Lecturer ‘effectively ignored’ xenophobic policies

Irene Inatty / Contributing Writer

Leonel Fernández, the ex-president of the Dominican Republic, gave a lecture titled “21st Century Globalization, Governance and Development” at FIU Thursday Oct. 23. In his lecture, he effectively ignored the anguish brought on by the xenophobic policies passed by his government.

The introducing speaker clarified that the University is “High Neutral Ground.” It was clear that the disruption of the lecture would result in punishment. Signs all over the lobby forbade students to bear signs of protest.

Protesters could exercise their freedom of speech in a cordoned-off area outside. This sent a message that outrage was anticipated but would not be tolerated.

Leonel Fernández gave long, informative yet rambling answers to the moderator’s questions about economic policy, democracy and progress. When asked about the citizenship of Dominican-born children and grandchildren of Haitian migrant workers, the room erupted into applause.

In September 2013, the Dominican Republic issued a ruling 168-13 which stripped citizenship from their government’s definition of “migrant workers.” The overwhelming majority of these people are of Haitian descent.

According to Canton and McMullen, in their summer issue of Americas Quarterly, close to 200,000 people are affected.

Aside from fears of deportation, the stripping of citizenship has concrete consequences. It “imperils…the right to health, to social security, to work and the right to education.”

Addressing the issue, Fernández claimed that the fears over human rights violations are based on “emotions” over Rafael Trujillo’s genocidal tendencies earlier in 1937. That year, Trujillo ordered the massacre of thousands of Haitian people residing near the border between the countries. The thirty-one years of his regime were punctuated with anti-blackness not just of Haitians, but of Afro-Dominicans.

Fernández stated that the country has “overcome” this anti-black history and that current policies should not be seen in the light of those events. He blames the media’s representation of current citizenship policy for distorting the situation.

“There is no immigrant crisis” he said.

I find it confusing that Leonel Fernández can value history so much, and completely ignore the reverberations of more than thirty years of anti-blackness instilled by Trujillo. Those in the U.S. can tell from experience that racial tensions instilled by institutionalized racism do not disappear in a mere century or three.

To reiterate, as one brave student stated during the talk when given a microphone, the massacre happened less than eighty years ago.

In February, NPR reported that days after migrants were given the deadline to justify the legality of their parents’ or grandparents’ immigration, a Haitian man was lynched at a public plaza in the Dominican Republic.

Former president Fernández stated that there are some who are violently racist in the country but they do not represent the whole country. However I would point to the lengthy and thorough injection of anti-blackness ideology in a country where to be called “negro” or “haitiano” is an insult.

Furthermore, the ruling’s definition of the word “migrant” does not adhere to international law. The American Convention on Human Rights ruled in Yean and Bosico “to consider that a person is in transit, irrespective of the classification used, the state must respect a reasonable temporal limit and understand that a foreigner who develops connections in a state cannot be equated to a person in transit.”

Fernández responded to this by insisting that a country’s definition of nationality should be the right of a country to make. He cited France and Germany as countries who do not consider people who are born in their borders citizens.

One look at France and Germany’s treatment of people of color and immigrants will demonstrate how a nation can effectively reject “undesirables” through law.

When asked what he would do about the xenophobia plaguing the country, he responded by saying “there is no xenophobia,” erasing those suffering by this recently passed policy.

Something must be said about the activists whom the lecturer’s organizers were so anxious to muffle. They certainly were heard.

As the audience walked out, some students chanted in strong voices “black Dominicans are Dominicans.” A large Haitian flag was tied to a young man’s back.

The erasure of black othering and suffering did not go unnoticed.

[Image from Flickr]