---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: COLLINS EZEBUIHE <Collyezebuihe@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 10:11 AM
Subject: [talkhard] RACISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST
To: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com, nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com, igboevents@yahoogroups.com
Cc: talkhard@yahoogroups.com
From: COLLINS EZEBUIHE <Collyezebuihe@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 10:11 AM
Subject: [talkhard] RACISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST
To: nigerianid@yahoogroups.com, nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com, igboevents@yahoogroups.com
Cc: talkhard@yahoogroups.com
Racism in Lebanon
Black is not thought beautiful
Racial intolerance is pervasive in Lebanon and in much of the region
THE multilingual, fashion-conscious residents of Beirut, Lebanon's capital, fancy their city to be cosmopolitan. But not everyone is welcome. Black people and foreigners from Asia and elsewhere in the third world who make up the bulk of migrant workers are often turned away from the city's smarter venues. Conscious of the bad blood this can cause, Lebanon's government has warned beach clubs against barring entry on the basis of race, nationality or disability.
But racism is unlikely to be erased overnight, either in Lebanon or in many other Middle Eastern countries where blacks are routinely looked down on. Racist taunts are often heard on Egypt's streets, and in Yemen, darker-skinned people, known as al-akhdam ("the servants"), who make up perhaps 5% of the population, are confined to menial jobs and tend to dwell in slums. In Libya rebel militias often targeted darker-skinned people from nearby countries such as Chad and Mali and from countries further south, accusing them of being mercenaries of Muammar Qaddafi.
Filipinos, Sri Lankans and Chinese-Americans, among others, whisper of racist slurs both at work and on Lebanon's streets. "When black or Asian friends visit," says a young Lebanese professional, "I'm at the airport the moment they land to make sure immigration officers don't ask inappropriate questions. It's a disgrace."
Some people blame the legacy of the slave trade, which brought sub-Saharan Africans, as well as others, to the region from the 7th century onwards. But Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby group says that racism persists in the region because governments have been lax about tackling it. "There are racists everywhere in the world, but in many countries it is now taboo to make comments, partly because there are laws against it," he says. "Here, even when there is legislation, it is never applied."
Snobbery makes things worse. Millions of foreigners in the Middle East do cleaning and building jobs which locals consider beneath them. Sponsorship schemes often deny such workers basic rights. "People just see us as cheap labour," says a Filipino university graduate who makes $200 a month in a Beirut beauty parlour. Some beach clubs have already said they will ignore the new regulation. Their customers, they say, would not tolerate having to rub shoulders with the dark-skinned servant class.
But racism is unlikely to be erased overnight, either in Lebanon or in many other Middle Eastern countries where blacks are routinely looked down on. Racist taunts are often heard on Egypt's streets, and in Yemen, darker-skinned people, known as al-akhdam ("the servants"), who make up perhaps 5% of the population, are confined to menial jobs and tend to dwell in slums. In Libya rebel militias often targeted darker-skinned people from nearby countries such as Chad and Mali and from countries further south, accusing them of being mercenaries of Muammar Qaddafi.
Filipinos, Sri Lankans and Chinese-Americans, among others, whisper of racist slurs both at work and on Lebanon's streets. "When black or Asian friends visit," says a young Lebanese professional, "I'm at the airport the moment they land to make sure immigration officers don't ask inappropriate questions. It's a disgrace."
Snobbery makes things worse. Millions of foreigners in the Middle East do cleaning and building jobs which locals consider beneath them. Sponsorship schemes often deny such workers basic rights. "People just see us as cheap labour," says a Filipino university graduate who makes $200 a month in a Beirut beauty parlour. Some beach clubs have already said they will ignore the new regulation. Their customers, they say, would not tolerate having to rub shoulders with the dark-skinned servant class.
Israel and its black immigrants
Keep out
Racial tension is rising as black asylum-seekers pour in
Jun 2nd 2012 | TEL AVIV | from the print edition
ON MAY 28th it was the turn of Yorusalem Mestun, a 22-year-old Eritrean asylum-seeker in hot-pants. Five young Israelis smashed the glass door of her internet café and pulled a knife on her, while her Jewish neighbours looked on. The police came, checked her visa and left without, she said, offering help or sympathy.
Attacks on Israel's fast-growing population of African asylum-seekers, mainly from South Sudan and Eritrea, are rising. Hundreds of Jews led by settlers from the West Bank, where Palestinians hope to create their state, recently marched through districts of south Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial capital, where black immigrants proliferate, chanting "Africans Out!" Pumped up with angry excitement, the middle-aged chef of a fast-food shop, in HaTikva, a working-class district where migrants are also settling in large numbers, offers passers-by "grilled kushi", provocatively meaning "grilled blacks", and suggests getting rid of the immigrants by throwing grenades at their tenements. In recent weeks, several homes and a kindergarten for Africans have been firebombed.
Liberal Israelis have staged anti-racist rallies. A generation after their arrival, over 120,000 Ethiopian Jews have been integrated. The country has received an estimated 60,000 black asylum-seekers. It is not the first to struggle when large numbers of people suddenly arrive.
On May 29th the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said he was adding African "infiltrators" to his list of threats to the Jewish homeland. He said he shared the rioters' pain and promised to solve the problem by completing a wall along the border with Egypt. He said he would also build the world's largest detention centre—and deport all those within, starting with the South Sudanese.
Until 2009 the 15,000 or so asylum-seekers entering via Sinai every year were banned from coming within a radius of 30km (19 miles) of Tel Aviv. Since the government revoked that order, the security forces, after catching immigrants crossing, verify their identity and then pack them off to Tel Aviv. Scores of destitute new arrivals bed down every night in a park near the main bus station.
Israeli officials say they are loth to improve conditions in case even more are encouraged to come. The interior ministry bans the immigrants from work and refuses to process asylum applications from friendly countries such as Eritrea, though it is a dictatorship. "How can a country founded by refugees turn against them?" asks Yohannes Bayu, an Ethiopian who arrived 15 years ago and now runs the country's only shelter for asylum-seekers.
Attacks on Israel's fast-growing population of African asylum-seekers, mainly from South Sudan and Eritrea, are rising. Hundreds of Jews led by settlers from the West Bank, where Palestinians hope to create their state, recently marched through districts of south Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial capital, where black immigrants proliferate, chanting "Africans Out!" Pumped up with angry excitement, the middle-aged chef of a fast-food shop, in HaTikva, a working-class district where migrants are also settling in large numbers, offers passers-by "grilled kushi", provocatively meaning "grilled blacks", and suggests getting rid of the immigrants by throwing grenades at their tenements. In recent weeks, several homes and a kindergarten for Africans have been firebombed.
Liberal Israelis have staged anti-racist rallies. A generation after their arrival, over 120,000 Ethiopian Jews have been integrated. The country has received an estimated 60,000 black asylum-seekers. It is not the first to struggle when large numbers of people suddenly arrive.
Until 2009 the 15,000 or so asylum-seekers entering via Sinai every year were banned from coming within a radius of 30km (19 miles) of Tel Aviv. Since the government revoked that order, the security forces, after catching immigrants crossing, verify their identity and then pack them off to Tel Aviv. Scores of destitute new arrivals bed down every night in a park near the main bus station.
Israeli officials say they are loth to improve conditions in case even more are encouraged to come. The interior ministry bans the immigrants from work and refuses to process asylum applications from friendly countries such as Eritrea, though it is a dictatorship. "How can a country founded by refugees turn against them?" asks Yohannes Bayu, an Ethiopian who arrived 15 years ago and now runs the country's only shelter for asylum-seekers.
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