Travel bans against Africa over Omicron screams colonial mentality at best

There were some apologists for the Europeans, Canada, the US and other countries after their knee-jerk imposition of travel bans in the wake of the revealing of the Omicron Covid-19 variant by South Africa scientists.

It was only natural, the argument went, that countries looked after themselves. No, it wasn’t.

It was racist and showed clearly that the colonial mentality of “Us” (in the North) and “Them” (in the South) is still alive well into the 21st century.

Even though it has by now been shown clearly that this variant was first identified here and has been elsewhere for some time – and therefore should not itself be labelled as “South African” – the travel bans remain.

With some first class scientists, who did the honourable thing by making public their findings, South Africa finds itself being treated as a second class country.

ALSO READ: Spanish newspaper apologises for racist Omicron cartoon

So that is why it was so easy for Spanish cartoonist Javi Salado to pen a deeply racist image, which was printed in La Tribuna de Albacete’s opinion pages a few days ago.

It portrayed a bunch of dusky coloured Covid viruses crammed together in a boat (like refugees) heading to “invade” the European Union.

On the side of the refugee boat was a South African flag.

The cartoonist and newspaper have since apologised but the fact remains that these characterisations of Africa as a dark, backward place are rooted in deep-seated racism.

If that were all there was to this, it would be something Africans could get over – sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me – but the travel bans are going to batter the tourism industry throughout the continent just at the time it needs help to recover.

The countries of the North need to look in the mirror and see the ugly face of racism looking back.