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The Ones They Left Behind

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The Ones They Left Behind The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library. Find more at: http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/africanjournals/ Available through a partnership with Scroll down to read the article. circumstances and position in life. You are even forced to put yourself in the picture as you ask questions about the nature of man in the world. For instance, What is in one man that makes him different from others? Does the face of others menace you because of your own St. Peterburg. feelings of inferiority or pride? The Third World Resource Centre in conjunction with the African-Russian Link, the African THE ONES THEY LEFT BEHIND Community Organization of Windsor AKINTAIWO and the Iona College of the University of Windsor, made the presentation of he audience sat in hushed silence. racial discrimination against our The Bear's Ugly Face feasible to the But now and then a children? 'Half-cast' they are international audience. Recent events T sigh. Then and again the shaking pejoratively called. But 'bi-racial' they in Chechnya makes the Bear ever uglier. of the head. Not because it was sunset are correctly indexed. They are not on 208 Sunset Avenue where the Black, if indeed there are any 'black' In the very educative documentary, we different clans gathered. But because men on the face of the earth. Neither are realised that Black presence in Russia the video-show they have come to watch they White, if anyone is ever 'white'. predated the communist revolution. was provoking, if not indeed Their colour lies within the continuum Most Blacks then were sailors who provocative. of brown and pink. Children of later settled along the sea coast of circumstances, now victims of Abkhasia. the southern part of the uninformed prejudice. Could the world The documentary titled The Ones They Russian Federation. They became so ever be kind? Could the society ever be Left Behind is a first-hand account of assimilated that only their skin colour humane? Could people ever be the African presence in Russia by Dr. differentiated them. The initial fifty reasonable, if not charitable? Charles Quist-Adade, a professor in the fami lies soon grew beyond five hundred Department of Sociology and along the coast. Arab traders joined the Anthropology at the University of You may not have tears in your eyes as fray in the 16th and 17th centuries. Windsor. It is a heart-chilling story of you follow the documentary. But, unless Many people however migrated to the children of African fathers and you have a heart of stone, you can't be Turkey after the revolution. Russian mothers after the collapse of indifferent to the contrasts and anti- Soviet-style communism in the former theses of your own existence. As the On the other hand, when royalties U.S.S.R. There are many heads in the author summarizes, it is 'a story of love exchanged gifts between and among groove now, but who shall save the gone sour, goodwill turned to hatred; a themselves, slaves were a commodity. children? tale of trust and betrayal, ignorance and Ibrahim Hannibal was presented to Peter prejudice, bigotry and racism.' In it the Great who, on sensing the Black What can we do, as a people with you're forced to see yourself, the boy's brilliance, sent him to school in conscience, to mitigate the effect of pigmentation of your skin, your Russia and France. Then the Russian 62 aristocrats spoke French. Hannibal that 'the ethnocentric blood is thicker he was dark like charcoal.' became the chief engineer and a general than the ideological water.' Many Black in the Russian army. He married twice students left, somewhat hurriedly after Others made uncomplimentary remarks and one of his grandsons, Alexander their studies, abandoning their children about Blacks; they said things like Pushkin - widely reputed to be Russia's who they couldn't financially take care 'obeziana' (monkey), 'black paint', greatest poet - introduced and developed of. 'chocolate', 'black sea.' Her mother was the Russian literary language. Aira forced to withdraw her from school. Yet Oldridje, an African-American As attested to by Joseph White she's one of the thousands of African- introduced the dramatic art forms to Erakpotobor, a Soviet-trained Nigerian Soviets suffering this plight. Russian and later died in Poland. engineer, now residentin Detroit, U.S.A., some fathers left their wives and kids In 1990 a dozen of them formed the But racism in Russia hasn't always been with the promise of coming back later, Afro-Soviet Association, renamed so obvious or manifest until now. but never came. Many Blacks married African-Russian Society of St. Afterall, Russia has been an ally of the out of convenience to satisfy their 'bodily Petersburg since the disintegration of Third World, fighting Western longings', just as some Soviet ladies the Soviet Union. The aim is to 'unite all subjugation and imperialism, providing married as an act of adventure and a Soviets who have roots in Africa. It's a aids and support for liberation chance to leave Russia. At any rate, delight for each of us to feel that we are movements.By 1992 about half a million Russian officials did not encourage not alone in this world', says Joseph students mainly from Mozambique, foreign students to stay on after their Okum, born of an absentee Ghanaian Angola, Ethiopia, Algeria, Nigeria, studies. It is only predictable what the father. Mikhail Zayaistky whose father Cuba and Grenada were educated on plights of the children, born as results of is an Ethiopian hopes that they could scholarships. these relationships, could be. attract world attention to 'our perilous existence before we disappear like the But all that was politics of the 'cold war" Paradoxically, many 'fathers' had indeed dinosaurs.' and of convenience. The bias soon married 'back home'. Some feared the showed in the perestroika era. Racism 'loose characters' of their Soviet wives. Though the Russian constitution made became the other side of paternalism. And some others who genuinely wanted racial abuse punishable by law, offenders The Patrick Lumumba University where to leave with their wives were prevented are hardly ever prosecuted. Dr. Quist- Third World students normally studied by official state policies, like the denial Adade who could be called 'a Black was renamed Moscow Friendship of visas. Many kids were disallowed Russian' recounted a personal University party apparatchiks allowed from following their fathers 'to Africa', experience. He lived in Russia for ten racism to find its own level. Even only to be left in orphanages. Some years, commuting between London and university professors avoided Blacks as ladies had to be forced to abort, or Russia as a correspondent for Gemini much as fellow students abhorred them. seriously threatened to be dealt with, if News Service in England. He was There were unimaginable racist attacks they have babies for Africans. severally beaten by the police and state as if to justify the producer's assertion thugs before his room was finally set on Maria Ferdinadova Balige was born fire. He left the country for Canada in while her father, Rwechugura, a May, 1992. By December of the same Tanzanian was in the city. But because year when he went back as a business Rwechugura overstayed his vacation in escort, two of his friends had been killed Sweden he was expelled from school on by the neo-fascists. Are there civil rights his return. He broke down under organizations in Russia to take up a psychological pressure from the secret crusade for sanity? What happens to the ones they left behind? police. While in hospital he was forcefully removed, roughly bundled, taken to the airport and deported. He The light came on in the cosy room after hasn't gone back since then. the forty-minute documentary, and there was nosmiling face. God made the world Ten years later, Maria, his child became and men invented borders. God made a promising gymnast, coming second in men of colours, men made races out of All-Leningrad Championship. But as she them. As we grow and go, we always said: 'They called me names, made jokes leave people behind, can we not make about me. Sometimes they would ask the world a better place for them? «r of the where my father came from and whether video documentary. 63.
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