Victims Of Racism Worldwide Tell Their Stories

Victims of racism worldwide shared their stories with Anadolu Agency as the world marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21.



Tuba, a PhD student from Hamburg, Germany shared her experience.



She helps her mother with German translations and related a story about when her mother was yelled at because she could not speak German after living in the country for many years.



She said she always tries to claim her rights against such racist remarks, adding it is not always easy to do so.



As a hijab-wearing woman in a country with a small Muslim minority, Tuba does not like the looks she gets in public.



"I'm most uncomfortable with the way they look at me," she said. "Their faces say already many things. You can tell they do not want you here, they let you feel with every possibility that you are not welcome here.



"Once I visited the doctor with my mother. Both of us wore the hijab. I was in a very good mood and happy when I entered and greeted everyone just to be ignored by everyone at the doctor's office. This treatment became very normal to us. We are used to this," she said.



"Once I asked directions and received a very nice answer, but at the end the woman said: 'But without hijab you would look much more beautiful," she said stating that she mainly faced discrimination because of her appearance.



Muslim women who wear the hijab can easily be identified and targeted because of their attire, like Tuba.



But sometimes attacks can turn physical as in the case of Shukri, a 24-year-old British-Somali living in London, who related an attack she was on the receiving end of two years ago.



"These white guys walked past me on Brick Lane. I obviously did not think anything of it. But as they passed by, one tried to pull my hijab off and ran away," she said. "I confronted his friend but I did not really know what to do other than insult him."



Murat, 29, a member of Muslim-Turkish Minority of Western Thrace in Greece said while visiting Ioannina in western Greece in 2017 with his wife who was wearing a hijab, they went to see a building complex which was used as a madrasah, or school, during the Ottoman era.



A Greek teen shouted: "A good Turk is only a dead Turk," Murat said, a widely used expression by racist Greeks to insult Turks.



"I responded to him in Greek language and he was surprised by that, got ashamed and he went away," he said.



Murat said the teen did not expect the Turks he insulted would know Greek.



A 30-year-old male originally from Guinea-Bissau, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Anadolu Agency he was in France, an Egyptian driver stopped him and offered to sell a gold bracelet.



But he kindly refused to it, indicating he does not buy things from the black market.



"Why don't you buy it? You act as if you have laws in Africa," the driver responded.



During an internship at a think-tank in Chicago, U.S., his colleagues changed their attitudes toward him after he indicated he is a Muslim and was fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. He could get another internship at the same think tank, but he chose another place due to the behaviors of his colleagues.



While in Switzerland, someone pointing to dark-skinned people in a Geneva metro station said: "There will be a politician like [Barack] Obama to govern Switzerland, soon."



But racism can come from Africans, too.



In his homeland Guinea Bissau, he was traveling with his father. When they stopped to buy something from a shop, a man refused to sell him beverages saying that "Guineans don't have money."



He said the seller confused him with Guineans because he has a lighter skin than those in Guinea-Bissau.



Even in Africa, people are categorized by their skin color and economic conditions, he said.



In its statement regarding the day for the elimination of discrimination, the UN said its recent resolution on eliminating racism, the United Nations General Assembly reiterated that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and have the potential to contribute constructively to the development and well-being of their societies.



"The resolution also emphasized that any doctrine of racial superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous and must be rejected, together with theories that attempt to determine the existence of separate human races," the statement added.



The 2019 theme is: "Mitigating and countering rising nationalist populism and extreme supremacist ideologies."



According to a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in December 2017, which collected information from over 25,500 respondents with different ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds across all 28 EU member states, minority ethnic groups and immigrants continue to face discrimination across the EU.



"Seventeen years after adoption of EU laws that forbid discrimination, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and minority ethnic groups continue to face widespread discrimination across the EU and in all areas of life – most often when seeking employment," the survey results said.



It added that for many, discrimination is a recurring experience. -