Latest news with #bigotry
South China Morning Post
6 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Mark Twain was wrong. Travel is not as fatal to prejudice as hoped
Mark Twain, in his bestseller The Innocents Abroad, commented on travel as the great unifier: 'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.' Advertisement A Hong Kong government investing heavily in tourism promotion to charm its way back into the good books of communities worldwide after our 2019 street riots and clumsy management of the Covid-19 shutdown would earnestly endorse the sentiment. But the evidence suggests Twain's intuitively persuasive argument is tragically wrong. Despite global travel at record levels – an estimated 1.4 billion international tourists were recorded last year, with 357 million jobs or 10 per cent of all jobs globally being connected to the travel and tourism sector – bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness seem alive and well. Two centuries of increasingly intensive international travel ought to have driven steady progress towards peace and international cooperation. Instead, we see ruinous wars and conflict , a rising tide of nationalism and opposition to immigration , as well as a surge in protectionism. US President Donald Trump's tariff assault on a world he claims has been 'ripping off' the United States for decades shows that not only tourism but also international trade provided little inoculation against bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Advertisement Why have we been so spectacularly wrong? First, many international tourists are poor ambassadors against prejudice. A family taking a limousine from Bali's airport to their exclusive resort is unlikely to notice or wish to note the poverty they drive through.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘What else could Cyril have done?' South Africans praise calm Ramaphosa after White House ambush
Many South Africans are praising President Cyril Ramaphosa's calm demeanor as President Donald Trump's multimedia ambush unfolded in front of the world's press. He pushed back gently whenever he could, but he didn't raise his voice or show anger, displaying his decades of negotiation experience. 'What else could Cyril have done?' asked veteran journalist Milton Nkosi. 'You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I think they were caught completely unawares. How on earth could you have planned for that?' said Nkosi, who's a senior research fellow at the Africa Asia Dialogues think tank. On social media and across South Africa's broadcast outlets, consensus seemed to quickly form that Ramaphosa did the best under the circumstances. He remained 'calm, collected and humble in the face of bigotry and lies,' posted one user on X. 'You were a leader today. Went to build not to fight.' Ramaphosa brought his own White billionaire to the meeting – luxury goods magnate Johan Rupert, who's behind brands like Cartier – who told Trump that violent crime affects all races, but his words fell on deaf ears. Rupert even threw tech billionaire Elon Musk, who was also in the room, a bone. 'We have too many deaths. But it's across the board,' Rupert said. 'It's not only White farmers. It's across the board. We need technological help. We need Starlink at every little police station. We need drones.' One White South African called Rupert a traitor to his fellow Afrikaners in a social media post. Another prominent White South African, agriculture minister John Steenhuisen, also tried to convince their Oval Office host that he had been misled. The most dramatic part of the scene was when Trump called for lights to be dimmed and screened a four-and-a-half minute montage claiming to show evidence of a White genocide. It included far-left opposition leader Julius Malema singing 'Kill the Boer, kill the farmer' as a crowd chanted along. Officially named 'Dubula iBhunu' in the Xhosa language, the song emerged in the 1980s to fight the unjust system of segregation. South African courts have ruled that it doesn't mean a literal call to kill White farmers. The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in 2024 that any 'reasonably well-informed person' would see it as a 'historic struggle song, with the performance gestures that go with it, as a provocative means of advancing his party's political agenda.' Trump confronted Ramaphosa on why he had not arrested Malema for it. Malema, leader of the the Economic Freedom Fighters party, responded in his typical fiery way on X: 'A group of older men meet in Washington to gossip about me,' he said, disputing the claims of a genocide. 'We will not agree to compromise our political principles on land expropriation without compensation for political expediency.' Malema was expelled from Ramaphosa's African National Congress (ANC) party more than a decade ago and came third in the most recent election. Most of the information that Trump used to try to prove that 'White genocide' is happening in South Africa has repeatedly been disproven. Some South Africans have said that they believe that the information is 'AfriForum propaganda' – referring to a White Afrikaner lobby group criticized as being a White nationalist group. Its chief executive told CNN the group was pleased with how the meeting went. 'It shows that the South African president and the ANC leadership cannot just simply sweep real problems that we have in the country under the carpet and think they will disappear,' Kallie Kriel said in a voice note. CNN has looked at data from the South African police and has found no evidence of a 'White genocide.' A video played by Trump purported to show thousands of White farmers buried along the side of the road – but Ramaphosa said that he did not recognize the video, and that there was no evidence it showed what Trump claimed it displayed. It was the toughest public test yet for Ramaphosa, a skilled dealmaker who led negotiations for Nelson Mandela in talks that ended apartheid. 'It is absolutely absurd to sit and watch the president of the most powerful country in the world telling the man who negotiated to end apartheid, who was locked up in solitary confinement, that there's White genocide in South Africa, which is a lie. That is crazy,' Nkosi told CNN. It was a good day for South Africa's White nationalists. The president of the United States repeated their talking points from the bully pulpit of the White House, giving them the highest-profile validation they could have ever dreamed of. The South African delegation expected a confrontational meeting, but nothing could have prepared them for the ambush that awaited them.
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
PETER HITCHENS: Don't believe a word Sir Sheer Squirmer now says - Labour has lied about immigration for 40 years
When I was a revolutionary student, I and all my comrades wanted more immigration into this country. This was not because we especially liked immigrants. Most students in those days lived far from the areas where migrants tended to settle. It was because we did not much like Britain, and saw mass migration as a good way of changing it. We also very much liked to look down on those who opposed immigration. We thought they were bad people, motivated by bigotry.
Russia Today
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Harvard defends ‘core principles' against Trump threats
Harvard University will not compromise its 'core, legally protected principles,' despite a looming grant suspension by the US Department of Education, university president, Alan Garber, has said. Garber cited a 'strategy to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry' in a letter published on Monday. In a letter posted on X last week Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon accused the university of 'serious failures' in anti-Semitism, racial discrimination, academic rigor, and viewpoint diversity. 'Harvard University has made a mockery of this country's higher education system,' the secretary wrote, saying that it 'should no longer seek' federal funding 'since none will be provided.' US President Donald Trump's administration is reviewing nearly $9 billion in federal funding for Harvard amid intensive pro-Palestinian protests on campus. Last month, the White House called for changes to governance, hiring and admissions and the elimination of all DEI programs at Harvard in a letter it later claimed was 'unauthorized.' The elite Ivy League university rejected the demands, accusing the White House of attempting to 'control' its campus. The university filed a lawsuit over the suspension of approximately $2.3 billion in funding and reaffirmed its commitment to addressing discrimination internally. In Monday's letter, Garber said Harvard's reform efforts were being 'undermined and threatened by the federal government's overreach into the constitutional freedoms of private universities and its continuing disregard of Harvard's compliance with the law.' He added that the university was pursuing necessary reforms in line with its values and legal obligations. 'But Harvard will not surrender its core, legally-protected principles out of fear of unfounded retaliation by the federal government,' Garber wrote. Garber also rejected claims of partisanship, adding that he had seen no evidence suggesting international students are 'more prone to disruption, violence, or other misconduct' than their peers.
Washington Post
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Harvard says it won't abandon ‘core' principles to meet Department of Education demands
BOSTON — Harvard University responded Monday to recent threats from the Education Department to halt its grant funding, highlighting reforms it was undertaking but warning it won't budge on 'its core, legally-protected principles' over fears of retaliation. A letter from Harvard President Alan Garber detailed how the institution had made significant changes to its leadership and governance over the past year and a half. Among the reforms, Garber said, was a broad 'strategy to combat antisemitism and other bigotry.'
