United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres remarked recently to the General Assembly’s observance of March 21, “Today, apartheid lies dead. But, sadly, racism lives on — in all regions and in all societies.” This day coincided the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
The first example I want to say is about the origin of this international day. This observance commemorates the day in 1960 when police in South Africa killed 69 people who were part of a peaceful demonstration against racist apartheid laws. More than half a century has passed, and all mankind is still winding its way on the road of eliminating racial discrimination. António Guterres stated that, “We see it in the repugnant views of white supremacists and other extremist groups.” “We also see racism and discrimination in anti-Muslim hatred, the mistreatment of some minority Christian communities and other forms of intolerance and xenophobia.” and “We see racism in recent abhorrent violence against people of Asian descent, unjustly blamed for COVID-19. We also see it in the biases built into the codes for facial recognition and artificial intelligence.” They are all concrete manifestations of contemporary racism.
The second example occurred in 2020, May 25. Floyd, a black man from Minnesota, US, died while being subdued by a police officer. The incident once again provoked the people’s long-standing anger at the death of African Americans by the police, triggering large-scale protests and riots. The angry demonstrators shouted “Black lives Matter”! This reminds us of the famous speech “I Have a Dream” by the American human rights leader Martin Luther King in 1963. In his speech, he looked back at the “Proclamation for the Emancipation of Black Slaves” signed by Lincoln more than a hundred years ago. He also pointed out that although more than one hundred years have passed, racial discrimination still existed. More than another 50 years have passed, from Dr. King’s “I have a dream” to Floyd’s “I can’t breathe”, indicating that the United States still has too much to do in eliminating racial discrimination.
Another example occurred in Afghanistan. British Army Special Forces “Special Air Service” (SAS) has been accused of mass killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan in 2011. According to British media reports recently, an important piece of video evidence was strangely missing at a critical stage of the trial, and 42 British officers and soldiers involved in the case were exempted from trial due to the so-called “collective memory loss”. In addition to the previous cases of the Australian Special Forces brutally killing local civilians, people can’t help but wonder how many “blood debts” there are by the troops of western countries in Afghanistan that have not been disclosed?
The above three examples took place in different times, with a time span of more than half a century. They happened in different regions, including the most so called democratic and civilized countries. They are aimed at different groups of people, including blacks in their own countries and civilians in other regions. But without exception, they are typical bad records of racial discrimination. Some people or governments think that their destiny is extraordinary, that their own system, their own civilization and even their own blood lineage are superior to others, and then discriminate against ethnic minorities and never treat other people’s lives seriously. Some western countries often put human rights on their lips, interfere with some countries’ internal affairs, and punish some others easily, but they don’t know right to life has the most priority in human rights. And everyone’s life matters in deed!
