It’s time to change the discourse – who’s the savage?

Often, and even to this day, leaders of Asia, Africa, Latin America and countries of the Middle East are accused of corruption by the leadership and at times even the ordinary people of the so-called  ‘developed’ countries of the West. The poverty and squalour many of our people are forced to live in are held up as examples of the extent to which corruption pervades in our lands.

Equally often, our people are referred to as savages and unverified instances of brutality are thrown in our faces. Large sections of our media help spread these western-based images of our countries and people. 

Among the images of cruelty and brutality which particularly haunt our minds are unsubstantiated stories of the late Ugandan leader Idi Amin who has been accused of all forms of cruelty and perversion, including  cannibalism.

Whether these Idi Amin stories are true or false, we really do not know.But the western dominated media, especially the audio, print and television plus the film industry promote these beliefs. So much so that even our education systems (Western-value-based) promote these beliefs. Not surprisingly, large numbers of our naïve ‘intellectuals’  echo these beliefs as though they are ‘gospel’ truths.

For instance the political leadership in Canada has declared a particular date as ‘Sri Lanka Tamil genocide Day’. The Mayor of that Canadian town (Brompton) even went to the extent of demanding that all Lankans protest the so-called genocide,  or leave ‘his’ country and go back to Sri Lanka.

Very few in Sri Lanka today would deny that crimes were committed against the minority communities in this country. But no one can accuse Lankans of having attempted to wipe the Tamil community off the face of Lanka, or eradicate Tamil culture or religious beliefs. 

Yet, this is exactly what the European settler regime in Canada – of whom the Mayor of Brampton is part of - attempted to do to the indigenous people of Canada.

Even today Indigenous Canadians (now referred as First Nations) continue to live on reserves or reservations. In fact, over two-fifths (40.6%) of status First Nations live on reserves, a term referring to land designated by the federal government for use and occupancy by First Nations communities. 

The settler colonialists abducted the children of the indigenous people from their parents and put them into ‘residential schools’. They were forbidden to speak their language or participating in their religious beliefs.

Starting in the 1880’s and for much of the 20th century, more than 150,000 children from hundreds of indigenous communities across Canada were forcibly taken from their parents by  white settlers or the government. These children were often referred to as savages. Theywere sent to what were called ‘residential schools’, funded by the state and run by churches. The schools were designed to assimilate indigenous children by ripping them from their parents, their culture and their community – carrying out cultural genocide against the people of the First Nation.

Thousands of children never made it home.

Today the American government –again another white settler colony - is rounding up what they refer to as ‘illegals’ in Los Angeles and shipping them to prisons in third countries. The conditions in these prisons are described by the Americans themselves as lacking in basics. 

We do not hear the Canadians or other countries in the ‘developed’ Western countries protesting these violations of rights.

In Palestine, Israel is carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in real time. Yet we do not see any of these protectors of democracy and upholders of human rights taking any practical steps to protect the lives of the Palestinian people. 

Israel has killed at least 54,607 Palestinians and wounded 125,341 between the 7 October 2024 attacks and 4 June this year. 

Sadly, these facts are hidden from most of our media and school texts, which continue to portray West Europeans as pillars of decency while the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Arabs are portrayed as savages.

Our governments have done little to correct this distortion of history or portray the criminality West Europeans committed on our peoples. Nor have they exposed how our countries were stripped of their resources which went a long way to impoverish our people.

Rather, we hear stories of how financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are helping our economies recover.

It is time to change this discourse.