We start by thanking the BLACK LIVES MATTER Movement for their brave actions to heal the world of the pandemic of racism. We applaud their powerful push to restore the dignity of black people and other people. We consider the Black Lives Matter as a way for our inner and outer emancipation and that of our cultures and other aspects of life.
The 25 May assassination of George Floyd under the sadistic knee of Derek Chauvin and his brothers in crime has once again reminded us that the cries of the Black Lives Matter movement are not only natural. They are necessary absolutely necessary in order to liberate humanity from the pandemic of racism.
Therefore, as Crossing Borders organisation whose mission is to create spaces for dialogue on equal terms, it is only natural that we join the Back Lives Matter to condemn in the strongest possible terms the systemic police brutality and its underlying historical, cultural, linguistic, media, economic and power structures. We condemn these structures as they inspire and fuel the mental and emotional infrastructures that justify having cruel supremacist knees on the necks of the black people for so long.
We recognise that these knees on the necks of the black are the pandemic that has prevented black people from breathing for the past 401 long years. During these years, black people endured kidnapping, enslavement, forced labour, colonisation, apartheid, and ongoing exploitation of their bodies and economies.
We recognise that these infrastructures are the root causes of the daily racism and discrimination that black people and communities of colour are systematically subjected to in our international relations, academia, museums, movement across borders our borders, on our streets, schools, and workplaces.
We also recognise that the history of racist abuse has run so long and so deep that even the black victims have internalised and applied it on themselves, as manifested in self-denial and abuse.
Thus, we hope that the momentum that the murder of George Floyd has generated will be escalated and sustained until these underlying structures are dismantled and replaced with the recognition of the fact that there is only one human race and that the cultural and other human diversities are not only what makes the human race survive and thrive, but, cultural diversity is as necessary as the biological diversity of planet earth.
As a contribution toward restoring trust and healing, we propose the following measures:
- Recognise, apologise, and cleanse the historical crime of enslavement, colonialism, apartheid, and the still ongoing discrimination, exclusion, and exploitation of black people and other communities of colour.
- Cleanse our education, media, language, museums and amusement parks of racist legacies just like we have done with the bundling and burning of smart women and pulling down of the monuments of Nazi war founding fathers
- Launch an honest cultural exchange and spaces for dialogue for youth, educators, artists and schools and university to learn not to repeat the past
- Replace development aid with fair trade and knowledge sharing partnership with Africa and the countries of people of colour
- Include black and brown people in our schools, workplaces, parliaments, company boards, and other key positions wherever possible. The public and civil society sectors should walk the talk by taking the lead on this front
- The nations whose economies were built on black blood and bodies should set up museums and memorials to recognise and honour the vital contribution of black and brown people to their countries
- Launch campaigns of public education to put an end to the degrading abuse of black people’s pictures by our charities/ development industry for fundraising purposes
