Biodun Iginla, BBC News

Biodun Iginla, BBC News
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label racism. Show all posts

Thursday, January 30, 2020

ANALYSIS: Chinese communities warn of Italy 'racism' over virus


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Rome 
by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts
Prominent figures in Chinese communities in Italy warned Thursday of episodes of "latent racism" against their compatriots by Italians fearful of catching a deadly viral outbreak.
Tensions increased after some 7,000 people were held on a cruise ship in an Italian port following the isolation of two Chinese passengers over fears they could be carrying the coronavirus, despite preliminary tests coming up negative.
Italian newspapers have reported cases of bullying or discrimination against Chinese people following the outbreak of the disease, which has now killed 170 in China and has spread abroad, with at least 15 countries confirming infections.
"It's extremely unpleasant, absurd, and infuriating," Francesco Wu, a member of the Italian Business Association Confcommercio, often called on to speak for the 30,000-strong Chinese community in Milan, told La Stampa daily.
Racist episodes reportedly included Chinese tourists being spat at in Venice, a family in Turin being accused of carrying the disease, and mothers in Milan using social media to call for Italian children to be kept away from Chinese classmates.
"It's totally unjustified and it hurts even more because it involves children. It's a mix of ignorance and latent racism," Wu said.
Local health officials have sent the schools concerned a letter stating that "there is no need to introduce measures restricting the presence of Chinese children within school communities," according to AGI.
There were some 300,000 Chinese living in Italy at the end of 2018, according to the National Statistics Institute (Istat).
Italy has not had any confirmed cases of the virus.
Despite that, Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala said Chinese tourism -- worth some 300 million euros ($331,000) a month to the city between hotels, shopping and restaurants -- was down 40 percent compared to before the virus.
Chinese journalist Hu Lanbo, who has lived in Italy for 30 years and who runs the "China in Italy" monthly, published an open letter "to Italian friends".
"Believing that one can catch the new coronavirus at the mere sight of a Chinese person really makes no sense," she said.

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Tuesday, October 22, 2019

With music and burger empire, Cameroon couple living 'Russian dream'


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Moscow 
by Maria Ogryzlo and Biodun Iginla, France24
Decked out in gold jewellery and high-end fashion, Walter and Cindy Tchassem descend on a Moscow fast-food joint escorted by bodyguards.
Both originally from Cameroon, the couple are at the centre of a music and restaurant business empire in Russia.
"People can't understand how we did it, it's unique," Walter, 37, tells us at France24 at an outlet of the couple's Black Star burger chain on Moscow's Novy Arbat commercial strip.
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"But I always say to them: When you believe in yourself and you work hard, anything is possible."
As President Vladimir Putin hosts African leaders this week for the first ever Russia-Africa summit, the Tchassems are a high-profile example of African entrepreneurial success in the country.
The son of a Cameroonian diplomat in Moscow, Walter has lived in Russia for 25 years and taken Russian citizenship.
He co-founded Black Star in 2006 with two school friends, hip-hop artist Timati and businessman Pavel Kuryanov.
Originally a music label, Black Star has grown into a major brand, expanding into street-wear and restaurants, with about 100 shops and burger chain outlets throughout the former Soviet Union and plans to expand into Europe.
Walter says it's hardly surprising Moscow is looking to build ties with fast-growing Africa.
"In the long-term it's Africa that will be the winner, because Russia offers a lot of opportunities," he says.
The ex-Soviet Union can be a tricky place to do business, but Walter says he hasn't run into any problems.
"Our business is based on a lifestyle, it can go into any country because it's not political," he says, while still praising Russia's Vladimir Putin as "the best president on the planet".
- 'New generation of Russians' -
Cindy, 32, focuses on public relations for the firm, while supporting an orphanage in Cameroon's economic capital Douala and planning to launch a charitable foundation.
She moved to Moscow in 2012 to join Walter after they met and married in Paris and the couple now have two sons aged four and six.
"You can build your own business in Russia by the age of 30, there is the potential for very fast success," she says.
"You can easily get rich no matter how old you are," Cindy says, though she admits Russia's "very macho" culture can make it difficult for women entrepreneurs.
Despite the racist attacks that for years made headlines in Russia, the couple says they have never suffered from racism.
"I have never felt that; the new generation of Russians travels, they understand things," Walter says.
In fact, he says: "I think it is less difficult here than in a country that colonised Africa."
The couple's business has helped by them become social media stars.
Together they have more than 400,000 subscribers on Instagram, where they post glamourous pictures of trips on yachts or private jets.
Walter says they hope their success can be inspiring.
"We want to make other young Africans dream," he says.
"There is this idea that the African is born to suffer, but this isn't true, you have to believe in yourself and work!"
The couple are often seen in colourful outfits from top designers, and Walter admits that fashion "is kind of my drug".
"I love it, I won't hide that I spend an enormous amount on it," he says.
His wife laughs. "He's a fashion addict!"

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Friday, July 19, 2019

ANALYSIS: Ex-jihadist Tania Joya now fights to 'reprogram' extremists


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British-born former jihadist Tania Joya is in Washington as part of a program to prevent violent extremism
British-born former jihadist Tania Joya is in Washington as part of a program to prevent violent extremism AFP
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Washington 
by Suzanne Gould and Biodun Iginla, France24 News Analysts
Tania Joya has devoted her life to "reprogramming" extremists and reintroducing them into society -- a process she understands well as a "former Islamic jihadist" herself.
"My aim is for them to feel a sense of remorse and to train them so that they can be good citizens once they are released from prison, so they can adjust to society," Joya said during a visit to Washington, to present a project on preventing extremist violence.
Born in 1984 near London to a Muslim Bangladeshi family, Joya grew up confronted by racism and the struggles of integration. She radicalized at age 17, after the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Osama bin Laden's call for a global jihad.
In 2004, she married an American Muslim-convert, Yahya al-Bahrumi (born John Georgelas). She began advocating for an Islamic state, for which her three children would be soldiers.
But in 2013, her husband took her and their children against her will to northwestern Syria to join jihadist insurgents. Joya reported her husband to US authorities and, after three weeks, fled Syria to the United States.
Joya settled in Texas, her husband's home state. There, she rejected Islam and changed her life, divorced and re-married.
- Re-programming, giving them hope -
Yahya, her first husband, joined the Islamic State group, which would soon control large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq. He was in charge of the group's English-language propaganda, and Joya said he became the "highest-ranking American" in the IS group.
He died in 2017 during fighting in Mayadin, in northern Syria, as the so-called IS "caliphate" crumbled.
However this created a new problem -- Western jihadists or their spouses and children wanting to come home.
Joya realized that she had something to offer. "It's really important to de-radicalize them, rehabilitate" these people, she said.
"It's reprogramming them and giving them a sense of hope in the political process."
It's also important to "get them to understand the psychology and the patterns... what led them to extremism," understanding "the rejection many in the US and Europe faced growing up there, the cultural conflict, the crisis they went through," she said.
"Once it's all explained to them, very logically, they will accept it just as I did."
Joya favors repatriating foreign rebels from the Middle East so they can be judged in their countries of origin.
While that is the US policy, many European countries such as France are wary of taking in the jihadists.
In May and June, 11 French nationals were sentenced to die in Iraq for their affiliation to IS.
Joya has campaigned for the return of Shamima Begum, who joined the jihadist group when she was just 15 but now wants to return home to Britain. However Begum's lack of remorse has turned public opinion against her, and the British government stripped her of her citizenship in February.
Kurdish-run camps in northeast Syria have taken in some 12,000 foreign fighters from 40 different countries, including 4,000 women and 8,000 children whose fathers are jihadists.
- 'Inoculation' against indoctrination -
Countries with jihadists stranded in refugee camps "are responsible for these individuals," said Joya. "We can't just push them off to the Middle East, to the Kurdish people... the abuses they're facing in these camps are only confirming their beliefs of radicalization."
Joya is participating in the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) program organized by the Clarion Program, a US non-profit dedicated to educating people "about the growing phenomenon of Islamic extremism," according to its website.
The PVE program provides "communication models" that offer "workshops for youth so that before a child is even indoctrinated or introduced to radical ideologies, they've really been inoculated" against religious and ideological extremism, said national program coordinator Shireen Qudosi.
"That goes from gangs, to radical ideologies: antifa, neo-Nazi groups, Islamist extremism," she said.


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