The picture below comes from Zanzibar, the place of cult for most of the people. Once you go there you want to return. The unique architecture of the Stone Town and great beaches of the Indian Ocean. I posted last time a thing about Zanzibar woman - Bi Kidude who just visited Wroclaw, Poland to performe on the Brave Festival.
She remided me the nice time I spent on Zanzibar in October 2009. Maybe now the photo doesn't make you impressed - we have summer in Europe. But belive me in winter it's like a hot tea with honey and ginger.
Zanzibar is a tourist place and as my US friend said - "it's good that it is. You know that you are going there and you are treaten like a tourist. You can take a rest from Mzungu style". Those who has been to East Africa knows what he means.
But how thick the line between local people and tourists can be?
Let me give you one exemple from the place the photo was taken - Kendwa villiage and one of its lounge.
The beach you can see belongs to Tanzania, however the area was bought by some European guy. Most of the tourist that come there are from Europe. The owner is white, the stuff is black - of course.
While I came there first thing I did was going to beaches - of course. I could lie down on the sand and relax.
On the extremelly white sand, only white people were lying... and you could notice few friendlly dogs around.
Do you know why they were there - still are I guess?
My clue: racism.
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The woman who worked in the lounge's bar was tiding up the beach from empty glasses. Suddenly the dog started to bark on her and she started running. Her colleages where laughing and screaming: fight with him...
What skin colour could they all have?
I was lying just few meter away from the scean and no dog was agressive to me... Isn't that strange?
Your words left me speechless…
There is something you are overlooking here, Iwona.
Having lived in Africa for 11 years, virtually all of these with dogs, I can tell you that dogs often turn racist themselves…they are not deliberately trained to be that way. Why?
Because many African people are afraid of dogs they beat them, throw stones at them, kick them, and so on. And the whites hangin’ around are nice to dogs, pet them…
The result is what you describe. Mind you, dogs also get to know people, and if they are kind enough it doesn’ matter what colour they have.
I have had exactly that experience when living in Zambia. Our dogs were very frightful of Africans, and sometimes agressive to the point that we were ashamed, but it all had to do with the way the dogs were treated…
Your story therefore portrays a situation that may not be the way you make it come across. Did you speak to the owner of the beach/lodge about it?
Hi Iwona,
Also having a few years behind me in Africa (and having been on Zanzibar about 10 times), I want to add a few words to Bart’s comment as well.
Have you ever noticed in your home country how some dogs just bark at some people? If you are scared you release an adrenaline smell, something animals pick up easily. Africans, often being scared, have a similar problem with the result that dogs start to bark.
This does not mean that some dogs do get trained to bark at Africans. I have witnessed ‘white Africans’ training their dogs to bark at every ‘black African’ approaching their fence (I will spare you the details how this gets done since it is nasty). But in general it is as Bart describes.
To come back to your title and some other content in your article.
First of all, foreigners can not own land in many African countries, but they are only allowed to LEASE the land for a specific amount of years. So your insinuation that Tanzanians are not welcome on ‘white owned land’ is false.
Secondly, many African states have been battling to increase local tourism, not in the least place because of poverty. This is the reason why you only saw whites on the (private?)beach.
Then we have the problem of the ‘beach boys’ who are trying to sell you anything from sunglasses, to woodcarvings to even themselves. Not all lease owners are charmed by their (sometimes aggressive) behavior and have customer concern at heart.
Last but not least, black Africans use the beach in a completely different way. For them the beach means money. Either they fish, pick seaweed (as you might have seen on Zanzibar) or are involved in tourism. An African is not just lying on the beach like we do.
So to conclude my comment: White beaches are not just for white people because of racism, but due to a number of other reasons.
I think your blog highlights how the wealthy buy up pieces of paradise all over the world, and then lock out anyone who doesn’t have money. It happens everywhere of course, not just in developing countries. There are plenty of places in the UK that I couldn’t get access to because I don’t have the money or connections. I wonder if the beach only had whites because of racism or because of the wealth gap? I presume if you could pay the money you would be allowed to visit.
I think the situation you describe is common in developing countries. Why? Probable because local people do not have the same vision/education/power/$ of being able to create that type of places with such commodities
Just to clarify: are the dogs afraid of all black people or only those who had beaten them? Can dogs differentiate between skin colours?
@Giedre. For clarity sake, let me turn the situation the other way around. In a setting where only white people would throw stones at dogs or beat them with sticks, the dogs would turn against them. If it would be little green men from Mars kicking them, they would meet the aggression.
If dogs get persistently beaten up by green men from Mars, then the dogs will become suspicious of every green person. And yes, they are very much capable of distinguishing the green men from the purple men (from Venus).
This is not the point. Johan and myself are arguing that Iwona’s interpretation of what she saw, and classified as racism, is highly questionable. We do not back her insinuation that dogs would supposedly be trained to be racist without any substantive evidence that this was indeed taking place. Hence my question to Iwona if she asked the beach owner about what she saw and viewed as racism.
Anyway, as I find myself typing stuff about dogs I wonder about the relationship of all this with the MDGs…
Bart, thanks for your reply. I understood your and Johan’s comments perfectly well, I just wanted to know if dogs can actually realize that someone’s skin is green or blue, or were they only reacting to their treatment by specific individuals. Anyways, thank you.
On your last sentence, I’m very happy to see such a diversity of topics on TH!NK3, and I’m sure you are too. I see the MDGs as a sort of guideline but not a sticking point. It’s super great to make us think about all the aspects of “development”, or “present and future” in its wider sense. It’s all connected, after all.
http://www.colblindor.com/2007/02/27/can-dogs-see-colors/
I know, I should have just checked Google.
@Giedre. Indeed, the breadth of it all is nice, but depth and accuracy is what matters in the end. Speculation harms good investigative journalism, a challenge we all face when writing.
Bart, definitely. The discussion that follows is of huge importance, too. If new angles or, as in this case, explanations, are added, it’s only for the better.
This is an interesting topic. How far our discussions have reached. (Beyond strictly MDGs). Let’s keep it up!
thanks for all comments. first of all I haven’t spoken with the owner about dogs. Now for sure I would. At the beginning of our stay there at the reception they told us that there are dogs on the beach to protect clients from thief so we do not need to be afraid of leaving things. In fact I haven’t seen so many dogs in any other part of that beaches, I walked around 20 km. The dogs were put there by purpose, that’s for sure.
Thanks Iwona - this then settles the case. You will find people keeping dogs all over Africa to deter thieves. In fact, my neigbour here in Holland has dogs for the same purpose…
But interestingly, if you keep dogs in Africa to keep thieves out and you happen to be white, than you consider this racism. But would you therefore also classify my neigbour as a racist? I don’t think so.
The question then is simple: who had the black-white demarcation in mind? The owner of the lodge, or you?
Food for thought. Mind you - this is a very common problem…
Hi Iwona, interesting post and discussion. Having spent a week in Kendwa myself (in February this year), I just wanted to point out that it seems to me like the situation described by you must have been specific to that particular tourist centre - I remember quite a few dogs on the beaches of Kendwa and no situations as above. And there were black people (staff, diving instructors, but also some tourists) on the beaches too, although of course the tourists were mostly white (some of the reasons for that have been mentioned in comments above).
I am glad about the discussion. I must admit that it’s not one of my reportage or interview which are not commented so numerously. It’s not a journalism, this time it’s blogging. It’s one of the story that can make a discussion so I put it here. In fact, I noticed or remember the scene because I heard about that dogs before.
@Bart - I do believe in the theory that there is nothing like race in human species. So it’s racism it not a proper word, I admit. We are simply too similar… we are not like husky or yorkshire terierry. But I do notice the discrimination or pre villages because of the skin colour.
Btw: please help Zanzibar’s dogs by making a donation to fund this project today
https://payment.csfm.com/donations/wspa/banner/index.php?formtype=h3eac&utm_source=H3EAC&utm_medium=H3EAC&utm_campaign=LinkOne
interesting discussion… and thanks for the link for helping the dogs, I think that this would be a practical action we could take
@Hussam, I do agree that respecting animal rights in very importants. the exemples Bart wrote confirm that.
@Iwona: that’s right
Impressing more in general that all over the world there are such people teaching racism to animals… :(