tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/barbarian-32927/articlesBarbarian – The Conversation2017-06-26T22:35:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/791532017-06-26T22:35:58Z2017-06-26T22:35:58ZMedia portrays Indigenous and Muslim youth as ‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173202/original/file-20170609-4820-rwbyr3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of youth walked 1600 kilometers to bring attention aboriginal issues in 2013 at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario. They hold up the Cree flag. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">By Paul McKinnon/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The representation of girls and women in the popular press has raised concerns ranging from eating disorders to sexual exploitation. In a similar manner, how youth are represented in the mainstream media also raises concerns about how they are perceived and how they, in turn, perceive themselves. </p>
<p>In fact, media plays a crucial role through which social norms are communicated. The circulation of images and words attach meaning and identities to different bodies in our society. </p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=4537">long time researcher</a> of media, race, gender and representation in Canada, I have studied how media portrayals of young Indigenous people and young Muslims impact public opinion and government policies. These depictions can also deepen the alienation those young people feel. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/jcie/index.php/jcie/article/view/27737">My research</a> has examined how stories in the <em>Globe and Mail</em> — which proclaims itself as <a href="http://globelink.ca/platforms/newspaper/?source=gamnewspaper">“Canada’s #1 national newspaper”</a> — represented both Indigenous and Muslim youth. I traced patterns in <em>the Globe</em> print edition across four years from the beginning of 2010 to the end of 2013. I included stories produced by <em>Globe and Mail</em> reporters as well as other sources such as wire services. </p>
<h2>‘Savages’ and ‘Barbarians’</h2>
<p>Rather than look at isolated stories, I focus on the patterns that leap to the surface when the stories are compared and examined together. What becomes obvious is the way in which these youth are represented as <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/27976389">‘savages’ and ‘barbarians’</a>, as described by prominent French philosopher <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/foucault/">Michel Foucault.</a></p>
<p>The former, Foucault argues, is based on the notion of the ‘noble savage’ — an idea created in the 18th century order to support the structure and success of western nations. The ‘savage’ can be tamed and converted into civilization. In contrast, the ‘barbarian’ is motivated by the irrational desire to destroy other civilizations that threaten his way of being and impede his domination of the world. Foucault argues this racist way of dividing populations within a society helped governments to control and build nations. </p>
<h2>Youth consumers are treated well</h2>
<p>Although most representations of young people in popular media tend to focus on youth as teens in trouble, my analysis reveals non-Indigenous and non-Muslim youth enjoy the most positive representations when they are portrayed as good consumers and making contributions to the economy. When they do get into trouble, it is often described in normalized ways such as truancy, wild driving and partying.</p>
<p>In contrast, almost 90 per cent of stories concerning Indigenous youth deal with failure — demonstrating how our systems have failed Indigenous peoples, and how they, in turn, fail to fit in. This leads to a perception that as “problem” youth, Indigenous teens remain unable and unfit to be part of society — that their own inabilities explain why they remain abandoned in prisons or are part of failing social systems.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with highlighting the failure of these systems. However, context matters in how perceptions are made.</p>
<p>For example, in mainstream society, “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” is highly valued and an individual’s exceptional ability to transcend systemic limitations is constantly highlighted. In contrast, an individual or community’s inability to succeed becomes reflective of their inherent deficiency and failures.</p>
<h2>Terrorists and failures</h2>
<p>The implication is that Indigenous people are unable to survive, and according to colonial logic, they will vanish either through this inability to fit in — survival of the fittest — or by killing themselves. When they do survive, it is because of the benevolence of our institutions and charitable values.</p>
<p>My examination of stories about Muslim youth show a different predominant pattern — a portrayal of ‘barbarians’ who wish to destroy contemporary Canadian society. More than half of the stories I analyzed concentrate on radicalization and terrorism.</p>
<p>Other stories about Muslim youth show a pattern about their inability to assimilate into Canadian society — and that lack of fit was intimately tied to engaging in criminal activity and violating deportation orders</p>
<h2>Violence against women as a foreign concept</h2>
<p>A related thread in the stories covering Muslim youth dealt with victims of honour killings, with the focus being on the fact that such practices of barbarity are contrary to Canadian values. Again, context is important here. In these stories, there is no mention of the rate of femicides in the general population across the country, not to mention the shocking numbers of Indigenous missing and murdered women.</p>
<p>Is it any wonder then that two years ago the House of Commons <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/barbaric-cultural-practices-bill-to-criminalize-forced-marriage-tackle-honour-killings-set-for-final-vote/wcm/fa816ac9-403e-4018-b5e7-ad39dba7739c">passed the so-called “Barbaric Cultural Practices” bill</a>? And while it was Stephen Harper’s Conservative government that introduced the legislation, the then opposition Liberals supported it. The assumption of that legislation was violence against women, gang affiliation and gang violence are imported from elsewhere — not that they organically emerge from present conditions such as high unemployment, structural and personal violence, isolation and depressed living conditions.</p>
<h2>Deportation, abandonment and ‘rescuing’</h2>
<p>After examining almost 400 stories in the Globe, a few basic themes emerged on how both Indigenous and Muslim youths were portrayed: the Indigenous stories focused on failed systems or problem individuals, missing women and gang violence. For the Muslim stories, it was radicalization and terror, surveillance, immigration, honour killing and gang violence. In other words, ‘savages’ can be salvaged if they do not disappear and ‘barbarians’ can only be ejected through deportation or incarceration, and their women rescued from the clutches of an ultra-patriarchal culture. </p>
<p>Only a small percentage of those 400 articles could be categorized as positive stories — about 18 per cent of the Indigenous youth items and seven per cent of the ones about young Muslims.</p>
<p>In other words, <em>the Globe</em> has created a script in which the answer to deal with Muslim youth is to criminalize, deport or detain them as a way to <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=5R7NRHwD61wC&pg=PR1&dq=Sherene+Razack,+Casting+Out+url&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigt6ebw7HUAhUGkRQKHd6yCLgQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=Sherene%20Razack%2C%20Casting%20Out%20url&f=false">cast them out</a>. On the other hand, problem Indigenous youth remain unable and unfit to be a part of the state, so they remain abandoned in prisons and in the mesh of failing systems because of their own inabilities.</p>
<p>The pattern of these stories also helped foster an “us and them” mentality.
With these media messages continually confronting us, it is not surprising to see how these marginalized youths can become even more alienated from the mainstream. </p>
<p>To be sure, <em>the Globe</em> is not the only media outlet to present and sustain such stereotypes. They are rampant across media. Nonetheless, we need to dismantle the idea of an ‘us’ and ‘them’ if we are to progress towards a more just society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was part of a larger project on marginalized and disadvantaged youth in Canada funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research, led by principal investigator Dr. Helene Berman, University of Western Ontario.</span></em></p>Research shows that the Globe and Mail has created a script in which marginalized youth can only be dealt with as failures or criminals, impacting the way they are perceived in society.Yasmin Jiwani, Professor of Communication Studies, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/672692016-11-15T17:10:58Z2016-11-15T17:10:58ZGhana University row re-ignites debate about Mahatma Gandhi’s racism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143877/original/image-20161031-15788-il2znt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mahatma Gandhi figurine at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in Vienna.The call to remove his statute from the University of Ghana has reignited debate about his legacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The statue of Mahatma Gandhi is to be <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.gh/index.php?id=358">removed</a> from the University of Ghana campus after a campaign by academic staff based on claims that the Indian leader was a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/22/petition-calls-for-gandhi-statue-to-be-removed-from-ghana-university">racist</a>. Politics and society editor Thabo Leshilo asked Suraj Yengde about the controversy.</em></p>
<p><strong>Is the claim that Gandhi was racist valid?</strong></p>
<p>Yes. The respected book, <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26014">The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire</a> by academics Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, provides proof that Gandhi was not only racist but also sexist, misogynist, casteist, supremacist and a patriarch.</p>
<p>He displayed a contemptible attitude towards black Africans. He held the Indian to be “much superior, in capacity, reliability and obedience, to the average Kaffir”, as quoted in <a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL002.PDF">The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (p. 50-51)</a>. He constantly opposed integration of blacks and Indians and loathed the classification of Indians with the “Kaffir race”, also in The Collected Works (<a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL001.PDF">p. 364</a>). (“Kaffir” is a derogatory term used to refer to black South Africans.) He found it “insulting” to be “placed in the same category with the Native” (<a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL004.PDF">p. 220</a>).</p>
<p>Gandhi assumed that the natives were “barbarians” and that they were “yet being taught the dignity and necessity of labour” (<a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL001.PDF">p. 367</a>). On various occasions Gandhi successfully petitioned for separation of Indians (in the Collected Works again, here on <a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL001.PDF">p. 368-9</a>) from the black Africans claiming the inferiority of blacks. </p>
<p>For example he wrote in an open letter (<a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL001.PDF">p. 193</a>): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A general belief seems to prevail in the Colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than savages or the Natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Gandhi opposed inter-race relations, such as between an Indian man and a black woman. In his Gujarati version of <a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL010.PDF">Indian Opinion</a> (December 2, 1910) he admitted in inadvertently that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some Indians do have contacts with Kaffir women. I think such contacts are fraught with grave danger. Indians would do well to avoid them altogether (p. 414). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He believed that “the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race” (<a href="http://www.gandhiserve.org/cwmg/VOL003.PDF">p.255-6</a>). </p>
<p>Gandhi’s patriarchy, sexism and misogyny are also well documented. He regarded women as manipulating creatures who invigorated fanciful phallic desires in men, squarely blaming women for the incidents of domestic violence, Rita Banerji writes in her book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Power-Defining-History-Societies/dp/0143064711">Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies</a>.</p>
<p>He apparently believed that women who were raped or sexually abused or whose “purity is violated” should consider suicide “through sheer will force”, according to Sujata Patel in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/323750/Construction_and_Reconstruction_of_Woman_In_Gandhi">Construction and Reconstruction of Woman In Gandhi</a> (page 278).</p>
<p>Gandhi was deplorable towards oppressed castes – spiritually and politically. He believed the caste and the <a href="https://global.britannica.com/topic/varna-Hinduism">varna system</a> to be the foundation of an ethical society, thus promoted separation based on caste vigorously. This translated into the public practices too, where he was on guard to snatch away the rights of “untouchables” for self-emancipation obtained via <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4398052?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">separate electorates</a>. </p>
<p>Many people have written about Gandhi’s bigotry, including some among his over 1,000 English <a href="http://www.vinaylal.com/ESSAYS(Gandhi)/nak7.pdf">biographers</a>.</p>
<p><strong>This does not accord with the image of Gandhi as a great leader and a canonised pacifist. How are we to understand the discordance?</strong></p>
<p>Gandhi is now an institution. His biographical image is reproduced so much that he continues to influence leading global moments and leaders. American President Barack Obama, for example, does not miss any opportunity to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/01/25/obama-long-inspired-by-gandhi-visits-his-memorial-in-india/">mention him</a> when referring to India. </p>
<p>Human rights advocates idolise Gandhi. His statues are all over the world. This works well for India’s diplomats and makes their job easy. Simply having a Gandhi photo on a office wall or his bust donated to some school or university institutionalises the Indian government’s presence in the foreign society. Something similar happened in Ghana but it was met with a backlash.</p>
<p>Gandhi was a unifying model but not a great leader. He certainly united India, at least the Hindu India, with his influence in the Indian Congress. But the moral leadership he is accorded seems suspect on closer examination. Indian jurist, economist and reformer Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s account exposes the Gandhi’s injustice against <a href="http://www.ambedkar.org/ambcd/41A.What%20Congress%20and%20Gandhi%20Preface.htm">“untouchables”</a>. </p>
<p>Gandhi’s <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/thrill-of-the-chaste-the-truth-about-gandhis-sex-life-1937411.html">relationship with women </a> has also been severely criticised. He held the disturbing view that women were simply the reproductive organs of society - <a href="https://sexandpower.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/">good only for bearing babies</a> and that the women who used contraceptives were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jan/27/mohandas-gandhi-women-india">whores</a> that had an itch for sexual pleasures. </p>
<p>Gandhi demeaned women. He had disturbing views on the biology of women. He held the periodical menstrual cycle to be a “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Power-Defining-History-Societies/dp/0143064711">distortion of a woman’s soul by her sexuality</a>”.</p>
<p>Gandhi was also at odds with the liberal tradition of tribals (the indigenous Indians, also known as Adivasi) who consider intimacy between men and women as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3705691/#ref7">liberating</a>. He thus excluded tribals from positions of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Power-Defining-History-Societies/dp/0143064711">responsible leadership</a>. </p>
<p><strong>What is the significance of Ghana leading the charge against Gandhi in this way?</strong></p>
<p>Ghana has a special place in African history as the first country to gain independence from colonial oppression. Inspired by Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-Africanist ideology, Ghana became a beacon of light for independence movements across Africa. Its freedom had a snowball effect of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2168387?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">colonial liberations</a> in Africa. </p>
<p>With their anti-Gandhi stance, Ghananian academics are leading the charge in determining the contemporary-modern history of Africa by disowning historical cults unfavourable to Africa. The Indian government’s choice of the symbol of Gandhi for its encroachment into Ghana’s campuses appears to have been a mistake.</p>
<p>Ghana is an important player in international and African politics. Its diaspora is well represented in the western hemisphere. This augers well for the spread of the message of the Ghananian academics. This will find resonance with the marginalised Indian groups such as the Dalits, Sikh and others.</p>
<p>The move by Ghana’s academics has certainly alarmed the government of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/ghana-academics-petition-removal-mahatma-gandhi-statue-african-heroes">Ghana</a>. If this movement were to take effect in other African countries it might force the Indian state to reconsider Gandhi as its export symbol to Africa, in a way that is cognisant of the continent’s long history of suffering. </p>
<p>Although Ghana is taking the lead against Gandhi, his racism is not lost to South Africans, as Desai and Vahed wrote in <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=26014">The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67269/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suraj Yengde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most influential personalities in history, celebrated for his advocacy of non-violent resistance. But his dark side is now receiving increased attention.Suraj Yengde, Associate, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.