Dickson Igwe, Senior political contributor
Austere trickle down economics has created a dangerous world
The western world especially the US and UK are in a similar place the world sat in 1935. In the US and UK xenophobia and race hate has spiraled.
Trump’s Pitchfork Revolution is akin with Adolf Hitler’s storm trooper paramilitaries whose mission was to make the ‘’white race’’ pure once more. And underlining Brexit there is the same xenophobia and racism that plunged the world into war in 1939.
The great paradox is that the evil today is with the victors of 1945. Apparently history has not taught anything. Appalling hate crimes are being committed daily on the streets of the west. And anyone who denies there is racial tension practically everywhere is simply, deluded.
Now, and very recently, Boris Johnson, a leading Brexiter, called gays, ‘’tank top bumboys.’’ The UK Prime Minister referred to blacks as ‘’piccaninnies with water melon smiles.’’ Muslim women wearing burkas were letterboxes. A second leading Brexiter stated that migrants brought into the UK, ‘’ bacteria.’’
Muslim women in burkas. Photo courtesy https://www.abc.net.au/
The preceding are well known statements, and published in the UK media, including the deliberate action of ignoring blacks at a recent conference, when the UK Prime Minister refused to shake the hands of black men, passing them over to shake the hands of whites, with whom he was much more familiar, and comfortable.
Before that, President Donald Trump launched his successful bid for office when he descended the escalator of Trump Tower and termed Mexicans, ‘’rapists, drug dealers, and gang bangers.’’ ‘’Blacks,’’ the US President asserted inhabited run down, crime ridden, and diseased neighborhoods.’’ The preceding statements began a new rise in ‘’white supremacist activity.’’ Trump is an expert in the politics of the ‘’dog whistle.’’
The point here is that Trump, Brexit, Farage, xenophobia, and racism, in the west, are the key drivers of a ‘new and toxic, divisive politics,’ that may well define news cycles for years to come.
Racism, Islamophobia, and Anti- Semitism are rampant in UK politics post the Brexit Referendum of 2016. In the USA – especially in the Deep South- the days of Jim Crow have returned with a vengeance.
Where all this will lead? Look no farther back than 1939-45.
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Dickson Igwe is an education official in the Virgin Islands. He is also a national sea safety instructor. He writes a national column across media and has authored a story book on the Caribbean: 'The Adventures of a West Indian Villager'. Dickson is focused on economics articles, and he believes economics holds the answer to the full economic and social development of the Caribbean. He is of both West African and Caribbean heritage. Dickson is married with one son.
