(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/oh-so-now-im-bangladeshi.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=1).
I read it, thought about it and ran a long way away from the original starting point with it.
I am sorry if any wording is deemed offensive, it isn't meant to be in anyway. At the end of the day my main point is every human being should be celebrated, and not judged on something they have no power over.
The ‘other’, it’s
a dangerous concept isn’t it. This incessant need of humans to label
differences, to provide strength to our individualities, to be deemed normal.
I read an
article this morning. It was shared by an incredible woman who I went to a May
Ball with in my final year. This article, ‘Oh,
so now I’m Bangladeshi?’ by Zia Haider Rahman, was published in 2016, yes
2016. Yet it is still about a subconscious racism. The line “What more is it do
you want of us? To be white? To be you?” couldn’t make this clearer. While we
may not have racial-hate-statements written across the
walls, we might not live in an age where schools, hospitals and buses are
segregated by skin colour, we might even be in an age when to a naive white girl
Racism no longer exists; yet it does, just now it is more hidden. It is hidden,
but not absent, it is there, in all the authority of classifications of every
job application, reward, and university application. While that may be to “encourage
equal quotas”, how is that any less racist. The lack of racism will be the day
when skin colour and heritage are not a topic of conversation, or a rite of
passage. It will be a day where colour is not seen as a sign of difference but
an optional topic of interest.
So this
article is, in very simple terms, based around the announcement of Zira as a
judge for the PEN panel. The announcement, as seen below, points out not only
the country of birth, but the education and working history of said judge:
“Born
in rural Bangladesh, Zia Haider Rahman was educated at Balliol College, Oxford,
and at Cambridge, Munich and Yale Universities. He has worked as an investment
banker on Wall Street and as an international human rights lawyer.”
Now I remember reading that announcement and had one question,
“why does it say where he was born?” To me Zia is qualified to be a judge on
his incredible achievements. Those achievements are the fact that he went to
some of world’s leading universities, that he has worked as a banker and then
qualified as a human rights lawyer. Those are achievements, others could be
that he has published influential novels and written articles. They are the
achievements that we cared about.
Now if it had said that he was born into poverty in rural
Bangladesh and went through the Bangladesh school system, receiving a scholarship
for Oxford, then yes that would also be impressive. But it doesn’t say that, it
says “Born in rural Bangladesh”. The first four words you read about this man
are completely unnecessary but could come with many presumptions on his
character, appearance and history. I do not know if he came from a poor
village, or his family were wealthy land owners; I do not know if he went to a
local school, had no schooling or was sent to boarding school internationally. I
don’t even know if actually he was born in Bangladesh on a two week holiday to
the country. I know nothing about him from that statement, the only things that
statement could provide would be that he was born in a country, which by some
would be deemed as less normal than the UK, US, or wherever the other judges
were born.
Because, lets question this, would they bother putting those
four words in for me if I had been in that judging panel? “Born in rural
England, Blah studied at Cambridge….” The answer is no, but what
presumptions would you make if they had? That I had a good schooling? That I
grew up on a farm? That I spent hours ensuring that all my extra-curricular and
academic activities would enable me to go to Cambridge, from around age 4?
Probably some of those and not others, because that is what
that statement welcomes: presumptions and othering. Othering based on his
heritage, an invitation to ignore or excuse his other achievements.
I thought that one day in my life time we would realise that
othering people does not do us any favours. Judging someone on their skin
colour, heritage, religion or country of birth is completely redundant. What
does that really tell you about someone? Maybe that they celebrate some
different holidays, maybe that they have been brought up with different customs
or beliefs, maybe that they wear a different foundation: but at the end of the
day every person on this Earth is a human being. We all breathe, eat (if
lucky), love, hate, cry, smile, laugh, learn, and think. We are all inherently
the same. The processes in our bodies are the same. So why do we need to place
people as different? More than that, why do we need to publicise some
differences and not others?
We have come to cross-roads in history. This year is a year
where things can change. If you watched the ‘Queen at 90’, you will see that
this woman has seen many disasters based on difference, and I wonder did she
one day hope that those in her Commonwealth would not be judged on their
differences, would not need to be labelled in a judging panel or on official
forms? She has seen World War Two, an age when six million, yes six
million, Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust. If we included their
fellow camp inhabitants, for example those who were disabled or homosexual, we
are bringing that figure to eleven million. That is a third of all the people
living in Oceania at the moment.
That should have been a warning to the world to the effects
of othering. But then the apartheid happened, also in the Queen’s lifetime. 46
years where Black and White people were separated on the basis of their skin
colour. That is one difference which isn’t a sign of anything but a different
amount of melanin in ones’ skin.
She is now living through two disasters based
on difference. One the refugee crisis where 59.5 million people are currently
displaced due to conflicts all over the world. 59.5 million people who are
causing fear in receiving countries, because guess what: they are different.
What is so different? The fact that they are running for their lives, or the
fact they haven’t come from the same country, might not look the same, might
have a different interesting history to talk about (like the different history
of your colleagues or classmates)? Then we have ISIS: something else entirely,
or is it the same? ISIS has managed to recruit over 30,000 foreigners. How?
Many survivors reports say it is because they wanted to belong, they were being
victimised for their religion at home… the reasons could be endless and
sometimes not understood.
But can we justify this all with one thing: difference is dangerous?
Yes, that is a justification for all these crimes, right? difference. That difference is inherently dangerous? But let’s make that a bit more specific.
Difference
is not dangerous, the othering of difference is dangerous.
At the end of the day every human being is the same. God made
us all the same, hey he even sent us the best warning we could have asked for
when Jesus Christ, aka our saviour, our Lord, in many peoples opinion the
greatest human being to ever step on this Earth, was put to death, for guess
what, being different.
There are three
quotes from the bible which could maybe back this up:
When you next
argue that you don’t want immigrants or refugees in your country:
“…God…
made every nation of men to live all over the earth…” (Acts 17:24, 26).
When you
next try to justify this fear, or the crimes of the past, or the labelling of
people as Bangladeshi-British in every document, or you try to justify a child
crying because they are being bullied for ginger hair and freckles, or try to
explain to albino child why they are being hunted for their body parts (in some
countries in the world), aka justify these because of difference:
“So God
created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created
them male and female” (Genesis 1:27)
When you
try to say that every human on this Earth does not deserve the same, remember
that Jesus died in order to provide forgiveness and grace for every single
living thing on this planet:
“Go,
therefore, and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And
remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).
The only
biological difference between us is male and female, and that is not a reason
for discrimination either (another time...). The things that make us are our
actions: like Zia’s incredible achievements. So let’s not justify othering any
more, let’s not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. Let’s not fear
difference, but celebrate it, embrace it. Othering is dangerous, acceptance is
key.
As Said
said:
“Past and
present inform each other, each implies the other and ... each co-exists with the other.” (Said, 1994)
So let’s not use this as justification
for racism or othering, but instead look at it as a reason that we can live
differently today, without discrimination, and view each person’s past and
experiences as an optional topic of interest, rather than a topic of judgement.
Thank you, and for those of you who would read that as a prayer, Amen.
