In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, protesters around the world marched in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protesters in the United States. But it was always understood that protesters in predominantly white countries, especially in Europe, were also marching to protest police brutality against local Blacks.
Overlooked, however, was that protesters in predominantly Black countries, especially in Africa, had just cause to be marching to protest the same. But developments in Nigeria over the past couple weeks have thrown this into tragic relief.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari says 69 people have been killed in protests against police brutality that have rocked the country. …
The protests in Nigeria began on 7 October with mostly young people demanding the scrapping of a notorious police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars).
Many believe the deaths could have been avoided if the government had made more concessions when the peaceful protests started, and so got demonstrators off the streets. But instead, protesters were met with brute force from police officers, most of whom still walk free.
(BBC, October 23, 2020)
This is a testament to the fact that people everywhere are far more alike than we are inclined to acknowledge … for good or ill. It’s also a categorical reflection of the epidemic of Black-on-Black violence that rages in the shadows across America.
Except that the BLM movement willfully whitewashes that violence, which sees Black men killing each other at rates far greater than White cops killing Black men. And please spare me the whataboutism about white-on-white crime. Because that’s even more asinine than reacting to being called out for beating your wife by pointing to the neighbor who has been beating his wife too.
Still, here’s to marching in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Nigeria – as they fight the black powers that be in the name of civil justice. This, just as they and others in Africa have been marching in solidarity with us – as we fight the white powers that be in the name of racial justice.
Meanwhile, given the prevalent pestilence of everything from chronic poverty to Islamic terrorism, it’s not as if Nigerians needed another reason to migrate en masse to seek a better life. Here in part is how I bemoaned this fact just last year in “Hey Europe, Wait Till Nigerians Get Tired of … Waiting,” July 12, 2019:
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If you think African migration is bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. …
Alas, saying only corruption is stagnating Nigeria is rather like saying only politics is dividing America. This is why it behooves Nigerians to appreciate that waiting for an end to corruption is rather like Waiting for Godot.
Accordingly, one could hardly blame Nigerians if they begin migrating en masse. This abiding continental shame notwithstanding:
I just hope the damning irony is not lost on any proud African that, 50 years after decolonization, hundreds of Africans (men, women, and children) are risking their lives, practically every day, to subjugate themselves to the paternal mercies of their former colonial masters in Europe.
(“Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s ‘Haitian’ Problem,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 7, 2013)
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So Europe, beware, your chickens are coming home to roost.
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