Letter to L’Express Editor Nad Sivaramen to expose xenophobic statements by contributors
12.09.2023
Dear Sir,
We note that L’Express regular contributors Michael Bellingcat and El Figaro persist in using the pages of L’Express to spread xenophobia (7 and 9 Sept).
It is unacceptable for the Press to deride people by their nationality. It is xenophobic behavior. This is true for stigmatization on any ground at all. But, to persist in deriding Bangladeshi people as a whole for criminal behavior is hideously xenophobic. Electoral fraud and impersonation are criminal offenses. Accusing people of one nationality for these crimes can clearly cause violent reaction against them.
In any other country, the Press would at least see this. When Trump notoriously called Mexicans “rapists”, adding, “not all of them”, the American press calls his words “xenophobic”. They are. When UK Minister Suella Braverman refers to “Albanian criminals”, the Prime Minister of Albania protests, rightly calling her language “purely xenophobic”. The press agrees. When a previous UK Minister spoke of the crimes of “gangs of Pakistani men”, she got called out by the press for “racist rhetoric”, too. In all countries, there are indeed rapists, criminals, gangs, just as there are impersonators and fraudsters. Their crimes are not Mexican, Albanian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi. People who commit these crimes are rapists, criminals, gang members, impersonators or fraudsters, respectively, if found guilty, and it is not acceptable to tag on their nationality as if this is what makes them guilty. It is an overt act of xenophobia.
Both the anonymous L’Express contributors have persisted, even after our Open Letters, in singling out “Bangladeshis” as impersonators and electoral fraudsters. Impersonation is impersonation. It is not Bangladeshi impersonation. Electoral fraud is committed by electoral fraudsters. Not Bangladeshi electoral fraudsters. Criminal actions are not the monopoly of any one nationality or for that matter, of any one community.
Three years have passed since the L’Express scurrilous November 2019 Lareg_gate video-film, with its xenophobic portrayal of a registered voter of Bangladeshi origin being cruelly made fun of. This portrayal seems to deride him for exercising his Constitutional right to vote. This is pretty hideous as xenophobia goes. But the video clip does not seem to deride him for committing any crime. The point of us again mentioning this awful video-clip is not just to remind the Press of its responsibility to avoid making xenophobic statements at all, but also to emphasize that the statements now being made and re-made by Michael Bellingcat and El Figaro are even worse because they accuse Bangladeshis of behavior that is unequivocally criminal. This is dangerous. It exposes people of Bangladeshi origin to violent xenophobic acts that can, in turn, provoke communal acts.
Just as the press abroad calls out xenophobia, in part because it has a local racist sub-text, so here, too, the editors cannot hide behind ignorance of the communal sub-text. So, there are two dangers: the risk of causing xenophobic violence and, as people come to the aid of victims of violence, the risk of causing communal violence and communal rioting. This has already happened here. It was in September 2012. Let it never happen again. Let us all be part of the process of preventing it.
Rajni Lallah
for LALIT.
