I was appalled to read on Facebook in one of the local politics groups, the above text:
"Farming is in crisis if we can't get people to come and work on he farms. But don't worry. Senator Gorst says the Kenyans want to come with their long history of drunken violence and fighting with machetes and this article states that they can also get people to come from Rwanda with their long history of genocide. All without work permits. What could possibly go wrong"
This is by Mark Baker, the "motivational speaker" who recently had a piece in the JEP. I include the screenshot as proof of the posting.
He was I think rightly taken to task by Rachel:
"What? To characterise 2 nations of 60 million as drunken machete wielders or participants in genocide is disgusting, inappropriate, and plainly wrong. Characterise the Germans or Serbs the same?
How about slurring all Jersey people as Nazi collaborators and child abusers"
His defense:
"I don't use hate speech I just speak the truth. Last I heard it wasnt a crime. I'm entitled to raise issues and question things that I believe will and can hurt our island. And to be quite honest it's a good job someone does because it's not something our government has a habit of doing. It's so sad that some people are prepared to go to such lengths in the absence of being able to hold an intelligent debate about such important issues that will ultimately affect each and every one of us. ..... Even those in denial"
That such a crass generalisation about the people in Kenya and Rwanda should be taken as truth is simply not good enough.
If he is going to brand all Kenyans as drunks with homicidal tendencies and machetes, let's have some evidence.
If he's going to brand all Rwandans as genocidal maniacs (and doesn't he know that many Rwandans are people who originally fled in the Rwandan genocixde and not those doing killing?), let's have some proof?
This kind of generalisation is of the juvenile level of the Gem and Magnet, two magazines for boys which were very popular but dealt in stereotypes. Writing in his piece "Boy's Weeklies", Orwell comments that:
Naturally the politics of the Gem and Magnet are Conservative, but in a completely pre-1914 style, with no Fascist tinge. In reality their basic political assumptions are two: nothing ever changes, and foreigners are funny. In the Gem of 1939 Frenchmen are still Froggies and Italians are still Dagoes. Mossoo, the French master at Greyfriars, is the usual comic-paper Frog, with pointed beard, pegtop trousers, etc. Inky, the Indian boy, though a rajah, and therefore possessing snob-appeal, is also the comic babu of the Punch tradition.
The assumption all along is not only that foreigners are comics who are put there for us to laugh at, but that they can be classified in much the same way as insects. That is why in all boys' papers, not only the Gem and Magnet, a Chinese is invariably portrayed with a pigtail. It is the thing you recognize him by, like the Frenchman's beard or the Italian's barrel-organ.
In papers of this kind it occasionally happens that when the setting of a story is in a foreign country some attempt is made to describe the natives as individual human beings, but as a rule it is assumed that foreigners of any one race are all alike and will conform more or less exactly to the following patterns:
Frenchman: Excitable. Wears beard, gesticulates wildly.
Spaniard, Mexican, etc.: Sinister, treacherous.
Arab, Afghan, etc.: Sinister, treacherous.
Chinese: Sinister, treacherous. Wears pigtail.
Italian: Excitable. Grinds barrel-organ or carries stiletto.
Swede, Dane, etc.: Kind-hearted, stupid.
Negro: Comic, very faithful.
When Orwell brands this kind of thinking that "as a rule it is assumed that foreigners of any one race are all alike", he has more or less also summed up Mark Baker's generalisations, except that they are not done for comic effect, while his import demonstrates only what in my opinion is a nasty and unpleasant kind of bigotry. Mr Baker's version of Orwell's summary of the Boys Weeklies would be:
Kenyan: drunken machete wielder, violent
Rwandan: genocidal maniac
Do we really want this kind of "motivational speech"?
This kind of generalisation is of the juvenile level of the Gem and Magnet, two magazines for boys which were very popular but dealt in stereotypes. Writing in his piece "Boy's Weeklies", Orwell comments that:
Naturally the politics of the Gem and Magnet are Conservative, but in a completely pre-1914 style, with no Fascist tinge. In reality their basic political assumptions are two: nothing ever changes, and foreigners are funny. In the Gem of 1939 Frenchmen are still Froggies and Italians are still Dagoes. Mossoo, the French master at Greyfriars, is the usual comic-paper Frog, with pointed beard, pegtop trousers, etc. Inky, the Indian boy, though a rajah, and therefore possessing snob-appeal, is also the comic babu of the Punch tradition.
The assumption all along is not only that foreigners are comics who are put there for us to laugh at, but that they can be classified in much the same way as insects. That is why in all boys' papers, not only the Gem and Magnet, a Chinese is invariably portrayed with a pigtail. It is the thing you recognize him by, like the Frenchman's beard or the Italian's barrel-organ.
In papers of this kind it occasionally happens that when the setting of a story is in a foreign country some attempt is made to describe the natives as individual human beings, but as a rule it is assumed that foreigners of any one race are all alike and will conform more or less exactly to the following patterns:
Frenchman: Excitable. Wears beard, gesticulates wildly.
Spaniard, Mexican, etc.: Sinister, treacherous.
Arab, Afghan, etc.: Sinister, treacherous.
Chinese: Sinister, treacherous. Wears pigtail.
Italian: Excitable. Grinds barrel-organ or carries stiletto.
Swede, Dane, etc.: Kind-hearted, stupid.
Negro: Comic, very faithful.
When Orwell brands this kind of thinking that "as a rule it is assumed that foreigners of any one race are all alike", he has more or less also summed up Mark Baker's generalisations, except that they are not done for comic effect, while his import demonstrates only what in my opinion is a nasty and unpleasant kind of bigotry. Mr Baker's version of Orwell's summary of the Boys Weeklies would be:
Kenyan: drunken machete wielder, violent
Rwandan: genocidal maniac
Do we really want this kind of "motivational speech"?
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2 comments:
Utterly disgustiing generalisation from a would be politician. I was honoured to have been chosen, in 1983, to be part of a building project to Kenya, where we built a scout hall for disabled scouts. I also number several Kenyans among my friends. How dare Mark Baker make these totally over the top and incorrect assumptions on two whole countries.
Pity he is not so intelligent he cannot see the irony in his own diatribe.
"It's so sad that some people are prepared to go to such lengths in the absence of being able to hold an intelligent debate....."
This guy also proclaims to speak on behalf many people, however he speaks on behalf of a tiny little following of, frankly, the type of people this island does not need in my opinion. I state in my opinion as I don't claim, unlike Baker the self styled Mesiah of Jersey, to speak for everyone else except those too stupid to realise I speak for them also! He is actually everything a true Jersey person is not.
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