By María Isabel Niño-Rada (Professional Specialized in Presidential Counseling for Human Rights and International Affairs)
The Black Lives Matter movement emerged as a platform to reclaim the rights of African American people in the face of police brutality and systemic racism -the normalization of racial discrimination within a society and its institutions- that these people face in the United States on a daily basis.
It is very important to remember that the fight for civil rights for African Americans dates back to the mid-20th century with the participation of Martin Luther King, who was an activist in non-violent protests aimed at ending American segregation and racial discrimination. His work earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 but also led to his murder by a white segregationist on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Unfortunately, Martin Luther King’s dream of breaking the barriers of racial segregation has not come true, and there are more and more cases of abuse against the African American population, especially by the police forces, being a remarkable fact the death of George Floyd, an African American who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck during an arrest for nearly nine minutes. For three minutes Floyd remained motionless and pulseless, but the agents made no attempt to revive him. The phrase he spoke while he was attacked, “I can’t breathe,” became the emblem of multiple protests in major cities in the United States. It’s sad to know that the same sentence had already been said by Eric Garner, a black man killed by the police in 2014 in Staten Island, who said the same thing while being suffocated.
The events went viral because of social media, so the protests spread to other countries even despite the confinements in times of pandemic. It may be asked then why why a movement that was initially born in an American context achieved so much affinity in other latitudes. The short answer is very simple: systemic racism and excessive use of force by the police are problems that are not only evident in the United States, so their effects are easily amplified in other societies facing the same challenges.
The example of the Arab spring is very useful to understand this effect. In 2010, the Tunisian revolution began to unfold due to the protests that followed the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor whose merchandise was confiscated by the police through the excessive use of force. His complaints were not addressed and this person decided to immolate himself by setting himself on fire in protest.
The seriousness of the events made Bouazizi become the emblem of a revolution against the oppression of a dictatorial government and police abuses, generating the resignation of Ben Ali, president of the country. These protests were replicated in various Arab countries in clamor for democracy and social rights. In Egypt, millions of people came out to protest against Hosni Mubarak who was overthrown; Libyans protested against the government of Muammar Gaddafi, who was executed; and in Yemen, protests against Ali Abdullah Saleh lasted more than a year, until in February 2012 he was expelled from power.
With Black Lives Matter a similar effect was generated: the case of Eric Garner caused the movement, which was retaken with the death of George Floyd and was replicated around the world. France, Germany, Norway, Spain and Canada are some of the countries that have joined the protests. Despite currently being the focus of the Covid-19 contagion, Latin America has also expressed its support for the cause, reflecting a region historically affected by systemic racism and police abuse, even in the midst of the pandemic.
In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a 14-year-old black teenager named João Pedro Mattos Pinto was playing in the yard of his house when he was shot in the midst of an operation involving the Federal Police and of the Coordinator of Special Resources (Core) on May 18. The adolescent was taken away in a helicopter of the civil police after being shot at. His family was provided no information about his whereabouts till the morning of May 19. This shows the racist nature of policing in Brazil and the brutality involved in their procedures. This seems not to be an isolated case in Brazilian reality. In the first 5 months of this year, 741 people were killed by the military police in Rio de Janeiro. In April alone, 177 people were killed, representing 43% more than the same period last year, without a pandemic.
In Puerto Tejada, Colombia, on May 19, police beat 24-year-old Anderson Arboleda, for being suspected of breaking the strict quarantine curfew. He later died from his injuries. As the United States and the rest of the world turned their attention to #BlackLivesMatter, Colombian artists and activists highlighted the case of Arboleda: a horrific death of a young, Black, Afro-Colombian, unarmed man at the hands of police. Bogotá saw Black Lives Matter protest on June 3, when various groups gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy to protest police brutality and the deaths of black people transnationally.
These examples show that this problem represents a global issue, which makes evident a possible new wave for the claims of historically discriminated groups against colonialism and white supremacy. These new causes will raise new revolutions in the future, which do not seem to stop despite the Covid-19 pandemic, as they need to be heard and generate real changes within government structures that promote oppressive tactics and aggressive strategies against black communities around the world.
Author: María Isabel Niño Rada (Professional Specialized in Presidential Council for Human Rights and International Affairs; Lawyer and professional in International Relations from the Universidad del Rosario, Colombia; Diploma in International Protection of the Human Rights of Women from the Universidad Austral, Argentina. She is currently enrolled in a Postgraduate degree in Constitutional Law at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Bogotá D.C. Area, Colombia)
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
Image Credit: REUTERS/Darren Ornitz