England loss to Italy in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday has exposed not just UEFA’s over 15 years of anti-racism project but also the numerous England policies and projects that aims at combating racism. In a nutshell, “they are all charades”
England’s defeat on penalty kicks in the final of the European soccer cup caused a barrage of online racist attacks against Black players who missed goals in the shootout. Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were victims of online slurs because they missed their penalty shootouts which led to England unable to rewrite history after 55 years.
Instead of celebrating the lads for their heroic contributions to the English team, rather they were subjected to racial abuses on social media. Though England manager Gareth Southgate, who shouldered the responsibility for the team’s loss, praised his players and condemned the online slurs.
However, London police have opened an investigation. Twitter, for its part, said it has taken down more than 1,000 tweets and suspended several accounts used to post racist abuse directed at the England players.
The social media attacks on the Black players of the English team by online trolls who are mostly English fans could also happen to any Black player in a homogeneous Western nation national team.
Finland itself is still battling to ameliorate the effects of racism. The country is grappling with racial rhetorics that puts a question mark in one of the world’s best economies. The online racist slurs against Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka by the English trolls could also come upon Glen Kamara, the only black player in the Finnish national football team.
Tomorrow, if Glen Kamara whose parents are African immigrant finds himself in the same scenario like the three Black players in the English team, he will not only be subjected to racial slurs by the native Finns, the Finnish media will not help matters because his background and skin colour will become the basis of many publications.
Hypocrisy has overshadowed many anti-racism projects of many Western nations. Many claim to fight racism whereas the system is still supporting racism.
On 31.12.2020 the UN introduced a resolution that called for global action against racism and discrimination. Shocking USA and Western nations voted against or abstained.
It was a global call for concrete action for the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and the comprehensive implementation of and follow-up to the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action : resolution/adopted by the General Assembly.
According to the voting summary, 106 countries voted YES, 14 voted NO, 44 Abstentions and 29 didn’t vote.
Resolution did passed even with NO vote from most Western nations.
Countries like USA, UK, Australia, Canada, Israel, France, Germany, Netherlands that claims to be fighting racism all voted NO.
Major Europeans are NO.
Countries like Finland ,Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Belgium,Portugal, Poland, Italy, Ireland abstained from voting against racism.
To end endemic racism, all hands must be on deck. Sincere action must be taken.
