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  • 2007 in Quotes

2007 in Quotes: July - September

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  • July - September
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"Black boys go backwards when they get to secondary school. It's a cultural problem. It's the absence of fathers who are actively involved in parenting. And as we know - lads need dads. Of course they need their mums as well, but there is a particular point in teenagers' development, of young men, where fathers are very important and they are more likely to be absent in the case of the Afro-Caribbean… It has to be a matter for these communities because the problem for these communities is that not only are they - the black lads - much more likely to end up in prison, but they are also much more likely to be the victims of crime than the white or non-black sections of the community."


Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, August 2007

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Straw: 'Lads need dads' to stop gang violence
- Politics.co.uk, 21 August 2007

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“The problem is that Africans have never really entered history… The African peasant who has lived with the rhythm of the seasons for millennia, whose ideal is to live in harmony with nature, knows only the eternal cycle of time, marked by the endless repetition of the same gestures and the same words. In this imaginary world where everything starts over and over again, there is no place for human adventure or the idea of progress…

In this universe where nature controls everything, [the African] man avoids the anguish of history that torments modern man, but he remains immobile, [trapped in] an immutable order where everything seems to be predetermined. He never strikes out for the future. It never occurs to him to stop repeating the past and invent a destiny for himself ... Africa's problem is ... to realize that the golden age which it always dreams of will never return, because it never existed."


French President Nicolas Sarkozy speaking at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal in August. He claimed that his speech was directed at “the youth of Africa” and asserted that colonialism had brought many benefits to Africa. His speech was denounced by many as inappropriate, insulting and racist. However, when South African President Thabo Mbeki wrote to Sarkozy following his speech he made no reference to the insulting comments and instead thanked him, labelling him “a citizen of Africa”.

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Sarkozy's African speech 'pathetic'
- The Spec, 30 August 2007

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"[Human Rights] has to go. Abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a British Bill of Rights, which sets out rights and responsibilities… It is a glaring example of what is going wrong in our country."


Tory Leader, David Cameron commenting on 23 August 2007 that the Human Rights Act had allowed the Italian born killer of head teacher Philip Lawrence to potentially remain in the country following his forthcoming parole in 2008.

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David Cameron: Scrap the Human Rights Act
- The Independent, 24 August 2007

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"She's getting very dark, isn't she?" This is what one of my friends recently said about my much adored - 12-week-old daughter… I was overwhelmed by a confusion of emotions. I felt protective, insulted, worried, ashamed, guilty, all at once. The reason? My lovely, wriggly, smiley baby is mixed race.
But this is 2007, surely things are more enlightened than that? I hope so, but I fear not. One reason for my fear is my own mixed reactions to my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I love her. She is the child I didn't think I'd have after my first marriage broke up. She is the only granddaughter in our family and we all dote on her. But when I turn to the mirror in my bedroom to admire us together, I am shocked. She seems so alien. With her long, dark eyelashes and shiny, dark brown hair, she doesn't look anything like me. I know that concentrating on how my daughter looks is shallow. She is a person in her own right, not an accessory to me. But still, I can't shake off the feeling of unease. I didn't realise how much her looking different would matter...
Evolution demands that we have children to pass on our genes, hence the sense of pride and validation we get when we see our features reappearing in the next generation. With my daughter, I don't have that… I am frightened, frightened of others' reactions to her, as well as my own. I didn't think of myself as racist and yet my daughter has shown me a side of myself about which I feel deeply uncomfortable. Even admitting to having mixed feelings about her not being blonde and blue eyed, I feel disloyal and incredibly guilty.”


Journalist, Lowry Turner writing in the Daily Mail on 13 July 2007 about her new born baby. She laments about her daughter's "darker skinned" complexion as a result of her baby's father being a British Asian. As a caucasian woman, she openly states that she feels "uncomfortable", "worried" and "ashamed" about her feelings regarding her daughters ethnicity and appearance.

Related links & Resources

'I love my mixed race baby - but why does she feel so alien?'
- Daily Mail, 13 July 2007

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"It is precisely because of the overriding importance of the "Darfur factor" in present pan-Arab political calculations on Africa that Gaddafi was generally unperturbed by his "union government" failure in Accra. On the contrary, Gaddafi returned home from Accra very satisfied that he had ensured that Africa did not discuss the raging Darfur genocide. Gaddafi had in effect converted the well-known pan-Arab long-term goal to seize the whole of Africa to a more "immediate" task, a smokescreen that dominated the conference proceedings and kept Darfur off the agenda! Yet, Gaddafi's diversionary trail on Darfur must be exposed for what it really is: the Darfur genocide, in 2007, tragically illustrates the grim realities of Africa-Arab "relations" of nearly 2000 years which Gaddafi and other Arab expansionists and some of their African religio-political allies cannot ignore. Serial aggression and expansionism were the interlocking dual tracks that codified Arab's policy to the African World right from the outset. "


Quoted from the 'History and that Gaddafi diversionary trail' article written by Professor Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe and published in August 2007. Professor Herbert exposes the imperial arab expansionist agenda of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi who continues to masquerade as a 'revolutionary comrade' and 'friend of Africa'. In 2001, Gaddafi urged the arab world to expand their occupation of Africa: "…The third of the arab community living outside Africa should move in with the two-thirds on the continent and join the African Union 'which is the only space we have.'"

Related links & Resources

History and that Gaddafi diversionary trail
- Ligali, 26 August 2007

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"That's two years in a row, man... give a black man a chance…I'm trying hard, man, I have the number one record, man."


Kanye West, throwing a tantrum at the MTV awards show after failing to win an award in September 2007

Related links & Resources

Kanye West throws tantrum after losing all five MTV Video Music Awards
- NME, 10 September 2007

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"Zimbabwe cannot any more be seen as an African problem needing an African solution… Britain needs to escape from its colonial guilt when it comes to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is the worst kind of racist dictator. Having targeted the whites for their apparent riches, Mugabe has enacted an awful Orwellian vision, with the once oppressed taking on the role of the oppressor and glorying in their totalitarian abilities. It is now time for the sanctions and campaigns that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa to be applied to the Mugabe regime. …our new Prime Minister, with his record on debt erosion and activism across Africa, is faced with a spiralling desperation that demands a response. While Mugabe may well brand Brown a 'colonialist' or 'imperialist' for any action he takes, the people of Zimbabwe look to us, and to others, to heed the cries of their suffering and the voices of our own conscience."


The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, calls for Britain to lead the colonial interference in Zimbabwe. He was subsequently criticised for ignoring the fact Britain has a history of xenophobic warfare, often motivated by selfish economic needs and the desire to impose British cultural on the international world. Britain still maintain through subtle and overt actions that they oppose the return of land illegally occupied by european descendants in South Africa to the majority South African population.

Related links & Resources

Re-colonise Africa demands Archbishop Sentamu
- Ligali, 25 September 2007

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"I was asked to escort the Queen Mother for the evening. One of the things I had to do was dance with her. The security people came a few days before to explain what I had to do. There was a clearing of throats and shuffling of feet. One of them said, 'Mr Phillips, I need to share something with you. When you're dancing with the Queen Mother you will have to lay your hands on her.'

I said, 'Yes, that's what happens in dancing. But I'm not going to grope the Queen Mother.' He replied, 'You have to be careful about where you put your hands. You have to be careful about the colostomy bag.'… I had to say that after you had dinner."


Relic of race relations and current chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) Trevor Philips OBE, jokes about the dead ‘Queen Mother’ at a black tie dinner and centenary ball at Imperial College London to mark their 100 year anniversary on 17 July 2007. Philips made the joke minutes after the diners had toasted Elizabeth II on her birthday leaving the audience stunned and horrified.

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