Al Jazeera English: VIDEO: Black Iraqis claim discrimination

[SealLion]

check it oUt:

Black Iraqis in the southern province of Basra are complaining of discrimination, saying they are not fairly represented in the state.

African Iraqis have lived in the country for centuries and now number more than one million.

Many of them are descendants of African slaves brought to Iraq. Many Iraqis still refer to them by their ancestral name, abeed - meaning slaves

The article is not too long and having read it made me think of a few reasons why blacks there might or might not be discrimited against.

Here's a few:

1 One of the reasons that I had in mind about the complaint by blacks of inadequate representation could be b/c of a lack of action on the behalf of the blacks themselves.
Maybe some of the people there are not qualified for what-ever position is available there.

2 But then, if blacks are still referred to their ancestral name of abeed, then perhaps discrimination might be accurate.

The 3 min. video does make mention of blacks living in poor conditions, having lower paying work than other Iraqis.

maybe it is really discrimination afterall.

Afterall, discrimination is pretty much everywhere on earth. That's sad.

3. However, the video does make mention of there being only 10 % blacks and 90 & whites in Basra. Perhaps that could be one of the reasons why there are so few blacks in the region....not enough numbers.


4 the best estimate that I could think of is that it's a combination of all of the above reasons as both stated in my opinion and the video.



HEre's the link:

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Black Iraqis claim discrimination

enjoy.

[slikrapid]

i would say there is definitely discrimination going on, a few examples:

Many of them are descendants of African slaves brought to Iraq. Many Iraqis still refer to them by their ancestral name, abeed - meaning slaves

such names can imply a lack of respect towards the 'african' minority, as they are insulting - a non-discriminatory government would actively educate its population about the meaning of this word and make sure it is not being used when referring to this minority

Black Iraqis in the southern province of Basra are complaining of discrimination, saying they are not fairly represented in the state.

their status & special privileges (as an addition to the usual privileges of all country citizens) can clearly show how much freedom they have in the country from a legalistic point of view, and there is also the practical situation that shows how these rights defined on paper (in theory) are being implemented in everyday life - we didn't get that information from the video

another statement from an iraqi official? is a bit revealing - he said that the minority representatives have to present themselves and then the iraqi people will choose between the candidates - this is only partially correct (like when running for election) - what would be more appropriate is to say they can participate in general elections just as any iraqi would, and also that they have a special privilege to choose their own representatives (with already guaranteed number of participants in the 'parliament') between candidates only from the minority population - this special privilege is to ensure they have representatives in the 'parliament' as obviously (unless really concentrated in a local area) their 10% could never outnumber the 90% in just about any election

also, if a government is interested in having minority participants in society's activity (on all levels) - it would create supporting programs that encourage their development & participation, so a working democracy which has 10% of some minority would have roughly 10% of total employees & employers coming from that minority (percentage can vary ofc, but very high or very low percentages can hint that there is something malfunctioning in the system)

what is somewhat annoying in these videos is the lack of important information (some of which i mentioned above), which makes it hard to create meaningful conclusions - it shows that the reporters are making shallow observations without deeper investigative effort - is this just sloppy work, lack of interest or is that their actual job description/purpose...could be all of the above too

[SealLion]

It could be just sloppy work on the behalf of the journalist. However, one important thing to keep in mind is that AJE, which when it makes video's for YT, is probably restricted to keeping most of their vids to short time periods in comparison to some of their other news programs available also on YT.

In other words, they want to concentrate more time on reporting and giving videos on YT for some of their specialty news programs and can only keep a time budget for some of their other reportings.

As a result, the journalist, because of time constraints and editing too, of/c, only can make a video report that is of a shortened duration.

This is true for many news and journal organizations. It's the same here in my country where there is only so much time that can be contributed to bringing news, which after it has been edited, is only so long. When you have the news programs that specialize in investigative journalism, of/c more time is presented on that particular subject that is being presented.

In other words....it comes down to money and how much of it can be spent on news coverage as well as programs.

So it may not be entirely the fault of the journalist, though, I do agree with you that the journalist could have at least touched deeper upon the subjects that you mentioned. Albiet briefly at the least.

As for the discrimination thing, I think that your right about a government needing to educate the general population on the use of inappropriate terminology in reference to minorities; however, it could also be difficult for the regular person to stop using such terms based upon the assumption that certain terminologies have obviously been used for a few hundred years since the black Iraqis have been in that country, yes??

I don't know if there are actually any supportive programs for Black Iraqis in that country. I would hope that there is, but considering what the video presented and how some of the black Iraqis are living and the conditions of their lives, there probably isn't a whole lot for them.