鈥淲hy are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?鈥� US president Donald Trump reportedly asked last week.
, made during talks on an immigration deal, apparently referred to people from Africa, Haiti and El Salvador.
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The alleged insult has not gone down well. There is anger in Africa and in Haiti, a country made up largely of people of African descent. The African Union Mission in Washington DC, which represents member states throughout the continent, is following its 鈥渟hock, dismay and outrage鈥� at the comment. It 鈥渟trongly believes that there is a huge misunderstanding鈥� of Africa and its people by the current US administration.
Trump has seemingly rubbished an entire continent and all those with links to it. Has he forgotten Africa鈥檚 history and modern capabilities in expressing a ridiculously simplistic view of its problems? Has he forgotten the many millions of people taken as slaves to the Americas from the middle of the 15th century until well into the 19th century? And that the economic foundation of the US was built on this slave labour?
Or, that it was the ancient Muslim scholars of Timbuktu in Mali who kept alive the knowledge of the Greeks, through tens of thousands of papyrus manuscripts, that centuries later would inform the thinkers of the Renaissance.
Did Trump not know about the recent 50th anniversary of the first successful heart transplant by South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard, which took place on the continent he is now belittling?
His latest outburst goes against the idea that cross-cultural understanding is more important and necessary than ever for global development and world peace. The problem is that under the banner of 鈥渘ational conservatism鈥�, which upholds national cultural or ethnic identity over almost everything else, prominent politicians, not just Trump, have made statements and are implementing policies that are outright xenophobic, narrow-minded and culturally chauvinistic. Russia鈥檚 Vladimir Putin, Hungary鈥檚 Viktor Orb谩n and Austria鈥檚 Heinz-Christian Strache are other examples.
Such blinkered thinking and arrogance has led not only Washington, but also Paris and Moscow, to mistakenly use military might to try to solve what are essentially problems of development on the African continent and in the Middle East.
They could all do with a lesson in social and cultural anthropology. For example, getting to the roots of underdevelopment and violent conflict in such regions (one often leads to the other) requires a cross-cultural understanding rather than a Trumpian mindset. The temporary bandage strategy of the West to armed conflict in Africa and the Middle East, often without any clear-sighted, long-term plan, usually fails on these grounds.
鈥淭he central revelation of anthropology is that one鈥檚 cultural reality, the world in which you are born, is just one model of reality,鈥� says ethnobiologist Wade Davis, the celebrated author of The Serpent and the Rainbow, which is about zombie culture in Haiti. 鈥淥ther cultures, outside your own are simply different ways of being and of thinking.鈥�
That is a view Trump is unlikely to embrace. His 鈥淢ake America Great Again鈥� election slogan has morphed into 鈥淢ake America Hate Again鈥�, which in the end will only make America hated again, at home and abroad.
