Recently, there was a summit hosted by the African Union (AU) and Israeli delegation with observer status were driven out of the hall. It turned out the reason had nothing to do with Israel racially attacking Black Africans interests.
It was all about a certain adopted protocol against Israel decades ago, because of its occupation of Arab lands. What is sad is that during all these years the Arab world had not reciprocated our warm gesture.
In the 70’s, a high official from either Iraq or Iran, came to Ghana to warned us against having anything to do with Israel. After this warning, we read that, this country was selling crude oil to South Africa. That was the time of apartheid when the OAU had boycotted all relationships with South Africa, due the way our Black brothers and sisters were illtreated in that country.
The Arabs did not care about our problems with South Africa because they were not affected, but they want us to support them against Israel, who had done nothing to us. Israel, on the other hand, had done a lot for Black Africa in many sectors including agriculture, medicine and technology.
I was thinking that the OAU, would have review its protocol to support only the Black African course. In what can be said to be hypocrisy, OAU stood on the side of the Arabs because Israel was alleged to have occupied Arab lands including that of Egypt, an African nation.
Meanwhile during those times, some Black African countries were occupied by some European countries through colonialism. The OAU never saw it morally right to boycott those Western nations as well.
On March 26, 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a Peace Accord to establish peace between the two nations. Egypt went ahead with this without consulting the OAU.
Many Egyptians accepted peace with Israel if it meant regaining Egyptian territories.
Feeling very embarrassed about what Egypt did to it, the OAU took a stand not to withdraw that hostile protocol against Israel because it still occupied Arab lands.
The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly urged African leaders to withdraw Israel’s AU accreditation, denouncing its “apartheid regime.”It is on this protocol that the AU officials walked out the Israeli delegates from an African Union Summit in Addis Ababa on February 18, 2023.
While the AU is bent on supporting the Palestinian and Arab course against Israel, it has failed to look at how Arabs have been illtreating Black Africans.
In 2017, the International Organization for Migration (IMO) reported that hundreds of Black African migrants along North African migrant routes were being bought and sold openly in modern day ‘slave markets’ in Libya.
The victims were from several African nations, including Nigeria, Ghana and the Gambia. They described ‘slave markets’ tormenting hundreds of young African men bound for Libya. In all this the AU never reacted.
Anti-Black racism rages on in Morocco, as a 2022 report by Walking Borders which related to theGrio, with an incident on video footage on a June 24, 2022 where bodies of Black African migrants, some lifeless and bloodied were being kicked and beaten by Moroccan border officials. In that year, over 39 Black Africans met their death through gross molestations by Moroccan officials.
A 2018 report by AlJazeera stated that in Algeria, the Black skin was a crime and with that Black migrant workers were severely illtreated and even killed.
During the dawn of the most disgraceful act against Israeli delegation at the recent AU conference, Black Africans woke up to a call by Tunisia president, Kais Saied to his nationals that Black Africans are criminals and must be dealt with.
Saied announced that the Black African migrants were on a mission to weaken Tunisia’s Islamic Arab identity, that must quickly be stopped, since the migrants’ unspoken goal was to consider Tunisia a purely African country, with no affliction to the Arab and Islamic nations.
This encouraged Tunisians to attack and molest Black Africans with many Nigerians and Ivorians, fleeing to their embassies for protection.
This racist act is happening right now and yet after the AU expressed concern it took no action, no sanctions.The Tunisians are saying their president’s orders have been misunderstood, meanwhile Black Africans continue to be molested in that country. If Israel which had hurt no Black African could be sanctioned by the AU, what about Tunisia and others which are killing Black Africans?
On May 29, 2020, on behalf of the AU,its Chairman Moussa Faki, strongly condemned the murder of George Floyd which occurred in the United States at the hands of law enforcement officers. That is fair, because Black Matter matters everywhere. But it was also during this era that many Black Africans were molested and killed in Arab African countries and yet no word from the African Union.
There are many cases of molestations, raping, Black African women forced into sex slavery and killings of Black African migrant workers in oil rich Arab countries, and yet instead of standing up for Black Africans, here we have the AU standing up for an Arab country which has differences with Israel.
Is the AU truly for Black Africans and are Black African matters no longer of concern to the African Union? AU needs to apologise to Israel and stop this double standard.
By Hon Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
