The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Nairobi, Kenya | AFP | Africans reacted angrily Friday after US President Donald Trump reportedly referred to their nations as “shithole countries”, with many lashing the US president for racism and ignorance.
The 55-nation African Union condemned the remarks while the southern African state of Botswana hauled in the US ambassador to complain.
The comment “truly flies in the face of accepted behaviour and pracice,” said Ebba Kalondo, spokeswoman for AU chief Moussa Faki.
“This is even more hurtful given the historical reality of just how many Africans arrived in the United States as slaves, and also terribly surprising as the United States remains a massively positive example as just how migration can give birth to a nation,” Kalondo said.
The comments were “clearly” racist, Kalondo said, but stressed the US was “much stronger than the sum total of one man”.
Trump made the remarks on Thursday in a meeting with lawmakers on immigration reform, The Washington Post and The New York Times reported. On Friday, Trump tweeted an implicit denial, saying “this was not the language used”.
The United Nations slammed Trump’s reported remarks as “shocking and shameful” and “racist”.
“You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome,” Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN human rights office, told reporters in Geneva.
Botswana summoned the US ambassador to the country to “clarify if Botswana is regarded as a ‘shithole’ country”, according to a foreign ministry statement which called Trump’s comments “irresponsible, reprehensible and racist”.
– ‘Nothing new’ –
This is not the first time Trump has rubbed Africans up the wrong way — he was widely derided last year after he twice referred to Namibia as “Nambia”.
On social media, users across the continent on Friday posted images of modern skylines and beautiful nature from their countries with the ironic hashtag “shithole”.
Many Africans reminded the US of its historic role in the continent’s woes.
“President Trump, One day, I’ll take you to a ‘shithole’ country called Ghana,” wrote Ghanaian Edmond Prime Sarpong on Facebook.
“First stop would be Osu Castle, Elmina Castle, and the over 40 Forts that detained about 30 million slaves, beaten and shipped out like sardine cans and then I will tell you the history of Africa and why people like you made that a ‘shithole’ continent.”
Prominent Kenyan commentator Patrick Gathara, told AFP that Trump’s words were nothing new from a “racist and ignorant” administration, nor from the West at large.
“This is no different from what Hollywood and Western media have been saying about Africa for decades. We have consistently been portrayed as shitty people from shitty countries.”
