Pygmy dance pushes PC buttons
halcombe
care (for obvious reasons) to ensure that Marc Dutroux's day in court
is postponed to the Greek Kalends.
But, even so. A bunch of dancing pygmies can't possibly be having a
fun trip and earning a few bob to take back with them to Africa. The
sort of working holiday that, oh, say, a bunch of white kids might
have.
No, in the warped mindset of the guardians of our racial morals, they
have to be up-to-date Hottentot Venuses. Mere agitprop victims. The
pygmies' opinion on the matter is irrelevant. (Did any of the
do-gooders ask them before they tried to get them the sack, I wonder?
I doubt it, because they'd know the reponse would have been 'Allez
vous enculer'!)
It's the bleeding hearts ('My grandad chopped off hands for King
Leopold - Ooh, the guilt!') who view the pygmies as zoo animals.
**********************
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,772599,00.html
Pygmy show at zoo sparks disgust
Human rights campaigners call the exhibition degrading, but the
performers want to stay
Andrew Osborn in Brussels
Sunday August 11, 2002
The Observer
Troubling memories of Belgium's cruel colonial past have been
reawakened by an exhibition in which eight pygmies from Cameroon
perform for tourists in a manner which campaigners have claimed is
racist and neo-colonial.
Although the exhibition in the grounds of a private zoo is ostensibly
raising money for the pygmies, anti-racism activists say it is
degrading and voyeuristic. The focus of their anger is Yvoir, a small
town in southern Belgium whose tourist chiefs have built a mock-up of
a pygmy village and brought in eight pygmies to sing and dance for
visitors.
'Discover black Africa and the pygmies,' reads the blurb. 'They have
come to Belgium from Cameroon to show you their culture, their way of
life and their dances.' Entrance tickets cost six euros and the
organisers have pledged to contribute 2.5 euros from every ticket to
the construction of wells, pharmacies and schools in south Cameroon.
'Help these people who live at the start of the third millennium as we
did 2,000 years ago,' says the blurb.
The flesh-and-blood pygmies are complemented by lifesize replicas who
are seen hunting, fishing and collecting honey while TV screens
broadcast images of daily life in the forest.
'The pygmies are hostage to a project which purports to be
humanitarian but which is a racist, discriminatory, money-making
scheme,' says Joseph Aganda, of the Movement for New Migrants, a
pressure group for African immigrants.
'It is scandalous and goes against all the values of human freedom and
dignity.' Aganda argues that the exhibition is no different from those
held in nineteenth century Belgium and France where Africans went on
show like animals in a zoo.
'Remember that those who deported our ancestors so that they could
appear in colonial exhibitions did not think they were doing any harm
either,' says Aganda.
The movement has lodged a complaint with the country's equality
watchdog about the exhibition, but to its disappointment an
investigation concluded that the show was in extremely bad taste but
not racist.
Belgium's human rights league has complained to the region's public
prosecutor: 'There might also be a case of random kidnapping to
answer, in the sense that the pygmies don't seem free to come and go
as they please.'
Louis Raets, the man behind the exhibition, is perplexed at the
negative publicity and insists he has done nothing wrong.
'Real pygmies are not "exhibited" anywhere on site,' he claims. 'You
only see them singing and dancing in the courtyard of a farm. What
really annoys me is not the criticism but the fact that the protesters
have never done anything to help pygmies.'
Unfortunately for the anti-racism campaigners, the pygmies themselves
seem to agree with him and profess to be perfectly happy.
One of their number, Melanie Ebate, said 'We came here to show our
dancing', and added that the group would be angry if it was sent home.
Guardian Unlimited Š Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002