30.09.2020 Ovi Team Ovi Story Ovi Guide Newsletter Submissions Partners Links Contact The many colours of prejudice

by Thanos Kalamidas

Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author I have said it before that despite his participation in George W. Bush’s administration, I came to believe that the former US Secretary of State Colin Powell was used in the worst possible way and made one of the most noticeable comments about his colour than any I have ever heard. Powell did it in a forum for young people when he was asked how he feels to be the first black Secretary of State in the history of the USA, he answered that he feels proud to be the Secretary Of State who happens to be black. In one sentence the man captured the whole meaning of anti-racism.



Since then I have used this sentence too many times for too many reasons and somehow I wish everybody could have it in mind and understand it, actually I really believe that it should be taught in every school all around the world and analyze it; it should be a lesson for everybody. The man with this phrase went beyond colour and semantics and most of all I wish the media, the very same media that used this phrase, had learned something about it. I’m really really sorry to say that they haven’t!



Over the last few days all the news agencies, all the talk shows, even all the life style programs, have shown the most racist attitude making headlines that the new Prime Minister of Iceland, Mrs. Johanna Sigurdardottir, is gay! Nobody has asked if she can be a P.M. in a country that goes through a dramatic crisis that might lead them to a total economic catastrophe, nobody is talking about her ideas and how she’s going to help her country survive this hit but everybody seems to care if she is gay or not! Why? I’m sorry I find it hard to understand. Is being gay going to help her deal with the recovery of her country or is being gay the nemesis of Iceland?



Over the last one year all of us fought all the prejudice and we all said that it is not about the colour, it is not about gender but it is about change. And when I say all of us I especially mean the media who were pioneering this with gigantic headlines, fighting fear and ignorance and the very same media this moment point that it is not about solution, it is not about change since obviously what failed in Iceland was the conservative government and the Bush economic dogma they used but that the new P.M. is openly gay. The financial catastrophe of the people in Iceland doesn’t count as long their P.M. is gay.



Oh yes of course everybody mentions her very successful participation as a government social affairs minister but I didn’t see it making headlines and make her practices making an example to the rest of the world. I didn’t see anywhere any headline pointing that the woman has been active in human rights fights and elected in the Iceland’s parliament since 1978 but what I saw it is comments like “our voters are pretty liberal!” and I feel like laughing hysterically. So what is liberal?



To my poor mind that the voters don’t care for her personal life and sexual orientation is something that we should all do since we live in countries where the citizens have absolutely equal rights and we do respect each others’ privacy as long it doesn’t intrude our privacy and I don’t think Mrs. Johanna Sigurdardottir sexual preferences have anything to do with anybody else except her self. It really makes me wonder when are we going to learn and I was so optimistic after Obama’s election that the headlines about the new Icelander P.M. came as a slap in the face.



Oddly due to all the work she has done in Iceland for the underprivileged Mrs. Johanna Sigurdardottir the locals call her Saint Johanna and her political life is full of her fight, apparently she left the Socialist Party creating her own party because she didn’t agree with the more conservative turn of the party that in the name of the power forgot the people and ignored their needs risking a fifteen years successful political career. That’s what they forgot; they forgot that she made it her target to zero unemployment and give back the dignity they missed the underprivileged of the Icelandic society. They forgot to say that Mrs. Johanna Sigurdardottir is one of the most respected and popular politicians in the history of Iceland!



So Colin Powell is very current with something he said I think five years ago and I wish just everybody would read it and understand it most of all feel the reality behind the words.



Iceland Johanna+Sigurdardottir Homosexuality Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author Comments(1) Get it off your chest Name: Comment: ( comments policy ) Emanuel Paparella 2009-02-03 10:59:07 Indeed, it has always been a sign of small-minded individuals (and even institutions at times) that when they cannot deal with a complex issue they descend to personal idiosincracies and attacks. Unfortunately, with some exceptions, that is the place the media is presently: it is the media of entertainment news, the news of the paparazzi, of celebrities celebrating their inanities and their nihilism, of journalism degraded to gossip column. For shame.