This is one of the saddest videos I’ve seen lately. And while it’s no surprise that in 2014 we’re still living in a discriminating society, the stuff that these kids have said are just quite shocking and should serve as a wake-up call to NGOs, schools, media, and of course parents.
Update:
The video’s privacy was unfortunately set to “private” by the uploader and I’m trying to see if it’s available somewhere else on the web. For those who couldn’t watch it, it was about an experiment with Lebanese children where they were given some papers with illustrations of a kid in different skin tones. The children surprisingly kept on picking the kid with the white skin because they believed the ones with darker skin color are bad and look like Syrians!
In another experiment the paper contained a man of white skin with a christian name, and they had to match him with one of three available girls, two girls having a white skin and muslim names, and one girl of a dark skin and christian name. The children in that case chose the girl of dark skin color because they believed the man should marry a christian girl like him or else would run into troubles!
It’s not the first time in Lebanon a municipality issues such announcement. It happened in Bhamdoun back in August 2012 and now Botchay municipality is imposing a curfew on all foreign workers in the village.
Don’t ask how do they distinguish locals from foreign workers.
Check out this racism incident that a guy called Abed Shaheen has witnessed at Beirut International Airport yesterday and shared on Facebook.
Racism at Beirut Airport! My personal hands-on experience.
Yesterday on the 6th of October I was at gate 11 with a friend of mine waiting to board the Air Arabia flight at 20:25.
While waiting to board there was a group of foreign workers sitting with the rest of the passengers waiting for their turn. They were behaving normally as any other group of passengers would. Then sadly, the lady (looking at her uniform she apparently works for MEA Ground Services and not Air Arabia) at the gate announced on loud speaker (over the whole system covering the airport) the following: “Filipino people stop talking”; then she started giggling about it with the macho gentleman who was with her at the gate. They continued their racist behavior by announcing again “Filipino Nepal people talking not allowed here” and on and on.
Shocked, I obviously became furious and approached them and explained that this racist and discriminatory behavior is not acceptable, impolite and does not at the least reflect what employees at Beirut Airport should stand for (not to imply it’s acceptance in any other situation of course).
This unfortunately sounded like a joke to them and they went on to say “we do whatever we want and we don’t care about what you are saying”, then “management doesn’t even want this kind of people on the flight” and “even if you complain this will be thrown away and we dare you to do anything about it”. When I asked her “how would you feel if you ever wanted to travel to Europe and while queuing for your visa they told you the same thing?”, she replied “these people are different”; The macho gentleman seeing that his female friend, whom he was trying so hard to impress with his imitating giggles, was cornered with her twisted racist logic even went further to ask me to back off the counter and threatening to make a problem and to void my ticket!!
When I asked for the complaint form they answered (While still laughing of course) “take it from the flight attendants and good luck sitting next to such people on the flight” I did file an official complaint with Air Arabia and their staff was very helpful and promised to reach the message out to their management. However Air Arabia is paying MEAG for such services and they need to use their power to do greater efforts too to ensure that the people behind this are held accountable. I also sent an email today to Mr. Richard Mujais from MEAG, explaining what happened and asked him to further discuss this with me and to show us that these employees were held accountable for such racist behavior.
Until then, and as a friend suggested that they also need to be exposed please help me exposing such intolerable behavior…
What a shame…
Update:
MEA posted the following response on their Facebook page yesterday:
To our loyal customers and fans,
We are aware of the purported incident that took place on the 6th October 2012 at Beirut International Airport, and appreciate your patience while a full investigation by MEA is underway. Please rest assured that MEAs policy is not to tolerate discriminatory or racist behavior in any form from our employees, and that appropriate measures will be taken once the facts of the incident are brought to light.
Yours sincerely,
The MEA Team
And the story made it to BBC Arabic!
Update:
MEA issued a second statement today announcing that severe disciplinary actions have been taken against the involved staff in this incident.
To our loyal fans and customers,
Having investigated the issue that occurred on the 6th October, 2012 at Rafik Hariri Intl. Airport – Beirut, which involved misbehavior by a MEAG (subsidiary of MEA) passenger service agent, we would like to issue the following statement.
This type of behavior represents an isolated case, and is 100% against MEA’s policy.
It does not fit within MEA’s culture, and furthermore goes contrary to our training procedures.
Severe disciplinary action has been taken against the staff concerned.
Kindly rest assured that our goal is to attain the highest levels of customer satisfaction.
Yours sincerely,
The MEA Team
It was mentioned in an article by the Associated Press that the woman was fired and a disciplinary action was being considered against her male colleague.
It looks more like a hopeless case to me… The anti racism movement called several beach resorts and none of them except one at Saida (Zahrat Al-Khayzaran) allows maids to swim in the pools, moreover, the circular issued earlier by the ministry of tourism banning discrimination at beaches seemed irrelevant to them.
The problem however isn’t actually about how the owners of these resorts think, it’s in fact about how WE think. Resorts owners will never mind charging maids regular fees and let them swim instead of admitting them for free to just watch over kids, but it’s us who are deep down racist and wouldn’t accept swimming with our maids, and those resorts are therefore just catering to our demands!
So until we become more civilized and accept the fact that people of different skin color are equal to us, you’ll keep seeing videos like the one above.
The Anti Racism Movement in Lebanon is still trying to end the discrimination at beach resorts by not only naming and shaming as they did 2 years ago with Sporting Club, but also by reporting those who deny entry to foreign workers to the ministry of tourism, since a circular was issued a while ago banning discrimination at beaches and demanding fair treatment of all people, regardless of skin color, background, occupation, or nationality.
Check the below video showing how some activists behind the Anti Racism Movement reported a discrimination act at the Saint-George Yacht Club and Marina.
According to what they wrote in a blog post today, and as per the tourism police, Saint-George will be fined, and a date for the trial is currently being set.
I know you might have seen this video onotherblogs, but I am re-posting it here to spread it as much as we can.
Beach resorts in Lebanon are known for denying foreign workers from swimming inside their premises after granting them an entry, but some places have gone a step further by not allowing those workers from even stepping inside!
The video below, taken at the Sporting Club Manara, shows Anti Racism Movement activists trying to get their maid into the swimming pool. The activists are allowed in, but not the maid!
