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Thursday, July 9, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
MICHIGAN IN COLOR
The Siddi people, ‘India’s
forgotten African tribe’
In harmonious 3/3 time, the feet
of the Siddi people bounce up and
down with vigor, excitement and
passion. They’re dancing in a semi-
circle formation with movements
slightly organized as a kora —an
African-style drum — plays briskly,
complementing their tempo. In
a mix of song and chant, they let
out words that are foreign to me,
seemingly native to Africa — clear-
ly telling some sort of story. And
according to the crowd, it was a
captivating one at that.
Six men dancing are adorned
in a white shell necklace, a bright
orange and black skirt and a grass-
covered belt. Their headbands
matched the bottom — bright
orange and black with mock horns
extending from out the top. Deco-
rative face paint juxtaposes their
skin, and the men move their lean
bodies gracefully within their pack,
displaying
immaculate
rhythm
and practice, almost resemblant
of antelope. Their movements
are hypnotizing in a sense. Their
movements exude sincere passion
and incite a sort of magnetism, for-
bidding you remove your glance,
and I can’t help but move my own
body side to side a bit, entrapped by
the group’s chant and song.
Over the six or seven trips I’ve
taken to India in my life, I can’t
recount a time I saw one Black per-
son; as I continue to educate myself
on the Black Liberation Move-
ment worldwide, I questioned this.
With a population of over 1.3 bil-
lion people hailing from various
parts of the word, and in a place
that shares cultural, geographic
and religious similarities to several
African countries, I felt inclined to
research the history and state of
Black lives in India today.
The Siddi people, “India’s for-
gotten African tribe,” are the
notorious African Indians. It is
estimated that the Siddis settled in
India around 700 and 900 AD from
Bantu or other Sub-Saharan tribes,
enslaved by Indian rulers. How-
ever due to their physical strength,
many were able to take up roles as
soldiers in political warfare. An
extremely famous Siddi, Malik
Ambar, was known to be a great
asset to the Maratha kings of India,
introducing guerrilla warfare —
previously used in Africa — to help
defeat Mughals. As time passed,
some Siddis bought freedom and
some created their own commu-
nities in forests, often becoming
entertainers, musicians and seers
to survive.
In the modern day, around
55,000 Siddis live scattered across
a few Indian states (Karnataka —
where most are — Maharashtra,
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat...
The most forgotten
humanitarian crisis
The people of Yemen feel like
the world has forgotten them, and
with 80 percent of Yemen’s popula-
tion in need of humanitarian assis-
tance, it is a reasonable question to
ask: “Has the world forgotten about
Yemen?” However, for most, the
more pressing question is, “what is
even going on in Yemen?”
The Arab Spring, a wave of pro-
democracy protests and upris-
ings which spread across the Arab
world in 2010, catalyzed Yemen’s
fight for democracy, which pushed
the former president of Yemen out
of power and instated his deputy.
The political transition exacer-
bated the low standard of living
in Yemen, prompting a civil war
to begin in 2015. The war quickly
evolved from a fight for democracy
to a proxy war, in which Saudi Ara-
bia and Iran are backing opposite
sides, using Yemen as their play-
ground. Saudi Arabia is at fault for a
military campaign which launched
over 21,000 — and counting — air
strikes on civilians and the creation
of a coalition that is responsible for
a land, sea and air barrier around
Yemen, making it impossible for
the Yemeni people to receive aid.
Years of continuous air strikes,
relentless weaponization of aid and
innumerable violations of humani-
tarian laws have left Yemen in
the worst humanitarian crisis the
world has ever seen. As the war
continues to destroy Yemen’s infra-
structure, the issues of massive
unemployment, food insecurity
and lack of health resources run
MAYA KADOUH
MiC Staff Writer
rampant, resulting in over 3 mil-
lion people internally displaced,
approximately 20 million people
hungry, 19 million people without
access to clean drinking water and
nearly 20 million without access
to basic health services. For refer-
ence, Yemen’s population is just
over 28 million; in other words, if
you were to equate the situation
in Yemen to the United States, 187
million Americans would wake up
hungry each day. As the war con-
tinues, these issues get worse, and
bearing the brunt are the children,
who are severely malnourished,
without education — robbed of
a bright future. The children of
Yemen are at devastating odds with
45 percent of children under the
age of 5 having permanent mental
or physical disabilities.
As COVID-19 devastates devel-
oped countries, it hits Yemen, a
war-torn country with the larg-
est humanitarian crisis, the hard-
est. With only five labs capable of
testing for COVID-19, it is impos-
sible to know the true effect of the
pandemic in Yemen. However, it is
known that the population is dying
at a higher rate than the rest of the
world: 25 percent of people with
COVID-19 in Yemen die, which is
5.9 times higher than the global
average. This should come with no
surprise that a healthcare system
destroyed by the war cannot sup-
port its people; there are two hos-
pital beds for every 7,000 people,
only a few hundred ventilators and
many hospitals closed in fear of
contamination.
Read more at michigandaily.com
SUNITHA PALAT
MiC Staff Writer
Read more at michigandaily.com
Immigrant solidarity with the Black Liberation Movement
Read more at michigandaily.com
Design by Hibah Chughtai
SHAY SZABO
MiC Staff Writer
From one immigrant to another,
We both know the fight for
migrant rights has been a long bat-
tle against divisive laws and his-
torical injustices over-policing our
immigrant lives. Our immigrant
communities have faced injustice
at the hands of those in power who
value political rhetoric over the
well-being of human lives. Ameri-
ca is a nation built on immigrants,
yet, we immigrants are historically
disregarded as second-class citi-
zens whose statuses are constantly
threatened and whose identities
are commonly exploited in various
social institutions.
Racial profiling, police abuse
and discrimination are not com-
monalities exclusive to the immi-
grant community — they are fiercly
prominent in the Black commu-
nity as well. The Black Liberation
Movement and the fight for immi-
grant
rights
continuously
run
parallel and are currently both
receiving great attention. From
Emmett Till to George Floyd, we
have seen the monstrous violence
imposed on our Black brothers and
sisters. This centuries-long racial
inequity perpetuates all levels of
social institutions including educa-
tion, the work-force, the criminal
justice system, healthcare, hous-
ing and even food security. Current
statistics show that Black Ameri-
can mothers are dying at 12 times
the rate of white mothers during
childbirth in NYC. This inequity
is reflected in our law enforcement
system where the extrajudicial kill-
ings of Black people at the hands
of law enforcement has turned to
American tradition. Police abuse
extends to the immigration com-
munity through racial profiling.
Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 was
passed in 2010 asserting...
Design by Hibah Chughtai