WHEN some time last year a white Italian Senator Roberto Calderoli compared the first black Italian government minister with an ‘orang-utan’ or an ape, some people took it as an isolated incident.
That was wrong.
Going back into history, it is quite evident that whites have never treated blacks as normal human beings.
During the Roman Empire, it was Italian Deputy Senate Speaker, Calderoli’s grandfathers who introduced slavery in their empire.
History tells us of how Senator Calderoli’s grandfathers enjoyed themselves seated in amphitheatres watching black slaves maiming and killing each other in gladiatorial shows.
And as if taking the cue from his grandfathers the racist Senator compared Cecile Kyenge, who is likely to be more intelligent than he is, to an ape just because of her skin pigmentation.
And elsewhere in this edition, the racist senator can’t avoid linking witchcraft with the black minister’s family.
No wonder when later, other Europeans wanted cheap labour for their cotton and sugar plantations in the Americas, they had to go no further than the African continent.
The story of how black Africans were packed like sardines in ships to be sold in America as slaves is well documented.
The treatment of slaves is clear evidence that the white slave masters saw no difference between black human beings and apes, monkeys or baboons.
As authors of the slave trade history whites try to sanitise their role by presenting people like William Wilberforce as heroes who had the interest of Africans at heart in this cruel chapter in our history.
They are not.
Wilberforce like the rest of other Europeans died rich with the blood of black slaves dripping from their hands.
But racism is part of the DNA of whites.
After the abolition of the slave trade after 400 years, whites planned to continue treating the blacks as an inferior race as colonial subjects.
That was the essence of the Berlin Conference of 1884.
How can a whole group of nations sit down and partition among themselves a continent with people created by God as equals?
To whites blacks are nearer to baboons, apes or monkeys than ‘whites’.
We still remember how colonialist Ian Smith and his white racists compared us with baboons when they sang ‘Bobojaan klim de berg’.
To Smith blacks were like baboons that climbed mountains awkwardly.
But there are occasions when we are fooled by whites into believing that whites love us.
Please don’t be fooled.
Mario Balotelli, a black Italian who is otherwise adored for his soccer genius has endured a lot of flattery and racial abuse across Europe.
He knows it.
His observation that the Italians and Spaniards are more outright than the British in their racism is worth noting from a man who has stayed with all these racial groups.
How often have black footballers been cheered by supporters of the team they will be playing for only to be pelted with bananas (bananas are said to be favourite food for monkeys) during the same game!
To whites, no matter how much a black is camouflaged, the racial barrier will never disappear.
Let’s take President Obama as an example.
He was hailed as an example of how colour blind whites were by electing a black Kenyan to be president of America.
Even Obama himself believed it, judging by the way he has stuck rigidly to the racial philosophy of his white predecessors.
However, soon after his election whites through their cartoonists had a field day expressing what they thought of the new black president.
A Belgian paper, not to be outdone by New York Post newspaper cartoon, published their own in which both Obama and his wife Michelle were depicted as apes.
That’s unfortunately how whites think about us.