December 2007 Edition
Riaz Quadir in Versailles
THE same South Asian friend who a few months ago had berated the
Guadelopeans as lazy and good-for-nothing, ventured to comment this
weekend that the French couples who had paid thousands of Euros to Zoe’s
Ark for 103 Chadian children were innocent. The French media mostly shared
his perspective.
Driving home that evening it struck me that this argument, of error in goodfaith, has been used so often by Western media (and European civilisation in
general) that even the rest of the world has come to believe in the white man’s
innocence and good intentions as a priori, in exactly the same fashion as he has
come to believe that every African (or Asian, Latino… in short, every non-
European) is corrupt and somewhat less than human. Readers of Edwards
Said’s Orientalism will easily recognise the symptoms of
such a belief system, which has taken almost a millennium
to perfect.
The Chad scandal is a perfect case in point. Of course, I could pick from scores of others. A former president of a four-wheel drive club in France, Eric Breteau and his girlfriend Emilie Lelouch set up l’Arche de Zoe (Zoe’s Ark) in June 2005 and, with what can charitably be described as missionary zeal, set off to rescue those ‘poor children’ of sub-Saharan Africa. While French society continues to debate the merits and demerits of this case, and probably will till doomsday (as only the French can), the gloss that is being put over it all around is that even though they may have committed a mistake their motives were largely pure and humanitarian. What really irks is the irony with which the most destructive race in modern times, the Caucasians (each day adds to the overwhelming historical proof that already exists), after having appropriated pretty much the entire planet for themselves, by guile and plunder, actually believe in their own innocence and goodness.
It can only be explained as a pathological condition. How else can we explain the current situation after Janice Peyre of Enfance et Familles d’Adoption (an adoption network in France) along with a local immigrants’ rights group, France Terre d’Asile alerted the French government early in the year about Zoe’s Ark which had been campaigning in France and Belgium to find host families for thousands of children from Darfur. Eric Breteau was called by the Foreign Office and in August this year Zoe’s Ark personnel were even interviewed by the child protection squad of the French Police. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a ‘caution’ to the 258 would-be foster parents who had already paid up to Euros 6,000 each for the procurement of their future wards. Caveat Emptor is Latin, and thus a European phrase. So when you are ‘buying’ a child in Europe one has all the more obligation to enquire into the finer details as to the origin of the child and the legality of the transactions.
Especially when you have been cautioned by your own government about the deal you have made. Claiming innocence becomes even more suspicious when faced with all the available evidence (a French judge has already opened a formal investigation leading to a charge of funding an illegal adoption network) and yet they continue to insist that they were saving those children from death. Nor are the children, orphans as has been claimed. One would have imagined that we had come a long way from the horrors of Canada's Residential Schools in the late 19th and early 20th century, when the Canadian government commissioned churches to run boarding schools for Aboriginal children. These schools were actually more like prisons and abuse was rampant. Children were beaten for speaking their native language and sexual abuse was common. The Canadian government (and the church) believed that conversion to Christianity would "Europeanise" the Aboriginal people and integrate them into Canadian society.
In 1909, Dr Peter Bryce, general medical superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), reported to the department that between 1894 and 1908 mortality rates at residential schools in Western Canada ranged from 35 per cent to 60 per cent over five years. These statistics did not become public until 1922, when Bryce, who was no longer working for the government, published The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921. In particular, he alleged that the high mortality rates were frequently deliberate, with healthy children being exposed to children with tuberculosis. Lest we forget, at that time these schools were considered benevolent do-gooders by the population. I am not saying that similar abuse was contemplated for the Chadian children. Only, similarity in the belief that Europeans with their materially elevated standard of livingare surely capable of providing better for the overall welfare of these children than their own parents and extended families.
Whenever such horrors have been enacted against non- Europeans, glossing over them has been commonplace – and still is. Belgium proudly displays statues of Leopold II, who in less than a decade decimated half of Congo’s population (over 15 million men, women and children) with the connivance of the rest of the European nations. The horrific French legacy in Africa has barely been recognised…and the details far from revealed, yet. Schools are run (The School of Americas in Georgia, USA, and similar secret ones in Western Europe) that have been teaching torture methods to selected Asian, African and Latin American military for years. And in 2007 we have a French President, who believes he is Napoleon’s reincarnation (not just in physical stature) and jets off to Chad to free his countrymen (and other fellow Europeans, as did his ex-wife during his first week in Office, freeing fellow Europeans from those barbarians, sorry, Libyans).
Diplomacy with a kick, I daresay! I am trying to remember the last time an African, Asian or South American head of state went to another country to armtwist the release of his countrymen who have been accused of crimes. In fact, thousands of Africans are jailed regularly all across Europe for far lesser crimes. The airport scene of President Sarkozi dropping off the Spanish detainees he had managed to rescue from Chad, in Spain, where they were received with honour by the Spanish President Zapatero reeked of tribalritualism – European, ironically, even though such an expression is normally reserved for those lesser Africans. Those of us in the West who elect our leaders cannot be absolved of our responsibilities. Should our leaders act in our name, we are responsible for their actions. Can the Americans who re-elected George Bush in 2004 after it had become crystal clear to the world that the invasion of Iraq was in error, be absolved of the guilt of the chaos that is Iraq today? Acting in ignorance is a sin, especially when our actions are directly related to the matter in question and when we have easy access to relevant information.
After being warned by the Foreign Office, would- be foster parents had all the more reason to find out what the maverick founder of Zoe’s Ark was up to. As Unicef spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said, "What happened in Chad, and the way it happened, is both illegal and irresponsible. It took place in violation of all international rules." Ignorance of the law has never been a valid reason to avoid punishment.
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