voodoo
03-12-2008, 01:48 PM
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No Barack Obama rising in Europe
By Sanjay Suri
Updated Dec 1, 2008, 02:41 pm
An Obama supporter in Frankfurt, Germany shows his t-shirt as exit polls are broadcast on a screen inside the venue of the ‘Democrats Abroad’ election party in the early hours of Nov. 5. Photo: THOMAS LOHNES/Getty Images
LONDON (IPS/GIN) - Europeans were delighted to see the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, but many of them say such an event for a minority person is unlikely in their countries.
On his last visit to Britain, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked, politely, whether he thought Britain could give a Black man the opportunities that the United States had given to him. Just as politely, Mr. Powell said he thought not.
And now that Mr. Obama has been elected president, a question is being whispered around among the Black and other minority groups in Britain and elsewhere in Europe: Can a Black man move into 10 Downing St. in the foreseeable future? Or the Elysee Palace? Or someone of Turkish origin become the chancellor in Germany? Everyone thinks no, and no one is particularly polite about it.
The Germans were happy to turn up and listen to Mr. Obama and to applaud him. But somehow very few think of making that connection between the sort of person the U.S. elects, and the sort that Germany, or France, or any other European country might.
Europe, in fact, appears headed in quite the opposite direction. “There is quite a great deal of hostility in Europe against immigrants at the moment,” said Professor Daniële Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at Warwick University. “This has built up over many years—also as a result of politicians’ discourse which has been very negative regarding immigrants.”
And it doesn’t stop with immigrants, she said. “Unfortunately, this also affects people who are not immigrants, who are children or grandchildren of immigrants that are taken within the same wave of hostility. This is the general climate in countries like France, Germany and Britain at the moment.”
Europe seems to offer neither popular nor political acceptability to someone from the minorities, Prof. Joly said. “In France, there are no people of Black immigrant origin who are MPs or who have any post of any significance in the parties. So I don’t see how they could rise.
“In France it’s not much easier than in Britain, because of the way the system is structured but probably because political parties at the moment in France have not integrated people of immigrant origin. They even find it very difficult to integrate women; there is a very small percentage of women who have positions in parties, and certainly a very small percentage who have MP positions.”
While the United States elects Mr. Obama, Britain’s Black community is struggling to look for basic rights in jobs, education, housing, healthcare—the list is as long as the list of things anyone could possibly be doing.
As recession envelops the European economy faster than anyone anticipated, fears have deepened that the environment for the minorities will actually get much worse now. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, warned anti-immigrant sentiment may rise in such an environment.
“In what is to come, the best defense against prejudice against immigrants will be to make those who resent them competitive, to give them a place in society,” he said. “We may need to do so with the sort of special measures we’ve previously targeted at ethnic minorities.”
Mr. Philips added: “What we are seeing is that there is a whole group of people, a large proportion of whom are White, who are going to suffer from this crisis, who are going to be the people we should want to help, particularly because they come from the wrong side of town. We are going to have to do something special for them. We are going to have to put extra resources where young people can’t compete with migrants’ skills.”
No Barack Obama rising in Europe
By Sanjay Suri
Updated Dec 1, 2008, 02:41 pm
An Obama supporter in Frankfurt, Germany shows his t-shirt as exit polls are broadcast on a screen inside the venue of the ‘Democrats Abroad’ election party in the early hours of Nov. 5. Photo: THOMAS LOHNES/Getty Images
LONDON (IPS/GIN) - Europeans were delighted to see the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, but many of them say such an event for a minority person is unlikely in their countries.
On his last visit to Britain, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked, politely, whether he thought Britain could give a Black man the opportunities that the United States had given to him. Just as politely, Mr. Powell said he thought not.
And now that Mr. Obama has been elected president, a question is being whispered around among the Black and other minority groups in Britain and elsewhere in Europe: Can a Black man move into 10 Downing St. in the foreseeable future? Or the Elysee Palace? Or someone of Turkish origin become the chancellor in Germany? Everyone thinks no, and no one is particularly polite about it.
The Germans were happy to turn up and listen to Mr. Obama and to applaud him. But somehow very few think of making that connection between the sort of person the U.S. elects, and the sort that Germany, or France, or any other European country might.
Europe, in fact, appears headed in quite the opposite direction. “There is quite a great deal of hostility in Europe against immigrants at the moment,” said Professor Daniële Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at Warwick University. “This has built up over many years—also as a result of politicians’ discourse which has been very negative regarding immigrants.”
And it doesn’t stop with immigrants, she said. “Unfortunately, this also affects people who are not immigrants, who are children or grandchildren of immigrants that are taken within the same wave of hostility. This is the general climate in countries like France, Germany and Britain at the moment.”
Europe seems to offer neither popular nor political acceptability to someone from the minorities, Prof. Joly said. “In France, there are no people of Black immigrant origin who are MPs or who have any post of any significance in the parties. So I don’t see how they could rise.
“In France it’s not much easier than in Britain, because of the way the system is structured but probably because political parties at the moment in France have not integrated people of immigrant origin. They even find it very difficult to integrate women; there is a very small percentage of women who have positions in parties, and certainly a very small percentage who have MP positions.”
While the United States elects Mr. Obama, Britain’s Black community is struggling to look for basic rights in jobs, education, housing, healthcare—the list is as long as the list of things anyone could possibly be doing.
As recession envelops the European economy faster than anyone anticipated, fears have deepened that the environment for the minorities will actually get much worse now. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, warned anti-immigrant sentiment may rise in such an environment.
“In what is to come, the best defense against prejudice against immigrants will be to make those who resent them competitive, to give them a place in society,” he said. “We may need to do so with the sort of special measures we’ve previously targeted at ethnic minorities.”
Mr. Philips added: “What we are seeing is that there is a whole group of people, a large proportion of whom are White, who are going to suffer from this crisis, who are going to be the people we should want to help, particularly because they come from the wrong side of town. We are going to have to do something special for them. We are going to have to put extra resources where young people can’t compete with migrants’ skills.”