21 March

21 March is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, established by the UN in memory of the Sharpeville massacre, the South African town where, on 21 March 1960, police killed 69 people peacefully demonstrating against apartheid policies.

The apartheid (separation) regime was introduced in South Africa in 1948 by the National Party on the basis of a simple assumption: the country’s different ethnic groups could best pursue their respective developmental trajectories by living separately. The truth is that this racial segregation was a social engineering exercise to ensure that the white minority of the population would retain power, while the black majority would serve as a reservoir of labour for the industrialisation of the country.

Since the creation of the first European colonies in South Africa at the end of the eighteenth century, strict rules had been implemented regarding the movement of the black population, which were taken up and adapted by the apartheid regime…it will take the “humanising force” of NELSON MANDELA to change history…

Foto  AP/Damian Dovarganes

Without forgetting that…

“Italy is one of the most racist societies” in a Europe that increasingly expels and discriminates (Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey – Main results 2017)