The State of (In)visible Black Europe:Race, Rights, and Politics in Europe--April 29, 2008
Today I read an interesting, unoffical report about about the state of Blacks in Europe based on the UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
(HELSINKI COMMISSION) HEARING:
THE STATE OF (IN)VISIBLE BLACK EUROPE: RACE, RIGHTS
& POLITICS. Adrianne George from Black Women in Europe posted this unofficial report on a Blacks in Europe discussion group started by Bill from Jewels in the Jungle fame. I read the report with great interest, and was relieved to see many of my thoughts reflected in it. Sometimes, no matter how much we know something to be true, it helps to see that not only do others know it, but that these truths are being documented and recognized.
I visited AfroSpear today, and was pleased to see that the report also warranted their attention. In this light, in this effort to disseminate this information to as wide an audience as possible, I too now offer this report for your perusal: The State of (In)visible Black Europe: Race, Rights and Politics and would like to take the time, for the record to reiterate some of the points raised in this unofficial report:
Rep. Alcee L. Hasting, D-Fl, and Chairman begins with these four, very important points:
1. "Recognizing and de-mythologizing the roles of blacks in European
history and modern day society has become a necessity, given the rise of
virulent anti-immigrant campaigns that target non-whites in the aftermath of
9/11 and the London bombings. Whether blacks were forced or chose to assist in
Europe's development, they did play a role that should be noted."
He continues, "As globalization continues to bring the world closer together, how European countries choose to define themselves and their peoples affects all of us and will most certainly affect how I am viewed, as well as others, and treated
within Europe's borders."
2. "...there are a number of
similarities between my experiences as a black American and those of black
Europeans."
3. "The third goal of this hearing is to then develop
partnerships with those overseas committed to addressing these problems. Too
often we highlight the problems within countries without noting the efforts that
are being made, be they government, civil society or even the private sector.
The OSCE high commissioner on national minorities, as well as the EU
fundamental rights agency, has compiled reports on European countries' positive
initiatives, ranging from affirmative action to housing and education and
desegregation."
4. "The fourth point, which requires us to be honest with ourselves, is that there a number of very real barriers to addressing inclusion goals for black Europeans, ranging from the
small size of some communities to a need for differences in approach for recent
migrant versus more established communities."
Mr. Joe Frans, Vice Chair of the United Nations Working Group on People of African Descent adds, "I'd like to begin this brief presentation by paying tribute to
the millions of African people abducted and enslaved and to those who sacrificed
their lives in the fighting for national liberation in Africa and in the
diaspora. They have inspired us, and they have inspired our thinking and indeed
generated our current desire to contribute as a diaspora to the development of
Africa and to the people of humanity as a whole.
"The African diaspora consists of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective
of their citizenship and nationality, and who are willing to contribute to the
development of the continent of Africa and the building of Africans.
"Today there are over 3.3 million people of African descent living in Europe. This is according to the Eurostat, but we know that it is much more than that.
He continues, "And yet at closer look, Africans are contributing to the development of Europe's identity and European identity and of the African continent itself. Some estimate that the Africans working abroad send home some $45 billion a year. That's bigger than the total development aid and also bigger than the total current direct investment in Africa.
"A report presented by the British Trade Union Congress had views
that at every level of working life, many black workers are being denied
training opportunities, despite often being better qualified than their
counterparts.
"Discriminatory practices at work are still preventing too
many workers in Europe with African descent from fulfilling their potential.
However, statistics in the public domain to support arguments of violence and
discrimination in the workplace in Europe are embarrassingly lacking. Without
official statistics, effective responses cannot be devised.
And again, he reiterates a point which I whole-heartedly agree with: "I think black Europe could benefit from that kind of dialogue on how our brothers and sisters here in the United States have done and share the experiences and together help to create and formulate new ideas and help structure a new European identity.
I recommend reading the report in its entirety, but before I sign off, I want to share the following with you which was given by MR. GARY YOUNGE, a BRITISH COLUMNIST,
from THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER:
"Chairman Hastings, distinguished members of the
commission, thank you very much for inviting me and convening this meeting.
I want to start with a personal story, which is about my mother, who came from
London from Barbados in the early 60s with a British passport and two A levels
in European history and English literature. She could quote from "A Winter's
Tale," ...
"And before she left the islands, she was
given orientation classes to prepare for her life in Britain. And they told her
to wear flannelette pajamas and a woolen hat, but they said nothing about people
shouting abuse at her in the street.
"My mother came of her own free will,
but she also came because she was asked by the British government, who paid her
way. And she was asked to build one of the nation's most cherished
institutions, the National Health Service. Racism and cold aside, two of the
things that would strike her when she arrived were that most British people seem
to know very little about their own country and even less about the nations
their country had occupied.
"In the words of Gilbert, a Jamaican immigrant
in Andrea Levy's award-winning novel "Small Island," "I had just one question.
Let me ask the mother country just this one simple question, 'How come England
did not know me?'"
"Europe did have a civil
rights movement, and it took place at roughly the same time as the American
civil rights movement, and around the same issues, by and large -- the right to
vote, opposition to segregation and a more equal share of resources.
"But it did not take place in Europe. For the most part, it primarily took place
abroad in Algeria, Ghana, India, Mozambique, Congo and so on. That's left the
local white indigenous population in Europe with little understanding of a sense
of historical responsibility to those whom it once colonized.
"The screams of the oppressed tortured by colonialism were actually continents away and neither heard nor heeded at home. So it's been little in the way of moral
reckoning with our past. And when it comes to domestic matters, there is little
in the way of historical literacy that would explain either European power or
the presence of non-white people in Europe.
"In the words of the venerable
director of the Institute of Race Relations in Britain, Ambalavaner Sivanandan,
"We are here because you were there. But if you didn't know you were there, how
could you understand why we are here?"
"Ignorance can and has led to
severe racial antagonism, which over the past 20 years has reinstalled itself as
a permanent fixture in European political culture. Fascism, or at least a
xenophile-based racist and nationalist trait that (inaudible) allow
manifestation, has returned as a mainstream ideology in Europe.
"Its advocates not only run in elections, but win them. They control local councils
and sit in parliament. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard
right nationalist and anti-immigrant policies regularly receive more than 10
percent of the vote. In Norway it's 22 percent; in Sweden, 29.
"In Austria, the Ravenian (ph) government; in Switzerland, the anti-immigrant Swiss
People's Party, which is the largest party, is still in government, and
(inaudible) after recent elections, they're about to return to government again.
Now, a central point of these parties' platforms rests on the notion that
each European nation is its own mono-racial and mono-cultural unit into which
non-white people have only recent come and must on entry either conform or be
banished.
"This, of course, is hinged on an entirely mythical notion of
wide European uniformity, historical illiteracy about the length of time that
non-white people have been in Europe, and a mistaken desire to defend
Europeanness against the uncivilized and the unwashed.
"Conversely to this trend on a daily level of cultural interaction, it is actually difficult to imagine a continent without non-white people. In literature, music and sport particularly, we have become so inextricably intertwined into the national
fabric that to unpick us would make the whole cloth unravel.
"Like many, my mother, who took a
low-paid, steady job, the industries that non-white people came into depended
largely on the countries they went to and came from, but they took the jobs that
the local people did not want. And the industries and sectors our parents went
into half for the most shrunk or been decimated, leaving relatively little
opportunities for their children."
Particularly disturbing in this report was the seemingly tolerant nature racism seems to experience in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. While I feel any affront to any human being is an affront to humanity--I do think it is necessary to speak in terms of Race over here in Europe. One of the most frustrating experiences for me has been the stonewall any discussion on Race seems to warrant here in Denmark. People love to point out that racism does not happen here as it plays out in the U.S. When Younge is asked about the role of media here in Europe, he says:
"It has generally been quite inflammatory. The best
example, really, is the Jyllands-Posten in Denmark. Now, some of the
back-story, which is they published these cartoons of Mohammed. What was not
widely known is that the year and a half before they had turned down a similar
set of cartoons about Jesus at Easter, because they say it would upset the
Christian leadership.
"And it can still sell papers. It had to be packaged
in a certain way, but asylum seekers in particular. And the framing of
non-white people as immigrants and criminals is still very common.
"The underlying message from the media is that there is an immigrant problem, but
immigrant doesn't necessarily mean people who moved only recently.
Conversely, for almost every trend that you can say is getting worse, you will
find a kind of undercurrent, which is not as strong, but nonetheless
encouraging. It's been getting better.
"Suddenly, in Britain, which is the
journalistic culture I know best, there is an increase in non-white journalists.
There's been an increase in Muslim journalists in particular.
"I believe
that is becoming true in other countries. And also, if you take the wider media
-- particularly if you take literature -- there has been a kind of real
renaissance of black writing in Europe, which is also encouraging in an age
where actually lots of people don't read newspapers."
I have found that most people don't like to be called racist, but in this fear, we end up closing ourselves up from examining the actual actions that are, on closer inspection, racist. While I don't think that those who published the Muhammed cartoons would ever call themselves racist--I think their actions, seen from a broader, more geo-political context (meaning: if these people had a greater sense of the world around them, how countries have interplayed off each other historically, including its people and how cultural imperialism plays a part) then they too would realize why the world, and not least of all myself, was so ashamed at what they had done.
I'd like to give a very special thank you to all the other bloggers I have been connected to through this site: without all of your support, I certainly wouldn't still be here, doing this.
the lab
(HELSINKI COMMISSION) HEARING:
THE STATE OF (IN)VISIBLE BLACK EUROPE: RACE, RIGHTS
& POLITICS. Adrianne George from Black Women in Europe posted this unofficial report on a Blacks in Europe discussion group started by Bill from Jewels in the Jungle fame. I read the report with great interest, and was relieved to see many of my thoughts reflected in it. Sometimes, no matter how much we know something to be true, it helps to see that not only do others know it, but that these truths are being documented and recognized.
I visited AfroSpear today, and was pleased to see that the report also warranted their attention. In this light, in this effort to disseminate this information to as wide an audience as possible, I too now offer this report for your perusal: The State of (In)visible Black Europe: Race, Rights and Politics and would like to take the time, for the record to reiterate some of the points raised in this unofficial report:
Rep. Alcee L. Hasting, D-Fl, and Chairman begins with these four, very important points:
1. "Recognizing and de-mythologizing the roles of blacks in European
history and modern day society has become a necessity, given the rise of
virulent anti-immigrant campaigns that target non-whites in the aftermath of
9/11 and the London bombings. Whether blacks were forced or chose to assist in
Europe's development, they did play a role that should be noted."
He continues, "As globalization continues to bring the world closer together, how European countries choose to define themselves and their peoples affects all of us and will most certainly affect how I am viewed, as well as others, and treated
within Europe's borders."
2. "...there are a number of
similarities between my experiences as a black American and those of black
Europeans."
3. "The third goal of this hearing is to then develop
partnerships with those overseas committed to addressing these problems. Too
often we highlight the problems within countries without noting the efforts that
are being made, be they government, civil society or even the private sector.
The OSCE high commissioner on national minorities, as well as the EU
fundamental rights agency, has compiled reports on European countries' positive
initiatives, ranging from affirmative action to housing and education and
desegregation."
4. "The fourth point, which requires us to be honest with ourselves, is that there a number of very real barriers to addressing inclusion goals for black Europeans, ranging from the
small size of some communities to a need for differences in approach for recent
migrant versus more established communities."
Mr. Joe Frans, Vice Chair of the United Nations Working Group on People of African Descent adds, "I'd like to begin this brief presentation by paying tribute to
the millions of African people abducted and enslaved and to those who sacrificed
their lives in the fighting for national liberation in Africa and in the
diaspora. They have inspired us, and they have inspired our thinking and indeed
generated our current desire to contribute as a diaspora to the development of
Africa and to the people of humanity as a whole.
"The African diaspora consists of people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective
of their citizenship and nationality, and who are willing to contribute to the
development of the continent of Africa and the building of Africans.
"Today there are over 3.3 million people of African descent living in Europe. This is according to the Eurostat, but we know that it is much more than that.
He continues, "And yet at closer look, Africans are contributing to the development of Europe's identity and European identity and of the African continent itself. Some estimate that the Africans working abroad send home some $45 billion a year. That's bigger than the total development aid and also bigger than the total current direct investment in Africa.
"A report presented by the British Trade Union Congress had views
that at every level of working life, many black workers are being denied
training opportunities, despite often being better qualified than their
counterparts.
"Discriminatory practices at work are still preventing too
many workers in Europe with African descent from fulfilling their potential.
However, statistics in the public domain to support arguments of violence and
discrimination in the workplace in Europe are embarrassingly lacking. Without
official statistics, effective responses cannot be devised.
And again, he reiterates a point which I whole-heartedly agree with: "I think black Europe could benefit from that kind of dialogue on how our brothers and sisters here in the United States have done and share the experiences and together help to create and formulate new ideas and help structure a new European identity.
I recommend reading the report in its entirety, but before I sign off, I want to share the following with you which was given by MR. GARY YOUNGE, a BRITISH COLUMNIST,
from THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER:
"Chairman Hastings, distinguished members of the
commission, thank you very much for inviting me and convening this meeting.
I want to start with a personal story, which is about my mother, who came from
London from Barbados in the early 60s with a British passport and two A levels
in European history and English literature. She could quote from "A Winter's
Tale," ...
"And before she left the islands, she was
given orientation classes to prepare for her life in Britain. And they told her
to wear flannelette pajamas and a woolen hat, but they said nothing about people
shouting abuse at her in the street.
"My mother came of her own free will,
but she also came because she was asked by the British government, who paid her
way. And she was asked to build one of the nation's most cherished
institutions, the National Health Service. Racism and cold aside, two of the
things that would strike her when she arrived were that most British people seem
to know very little about their own country and even less about the nations
their country had occupied.
"In the words of Gilbert, a Jamaican immigrant
in Andrea Levy's award-winning novel "Small Island," "I had just one question.
Let me ask the mother country just this one simple question, 'How come England
did not know me?'"
"Europe did have a civil
rights movement, and it took place at roughly the same time as the American
civil rights movement, and around the same issues, by and large -- the right to
vote, opposition to segregation and a more equal share of resources.
"But it did not take place in Europe. For the most part, it primarily took place
abroad in Algeria, Ghana, India, Mozambique, Congo and so on. That's left the
local white indigenous population in Europe with little understanding of a sense
of historical responsibility to those whom it once colonized.
"The screams of the oppressed tortured by colonialism were actually continents away and neither heard nor heeded at home. So it's been little in the way of moral
reckoning with our past. And when it comes to domestic matters, there is little
in the way of historical literacy that would explain either European power or
the presence of non-white people in Europe.
"In the words of the venerable
director of the Institute of Race Relations in Britain, Ambalavaner Sivanandan,
"We are here because you were there. But if you didn't know you were there, how
could you understand why we are here?"
"Ignorance can and has led to
severe racial antagonism, which over the past 20 years has reinstalled itself as
a permanent fixture in European political culture. Fascism, or at least a
xenophile-based racist and nationalist trait that (inaudible) allow
manifestation, has returned as a mainstream ideology in Europe.
"Its advocates not only run in elections, but win them. They control local councils
and sit in parliament. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard
right nationalist and anti-immigrant policies regularly receive more than 10
percent of the vote. In Norway it's 22 percent; in Sweden, 29.
"In Austria, the Ravenian (ph) government; in Switzerland, the anti-immigrant Swiss
People's Party, which is the largest party, is still in government, and
(inaudible) after recent elections, they're about to return to government again.
Now, a central point of these parties' platforms rests on the notion that
each European nation is its own mono-racial and mono-cultural unit into which
non-white people have only recent come and must on entry either conform or be
banished.
"This, of course, is hinged on an entirely mythical notion of
wide European uniformity, historical illiteracy about the length of time that
non-white people have been in Europe, and a mistaken desire to defend
Europeanness against the uncivilized and the unwashed.
"Conversely to this trend on a daily level of cultural interaction, it is actually difficult to imagine a continent without non-white people. In literature, music and sport particularly, we have become so inextricably intertwined into the national
fabric that to unpick us would make the whole cloth unravel.
"Like many, my mother, who took a
low-paid, steady job, the industries that non-white people came into depended
largely on the countries they went to and came from, but they took the jobs that
the local people did not want. And the industries and sectors our parents went
into half for the most shrunk or been decimated, leaving relatively little
opportunities for their children."
Particularly disturbing in this report was the seemingly tolerant nature racism seems to experience in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. While I feel any affront to any human being is an affront to humanity--I do think it is necessary to speak in terms of Race over here in Europe. One of the most frustrating experiences for me has been the stonewall any discussion on Race seems to warrant here in Denmark. People love to point out that racism does not happen here as it plays out in the U.S. When Younge is asked about the role of media here in Europe, he says:
"It has generally been quite inflammatory. The best
example, really, is the Jyllands-Posten in Denmark. Now, some of the
back-story, which is they published these cartoons of Mohammed. What was not
widely known is that the year and a half before they had turned down a similar
set of cartoons about Jesus at Easter, because they say it would upset the
Christian leadership.
"And it can still sell papers. It had to be packaged
in a certain way, but asylum seekers in particular. And the framing of
non-white people as immigrants and criminals is still very common.
"The underlying message from the media is that there is an immigrant problem, but
immigrant doesn't necessarily mean people who moved only recently.
Conversely, for almost every trend that you can say is getting worse, you will
find a kind of undercurrent, which is not as strong, but nonetheless
encouraging. It's been getting better.
"Suddenly, in Britain, which is the
journalistic culture I know best, there is an increase in non-white journalists.
There's been an increase in Muslim journalists in particular.
"I believe
that is becoming true in other countries. And also, if you take the wider media
-- particularly if you take literature -- there has been a kind of real
renaissance of black writing in Europe, which is also encouraging in an age
where actually lots of people don't read newspapers."
I have found that most people don't like to be called racist, but in this fear, we end up closing ourselves up from examining the actual actions that are, on closer inspection, racist. While I don't think that those who published the Muhammed cartoons would ever call themselves racist--I think their actions, seen from a broader, more geo-political context (meaning: if these people had a greater sense of the world around them, how countries have interplayed off each other historically, including its people and how cultural imperialism plays a part) then they too would realize why the world, and not least of all myself, was so ashamed at what they had done.
I'd like to give a very special thank you to all the other bloggers I have been connected to through this site: without all of your support, I certainly wouldn't still be here, doing this.
the lab
Comments
My own personal experiences with prejudice and racism in Europe have been limited, partly because I choose to rise above it whenever possible and partly because I am quick to confront racists that stumble across my path with a severe combination of devastating verbal left and right hooks.
One thing about prejudice and racism in Europe that is important for Americans to understand is that you cannot make a one-to-one correlation between how it works here and how it works back in the States. The history of xenophobia and violence against minorities and members of different tribes and religious beliefs goes back for millenia in Europe and the adjoining North African and Middle Eastern countries.
Europeans are not a homogeneous group of people with a common history and culture as some may presume. It is a continent populated with people from 48 sovereign countries and territories, each with an individual history and culture and traditions. Despite the fact that their histories and cultures have interacted, conflicted, and overlapped down through the centuries the concept of being a 'European citizen' is a relatively new phenomenon (post-WWII).
Europe is still a "work in progess" as we can see with the struggles faced by the European Commission, the Council of the EU, and the European Parliament to reach agreements on ratifying an EU constitution and creating and enforcing EU laws. Dealing with Europeans from the standpoint of an "Auslander (outsider)" on issues of race, immigration, integration, politics, religion, education, fair job practices, and career opportunities is a very complex undertaking.
Europeans and European governments are in various stages of denial on many important issues including their respective national histories. Only 27 countries have been given the permission to join the inter-state governing body of the European Union. The EU Commissioners under pressure from key EU superstates have applied the brakes to new membership for the next several years. One of the main reasons why this was done is the fear that "non-European" values, cultural, and religious influences may negatively impact the European Union. This is especially true in the case of Turkey's decades-old bid to join the European Union, the first (and only) predominately Muslim country invited into the union.
Many new immigrants to Europe and even part-time foreign residents here on work or study visas are not well prepared to deal with some of the unsavory social norms and behaviors that are so deeply embedded into the hundreds of ethnic, cultural, and religious groups that define modern Europe today. The majority of Europe's 500+ million citizens, irrespective of their national origins, religious and ethnic backgrounds, or skin color, have also NOT been properly educated and prepared by their civic and political leaders to deal with these complex social issues.
I'm just holding up a little candle, trying to keep it lit in the fierce and changing winds of our time, for those who come after my generation. It is the young people, people like yourself, who will do a much better job at spreading the light of knowledge and understanding over our complex world.
Now getting back to our discussion about race, rights, and politics in Europe did you hear about the newly elected Mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno? People were celebrating his victory with chants of "il Duce! il Duce!", the same salute once lauded upon Italy's facist dictator Benito Mussolini. Time magazine online has an article about him published on April 29th:
Rightest Elected as Rome Mayor
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1735815,00.html
You always seem to amaze me with your posts invovling important topics of conversations that need to come to the forefront. Living here in Denmark and traveling around Europe for the last four months has taught me that racism, prejudice and ignorance are still rampant. People here, (Danes), make the assertion as if racism does not exist here because everyone loves to point the finger to the US to compare and constrast. Living here I think there needs to be more open dialogue in Europe in general about the vast human and civil rights violations that occur towards people of color, any color. I think it is a shame that people here in Denmark act as if wearing a hijab or any religous symbol is intolerable. Before coming here I thought the Danes were tolerant but I am not sure they know the meaning of the word. Intregration is also a hot topic issue that I have been stuyding which to me seems more like a conversation about integration. I am interested in looking to see how more of an open dialogue between Blacks in the US and Europe can help to target and alleviate the slow progression towards this types of issues.
Melgily