As painful and ironic as this sounds, but it is real, there are African countries that are hostile towards black people. The reason for this hostility is believed to be due to the Arabic/Arabian influence in those countries.
Arabic invasion of Africa
During the 17th century the Arabs invaded North Africa three times, and they brought not just a new religion with them, but also a new language as well as new customs that were alien to the native Berber tribes of the Sahara and Mediterranean hinterland of Africa.
According to historytoday, when Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, died in 632 the new Islamic religion had already gathered a number of impressive victories on the battlefield. The armies of Islam quickly and easily conquered the Arabian peninsula before moving on to take the homelands of their various neighbors. Marching out of Arabia in 639 they entered non-Arab Egypt, and 43 years later they reached the shores of the Atlantic; and in 711 they invaded Spain.
In just 70 years they had subdued the whole of North Africa, instituting a new Arabic and Islamic order. This conquest, from the Nile to the Atlantic, was more complete than anything achieved by previous invaders and the changes it wrought proved permanent till this day. The whole of North Africa still remains under the conquest of the Arabs.
Here is the list of the 6 African Countries That Are Hostile Towards Black People.
These North African countries are racists to their fellow Africans due to the darker color of their skin.
Tunisia
First on the list of the African countries that are hostile towards black people is Tunisia. This North African country prefers to claim to be Arabic, and stays in denial of its African identity and this persists till today but Black Tunisians are fighting to change that.
Tunisia, like its other Arabic countries in North Africa, has a significant Black population, which also includes well as migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa, although their exact numbers are unknown. Sadly, for an African country, Tunisia’s Black African population are noticeably absent in the up-and-coming, high end neighborhoods. They are largely found living in cheap, overcrowded structures in run-down areas such as La Goulette.
Tunisian journalist Affet Mosbah wrote in 2004 Jeune Afrique, describing the difficulties of being Black and Tunisian. She talked of the widespread custom of calling Black Arabs “oussif” or “abid,”. These are Arabic terms that refer back to the Black Tunisian population as Black slaves, which was common in the Middle East until the beginning of the 20th century.
Mosbah explained that this custom is so embedded in the culture that Tunisians call their Black friends by these offensive names, and remain insensitive to how offensive they are.
It is devastating to learn that this is happening to Africans in Africa by other Africans who claim the Arabic heritage.
However, Tunisia became the first country in 2018, in the North African region to enact a law that penalizes racial discrimination and allows victims of racism to seek redress for verbal abuse or physical acts of racism.
Algeria
Algeria is also on the list of the African countries that are hostile towards black people. In Algeria’s city of Boufarik, hundreds of black African migrants live in area known by locals as “the African camp” or “the camp of the Blacks.” This is an ironic name for because Algeria is an African country.
Following the increase of sub-Saharan migrants in the country, Algerians are becoming openly racist, accusing them of being dirty, jobless and spreading diseases. And algerian Local media outlets are also playing an important role in the increase of racism against the migrants.
The daily Al-Fajr (The Dawn) published an article declaring; “Thousands of Africans invading the streets of the capital,” and blaming them for “spreading epidemics and other social ills, such as trafficking in counterfeit money.”
In Algeria, black African women are looked down on with disdain.
Black women in Algeria are never flirted with; they are hissed at and even shunned in the streets, as if they do not exist. The negative treatment of Black women is worse if a day outing is preceded by a televised appearance of Blacks which are often represented in popular imagination as embodying evil. Young black girls cannot marry whiter skinned Algerians and most often marry their own.
According to Arabreform, In the city of Kabylia, in Eastern Algeria, white girls accused of engaging in premarital sex, which is called illegal sex, customarily are married to Black men, because they are deem unworthy of whiter skinned Algerian men. In southwest Algeria, the social rule is clear: no mixing. That is to say, a Hartani (enslaved or recently freed Islamicized and Arabized Black person) does not mix with and cannot afford a “Chrifa” a noblewoman and also a white woman in Algerian.
In Algeria today, the Black population from south of the Sahara are discriminated against and subject to virulent racism in the streets. They are also employed in the black market as they are not issued work permits. They do the hardest jobs for the worst tiny wages, and in Algiers, there is not a single family carrying out general construction work which has not employed Black Africans as labourers carrying sand and gravel, digging foundations and moving tons of soil on their backs. The black laborers also build trenches and unblock sewers in populated areas, all at a price ten times lower than that received by Algerians.
Mauritania
Since Mauritania gained its independence from France in 1960, Mauritania has struggled with ethnic tension between the Afro-Mauritanians and the so-called Arab-Mauritanians. This country is one of the African countries that are hostile towards black people.
Thousands of Black Mauritanians were forced in 1989 to flee to neighboring Senegal and Mali. They were reportedly forcibly deported by the Mauritanian military, according to an interview given to NPR by Souleymane Sagna, an aid worker in the country.
“The situation of those Black Mauritania was quite particular, in that very often people are moving during a conflict, but in the case of the Negro Mauritanians, there have been many militarily deported through military trucks to Senegal and Mali,” she said.
And although Mauritania officially abolished slavery for a third time in 2007, and making it punishable by up to ten years in prison, the practice still exists today.
In this northwestern African country, Arab Muslims—called the Bidanes, still hold Haratine (enslaved Africans) as property. An estimated over 90,000 Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved.
Racism in Mauritania is rooted in Maliki books which seeks racial equality. The White/Arabic Mauritanians utilize those books to discriminate against Black Mauritanians. The books make the point that if you are Black, you are eternally a slave. White Mauritanians who are essentially light-skinned Mauritanians, begin studying those books as early as the age of 3.
The majority of black Mauritanians live in sub-human conditions. And in cities, they live in hovels with no bathroom, kitchen, or running water. Rural areas are even more inhumane. There are alot of slaves in Mauritania, life is harder, and there is more hardship. The majority of Black Mauritanians are homeless, jobless, and have no access to clean water or healthcare.
When Black Mauritanians are elected or are in elite positions, they are controlled by the so called white Mauritanians and can be removed at any time. The Black elites have to be against ending slavery to stay in their jobs.
Egypt
It is important to note that according to an article by Al Jazeera, Black Egyptians and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa face daily incidents of racism and prejudice.
Reuters reporter Cynthia Johnston reports in her article, Egypt’s African Migrants Dodge Rocks, Fight Racism, that migrant workers from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Sudan, Cameroon, Niger and Chad have suffered daily abuse at the hands of Egyptian Arabs. Some of these migrants have been stoned, shouted at, spat on and even stabbed at as they go about their business in the streets, according to the article.
Several media outlets reported an incident in December 2005, where Egyptian riot police brutally attacked a camp of Sudanese refugees in Cairo who were protesting their treatment.
In front of television cameras, at least 23 Sudanese refugees were killed, and hundreds of others were injured, arrested, imprisoned or deported, and there was little public protest.
According to reports by Michael Curtis, writer for Gatestone Institute, a New York international policy think tank, black Africans report verbal harassment in negative language, such as being called “oonga boonga” or samara [black], as well as physical attacks in the streets by the public and even by Egyptian law enforcement officials.
Black people in Egypt are being stopped for random identity checks on the basis of skin color, and have faced arbitrary roundups, he continued in his article.
In a 2011 article on Root.com, the author reports that southern Sudanese women are routinely targets of verbal public abuse. Carloads of Arab men drive by black Sudanese women, shouting catcalls, or making loud demands for sexual favors.
Although African/black Nubians are among the indigenous inhabitants of what is now considered modern Egypt, they are not spared discrimination based on skin color.
Nada Zeitoun, a Nubian filmmaker from the upper Egyptian city of Aswan, was denied service at a pharmacy in central Cairo in 2013 because the pharmacist said he “didn’t accept money from Black hands.”
Once a thriving community, the Nubians are indigenous to southern Egypt, but their history could be compared to that of Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. Since the beginning of the 20th century Nubians have experienced severe neglect and exploitation under the Arabic Egyptian government, descending them into a dystopian society. Nubians have faced displacement and loss of homes several times due to the construction of the Aswan tank and the High dam on the river Nile.
A lot of Nubians were forced out of their homes and were cast-off to the harsh, arid, and undeveloped region of Nasr al-Nuba. Today Nubians form only 3% of the total Egyptian population.
“Nubians do not have demands, we have rights. Nubians sacrificed a lot. We left our homeland for the sake of Egypt to build the Aswan tank and for the high dam in 1964,” says Mosaad Herki (Head of the Egyptian Nubian Institution for Development – NGO)
It is traumatic that Egypt which was an ancient civilization of black African people is one of the 6 African Countries That Are Hostile Towards Black People.
Libya
Libya is one of the popular African Countries That Are Hostile Towards Black People. The late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi had for many years allowed guest workers to travel from all over Africa to find work in Libya. However, during the 2011 Libyan civil war, rumors began to surface that sub-Saharan mercenaries paid for by Gadhafi were being used to attack demonstrators in Libya’s towns and cities.
Although several NGOs found no evidence of such mercenaries, the rumors were followed by gruesome attacks on the country’s many Black African migrant workers. However, the animosity toward Black immigrants did not begin with the civil war.
Amnesty International researcher Diana Eltahawy said the rebels taking control of Libya tapped into “existing xenophobia.”
In his 2011 Thinkafricapress.com article, Beyond Mercenaries: Racism In North Africa, Tom Little writes:
“In spite of evidence showing widespread violence against migrant workers trying to escape the turmoil, the foreign press suggested that these attacks were regrettable but to be expected given the atrocities committed by [Gadhafi’s] mercenaries. Few, however, picked up on the fact that these attacks are symptomatic of a racial prejudice that is deeply rooted and widely spread throughout North Africa and the wider Arab world.”
Libya has been popular in the news for slavery, sex trafficking, organ harvesting, and a whole lot of dehumanization on black Africans by the Arabic Libyans.
Morocco
Tourists to North African country of Morocco often describe its stunning landscape with mountains, deserts, valleys, including the uninterrupted miles of beaches on the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, but what they oven leave out, is that fact that Morocco is one of the African countries that is hostile towards black people. Although a very big issue, the way Black people are treated in this country is often overlooked.
Smahane Bouyahia In a 2010 Afrik-news.com article,reports that Black people in Morocco, which includes the natives, the immigrants from elsewhere in Africa, and African-Americans, are often targets of racial discrimination.
“In Morocco, and north Africa, there is a serious problem of racism towards Black people. Called ‘Black Africans,’ they are considered descendants of slaves and labeled ‘hartani’—literally, ‘second-rate free men’—or even worse, ‘aâzi’—which translates to ‘bloody Negro.’ Whether they are students, migrants from the south of the Sahara or others, Black people in Morocco, are constant victims of discrimination,” Bouyahia wrote.
France 24, reported in 2012 that a Moroccan newsweekly magazine published an article about sub-Saharan Africans coming into the country. The title of the article was “Le péril noir,” which means, the black peril, or the black menace.
France 24 also displayed the cover page of another Moroccan magazine, written in Arabic, with an image of what appears to be African immigrants standing in front of a building under the title caption: “The black crickets invading Morocco’s north.”
One student highlighted in Bouyahia’s article described his experience studying in Morocco:
“Often, when I’m just walking down the street, people will call me a “dirty Black man” or call me a slave. Young Moroccans have physically assaulted me on several occasions, for no reason, and passers-by who saw this didn’t lift a finger to help me. All my friends are Black and they have all had similar experiences. Even the girls get insulted in the street. To avoid getting hurt, I now try to ignore the insults. But if someone starts to hit me, what can I do? I have to defend myself.”
Despite denials of being one of the African countries that is hostile towards Africans, Morocco is clearly a country with an ethnically and racially diverse population whose members continue to experience varying degrees of discrimination.