also been subjected to violent attacks. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the Ivory Coast government is guilty of fanning ethnic hatred for its own political ends.^[11]

In 2004, the Young Patriots of Abidjan, strongly nationalist organisation, rallied by the State media, plundered possessions of foreign nationals in Abidjan. Calls for violence against whites and non-Ivorians were broadcast on national radio and TV after the Young Patriots seized control of its offices. Rapes, beatings, and murders of white expatriates and local Lebanese followed. Thousands of expatriates and Lebanese fled. The attacks drew international condemnation.^[12][13]

[edit] Madagascar

Ethnic tensions in Madagascar often produce violent conflict between the highlanders and coastal peoples. The Merina people in particular are often the targets of violence especially during political campaigns to elect a new president.^[14]

[edit] Mauritania

Further information: Slavery in modern Africa

Slavery in Mauritania persists despite its abolition in 1980 and affects the descendants of black Africans abducted into slavery before generations, who live now in Mauritania as "black Moors" or haratin and who partially still serve the "white Moors", or bidhan, as slaves. The practice of slavery in Mauritania is most dominant within the traditional upper class of the Moors. For centuries, the so-called Haratin lower class, mostly poor black Africans living in rural areas, have been considered natural slaves by these Moors. Social attitudes have changed among most urban Moors, but in rural areas, the ancient divide is still very alive.^[15]

The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned people) are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages. Many descendants of the Beni Hassan tribes today still adhere to the supremacist ideology of their ancestors. This ideology has led to oppression, discrimination and even enslavement of other groups in the Mauritania.^[16]

According to some estimates, as many to 600,000 black Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour.^[17] Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.^[18]

[edit] Morocco

Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain during the reign of Berber dynasty of Almohads in the 12th century. Almohads gave a choice of either death or conversion to Islam, or exile.^{[citation needed]} Some, such the family of Maimonides, fled east to more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms.^[19][20] Jewish population were confined to mellahs in Morocco beginning from the 15th century. In cities, a mellah was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. In contrast, rural mellahs were separate villages inhabited solely by the Jews.^[21]

[edit] Niger

In October 2006, Niger announced that it would deport the Arabs living in the Diffa region of eastern Niger to Chad.^[22] This population numbered about 150,000.^[23] While the government was rounding Arabs in preparation for the deportation, two girls died, reportedly after fleeing government forces, and three women suffered miscarriages. Niger's government had eventually suspended a controversial decision to deport Arabs.^[24][25]

In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study has found that more than 800,000 people are still slaves, almost 8% of the population.^[26] .^[27] Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger and was finally criminalised in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International and Nigerian human-rights group, Timidria.^[28]

Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practiced by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic groups. The slave masters are mostly from the lighter-skinned nomadic tribes — the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs.^[29] It is especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria. In the region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed of slaves.^[30]

Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their black slaves during war raids into other peoples’ lands. War was then the main source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples.^[31][32]

[edit] South Africa

See History of South Africa in the apartheid era and South African farm attacks

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[edit] Sudan

See also: Racism in Sudan

In the Sudan, black African captives in the civil war were often enslaved, and female prisoners were often used sexually,^[33] with their Arab captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission.^[34] According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for US$50 apiece.^[35] In September, 2000, the U.S. State Department alleged that "the Sudanese government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs."^[36] Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the south is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.^[37]

The United States government's Sudan Peace Act of October 21, 2002 accused Sudan of genocide in an ongoing civil war which has cost more than 2,000,000 lives and has displaced more than 4,000,000 people since the war started in 1983.^[38]

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983-2005). The slaves are mostly Dinka people.^[39][40]

In 2004, it became widely known that there was an organised campaign by Janjaweed militias (nomadic Arab shepherds with the support of Sudanese government troops) to get rid of 80 black African groups from the Darfur region of western Sudan. These peoples include the Fur, Zaghawa and Massalit.^[41][42]

Mukesh Kapila (United Nations humanitarian coordinator) is quoted as saying: "This is more than just a conflict. It is an organised attempt [by Khartoum] to do away with a group of people. The only difference between Rwanda [in 1994] and Darfur now is the numbers of dead, murdered, tortured and raped involved"^{[43][44][45][46]} A July 14, 2007 article notes that in the past two months up to 75,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger crossed the border into Darfur. Most have been relocated by the Sudanese government to former villages of displaced non-Arab people. Some 2.5 million have now been forced to flee their homes after attacks by Sudanese troops and Janjaweed militia.^[47]

[edit] Tanzania

Slavery in Zanzibar. 'An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence. The log weighed 32 pounds, and the boy could only move by carrying it on his head.' Unknown photographer, c. 1890.

Prior to the 16th centry, the bulk of slaves exported from Africa were shipped from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula. Zanzibar became a leading port on this trade. Arab slave traders differed from European ones in that they would often conduct raiding expeditions themselves, sometimes penetrating deep into the continent. They also differed in that their market greatly preferred the purchase of female slaves over male ones. Zanzibar was once East Africa's main slave-trading port, and under Omani Arabs in the 19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were passing through the city each year.^[48]

David Livingstone wrote of the slave trade:

"To overdraw its evils is a simple impossibility.... We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path. [Onlookers] said an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer. We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead.... We came upon a man dead from starvation.... The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves."

Livingstone estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before ever reaching the slave markets of Zanzibar.^{[49][50][51][52]}

The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964 put an end to the local Arab dynasty. As many as 17,000 Arabs were massacred by the descendants of black African slaves, according to reports, and thousands of others were detained and their property either confiscated or destroyed.^[53][54]

[edit] Tunisia

The accession of the Almohade dynasty to the throne of the Maghreb provinces in 1146 proved very disastrous to the Jews of Tunis. Jews as well as Christians were compelled either to embrace Islam or to leave the country. Abd al-Mu'min's successors pursued the same course, and their severe measures resulted either in emigration or in forcible conversions. Soon becoming suspicious of the sincerity of the new converts, the Almohades compelled them to wear a special garb, with a yellow cloth for a head-covering.^[55]

Racist opinions occurred in the works of some Arab-Muslim historians and geographers: so in the 14th century AD, the Tunisian Ibn Khaldun could write:

- :"beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings." "...the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because (Negroes) have little that is (essentially) human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals..."^[56]

[edit] Uganda

Former British colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa have many citizens of South Asian descent. They were brought there by the British Empire from British India to do clerical work in Imperial service.^[57] The most prominent case being the ethnic cleansing of Indian (sometimes simple called "Asian") minority in Uganda by strongman dictator and human-rights violator Idi Amin.^[57].

The 1968 Committee on "Africanization in Commerce and Industry" in Uganda made far-reaching Indophobic proposals. A system of work permits and trade licenses was introduced in 1969 in order to restrict the role of Indians in economic and professional activities. Indians were segregated and discriminated against in all walks of life. After Amin came to power, he exploited these divisions to spread propaganda against Indians involving stereotyping and scapegoating the Indian minority. Indians were stereotyped as "only traders" and so "inbred" to their profession. Indians were attacked as "dukawallas" (an occupational term that degenerated into an anti-Indian slur during Amin's time).^[57].

In the 1970s Uganda and other East African nations implemented racist policies that targeted the Asian population of the region. Uganda under Idi Amin's leadership was particularly most virulent in its anti-Asian policies. In August 1972, Idi Amin declared what he called an "economic war", a set of policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly Indians born in the country, whose ancestors had come to Uganda when the country was still a British colony. [3] [4] Indians were stereotyped as "greedy, conniving", without any racial identity or loyalty but "always cheating, conspiring and plotting" to subvert Uganda. Amin used this propaganda to justify a campaign of "de-Indianization", eventually resulting in the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Uganda's Indian minority.^[57].

http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/uk-indians-taking-care-of-business/2006/03/07/1141701511987.html UK Indians taking care of business]</ref> Most of the expelled Indians settled in Britain.^[58] The forced expulsion of Uganda's entire Asian population attests to the persecution of Asian peoples residing in the country at the time. Today, Asian/Indian residents of Uganda continue to face marginalization being given an inferior status.

[edit] Zimbabwe/Rhodesia

Until majority rule in 1980, the minority white government of Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then called) practised institutionalised racism similar in most respects to the apartheid system in South Africa. White Rhodesians "lived in the best houses, owned most of the best land, enjoyed a high standard of living and controlled the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the means of coercion." (Godwin, P. & Hancock, I., 1993. Rhodesians never Die, Baobab Books, Harare, Zimbabwe.)

The laws enforcing racial segregation, however, were not always welcomed by the local white community. They were viewed as not only being racist, but expensive and unnecessary. This was highlighted in an incident, called "The Battle of the Toilets" in 1960, involving a new theatre that would be open to all races.

Twenty years after Independence, white Zimbabweans remained a market dominant minority through their continued ownership of the vast majority of arable land, the most valuable resource in a country like Zimbabwe where agriculture is the leading industry. In 2000, the government, arguing that the country's landownership patters were the result of longtime failure to address the legacies of colonialism and racism in Zimbabwean society, began a controversial land reform process directed at confiscating the land of the white resident farmers and redistributing it to the poor black majority. Mugabe, however, has come under heavy criticism and accusations of having apportioned land to supporters, doing so in a disorganized and anarchical manner. This was coupled with renewed criticisms (originally directed decades ago) that a comprehensive land reform has been long overdue. (Astrow, A., 1983, Zimbabwe: A revolution that lost its way?, Zed Books, London)

There were 270,000 whites in Zimbabwe (when the country was known as Rhodesia) in 1970. There are only a few thousand whites left in Zimbabwe today.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Racism by country

v • d • e Racism History of racism Apartheid • The Holocaust • Racism in the United States • Anti-racism • Civil rights movement Racist ideologies White supremacy • Black supremacy • Social Darwinism • Nazism • Aryanism Acts of racism Institutional racism • State racism • Racial profiling • Racism by country • Hate speech • Racial segregation • Stereotype • Scientific racism • Slavery • Crime of apartheid Racial violence Ethnic cleansing • Hate crime • Race war • Genocide • Lynching Racism against groups Native Americans • Arabs • Armenians • Blacks • Chinese • Iranians • Irish • Italians • Japanese • Jews • Mexicans • Poles • Roma people • South Asians • East Asians • Whites Racist groups Ku Klux Klan • Neo-Nazis • Grey Wolves • South African National Party • Nation of Islam Anti-racist groups and movements NAACP • Anti-Defamation League • Anti-Fascist Action • Civil Rights Movement • Southern Poverty Law Center • Searchlight