By: Damien Edenfield
On the 21st March, 1960 police began shooting upon protestors peacefully demonstrating against racially discriminatory apartheid laws in Sharpeville, South Africa. 69 died. Hundreds were injured. Six years later, in commemoration of their courageous struggle, the UN General Assembly declared this symbolic date the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, calling upon the international community to increase efforts to combat racial discrimination, and upon states to heed their obligations under human rights law, two of the most fundamental principles of which are equality and non-discrimination.
South Africa’s apartheid system has since been abolished, and across the world, similarly inspiring and courageous movements for racial equality have flourished. From the stunning resilience of the American civil rights movement to the belated realisation of native title rights in Australia. What’s more, both international and national legal structures designed to combat racism have proliferated in recent years. Indeed, 174 states have ratified the UN International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, indicating an almost universal commitment (and legal obligation) to eradicating racism.
We have reason to be hopeful therefore, jubilant even ... but we should not be complacent. Denying millions their fundamental rights, racism, in all its repugnant forms, continues to scourge the globe...
In the institutionalised and societal discrimination of minority groups: “40% of Iran’s population is made up of non-Persian minorities, who have almost no say in the country’s future” (Minority Rights Group International, 2011).
In the xenophobic intolerance with which migrants are met, in every nation, every single day: Cities across Italy have seen mob violence and 186 individual assaults targeting migrants, Roma and Italians of foreign descent (Human Rights Watch, 2011).
In the waging of ethnic conflict: Think Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka...
In the continued political and societal marginalisation of indigenous peoples: of which there are 370 million across the globe. Making up 5% of the world’s population, but 15% of the world’s poor (!), indigenous peoples remain politically and economically excluded and staggeringly over-represented among the poorest, the illiterate and the destitute (UN State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples).
In the neglected victims of caste-based discrimination: The treatment of Dalits in India has been dubbed a ‘hidden apartheid’ by Human Rights Watch. Dalit communities are segregated in schools and housing, subject to forced labour, police brutality, state-sponsored violence, rape and killings. Their rights to life, security, education, health and housing knowingly and regularly violated.
Racial discrimination then, is not only a noxious display of the worst and most incomprehensible facets of humanity, often perpetrated in personal acts of prejudice. An Indian man, 58 years old, beaten, doused with gasoline, set on fire? But beyond this, particularly when institutionalised or socially embedded, it destabilises development, is a causal factor of conflict, a perpetuator of poverty and an instigator of social and economic inequality. It is, in short, the antithesis of human rights.
This year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination focused upon people of African descent, many of whom, the “progeny of victims of the transatlantic slave trade, one of the greatest stains on human conscience, continue to be excluded and marginalised to this day”, Navi Pillay. During this, the International Year for People of African Descent, Ms Pillay’s contentions could not be more accurate. You need not take her word (nor mine) for this.
Here in the UK alone, the statistics are unsettling. To mention but a couple, according to The Runnymede Trust, “individuals with ‘African sounding surnames’, will need to send twice as many job applications as those with a traditionally English name to even get an interview, whilst young African males are nearly 8 times as likely to be stopped and searched as their white counterparts.” These statistics are far from the most shocking, but rather are indicative of the insidious and institutionalised racism we have yet to overcome.
This is of course a reality which far exceeds the boundaries of the UK, and my examples throughout are a mere handful amongst far too many. So, what, I hear you ask, can be done about all this? I would humbly suggest that, for those who recognise the dignity of each human person, who recognise that development can only come when every person has equal access to housing, jobs, food, health, political participation. That peace will only prevail when people are no longer persecuted for their ethnicity. Those who believe that there is beauty in equality, and in diversity and unity all at the same time, must speak out now, if only to persuade the person next to you of the same.
Martin Luther King once said of the US civil rights movement, “the greatest tragedy ... was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people”.
So, good people, let us continue to remind our governments of their obligations. Let us remind them and our neighbours, and ourselves, that a black man is a white man is a (hu) man, and that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Let us speak out against racism in all its forms (if only to complain to the BBC about Midsomer Murders!). Each small gesture of solidarity might just strengthen the resolve of those still struggling for equality every day.
[Please, in the spirit of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and the European-wide Action Week Against Racism (14-27 March), visit United Against Racism at http://www.unitedagainstracism.org/pages/act11arw.htm and join in the campaign, or just learn a little more and spread the word! Unite against Racism!!]
Damien Edenfield is reading International Relations at the University of Southern California.
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