Racism threatens European unity

ANTWERP, Belgium - Europe has seen radical change in the past ten years. First the Berlin Wall fell and now economic barriers are crumbling.

Evidence of the development of what is being called Fortress Europe includes continued attacks against immigrants, the growth of far-right parties and a recent European Union poll in which one in three surveyed admitted to being "quite racist" or "very racist."

Educated people are ashamed. "Immigrants are blamed for everything from unemployment to traffic jams," says Hugo Ongena, head of the Antwerp-based activist group Hand in Hand. "This is the issue defining Europe's future."

For many, memories of Nazi Germany burn bright. But as the millennium approaches, some here are forgetting the climate of fear, scapegoating and repression that gripped Europe more than half a century ago. Today, money and jobs are what matter. And economic hardships are reviving xenophobia and fascist movements that this time target people of color.

Much like President Clinton has convened commissions to tackle the USA's issues of race, Europe is taking its own steps.

The EU's governing body will open its first racism monitoring center in Vienna, activists push for legislation making it easier to prosecute discrimination, and Paterson Berko is reevaluating his life.

Berko, 40, thought he had come to grips with being a black man in Europe. Then one night a fellow Ghanian by the name of Kwabena Ebow played his stereo too loud.

On July 10, 1994, Antwerp police were summoned to Ebow's apartment. This grim port city of 500,000, where one in four is unemployed and an extreme-right political group enjoys a quarter of the popular vote, is Belgium's frontline in its war on racism.

Ebow was carted away by officers who claimed he was on crack and unruly. The 34-year-old spent six months in a coma before dying. Police claimed the coma was the result of an insulin shot meant to control an epileptic seizure. But in the African community, rumors circulated that his body bore the imprints of thick-soled boots.

Berko's response to this and similar incidents was to found the Ghana Welfare Association, an outlet for a poor community's daily concerns that in Antwerp run the gamut from prejudicial treatment by police and shopkeepers to name calling.

The disturbing irony is that many of Europe's "foreigners" are in fact European citizens. Berko, who works at an Antwerp fertilizer factory, has lived on the continent for 18 years. He is a Frenchman on paper, but not in public.

Belgians most racist

Living in fear because of one's skin color would appear to be the dirty little secret of a quiet country best known for chocolates, diamonds and the EU's headquarters. Except this is no secret.

Belgium is home to the most racist people in Europe, tops among a 15-nation populace of 370 million who are increasingly tense over joblessness and immigration, according to the EU poll released in 1997.

In the poll, European citizens were posed the following question: "Some people feel they are not at all racist. Others feel they are very racist. Would you look at this card and give me the number that shows your own feelings about this?"

Belgians were the most open about their racist feelings, with 22% saying they considered themselves "very racist." They were followed by the French (16%) and Austrians (14%). Least racist were the Swedes (2%). Among all Europeans, just 9% rated themselves as "very racist" and another 24% said they were "quite racist."

The poll's companion analysis indicates that those polled explained their racist tendencies by linking top concerns - unemployment, crime and drug abuse - to the growing legions of economic and political refugees banging on Europe's door.

Whatever the reasons, Europe is being prodded to quickly address its increasing ethnic dilution. Liberal voices urge education and employment, while far-right groups echo the slogan of Antwerp's popular political party Vlaams Blok: "Eigen volk eerst," "Our People First."

Citizens hounded

"This is a battle," says Padraig Flynn, European Commissioner for Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs. "There is no place for racism in a modern Europe."

Flynn's office coordinated the dozens of events and initiatives associated with the 1997 European Year Against Racism. They include Article 13A, an anti-discrimination clause added to the EU's Amsterdam Treaty, which should be ratified later this year, and the racism poll.

Marco Van Haegenborgh, who works in the Brussels offices of the state-funded Center for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, travels twice a week to Antwerp's crime-ridden Saafhoef neighborhood to give people a chance to tell their stories, and hopefully get some help.

"I don't think Belgians are particularly racist people," says Van Haegenborgh. "But they feel there are problems that are not being addressed."

Cold comfort for people like Nana Dankwa.

An unemployed artist who left Ghana seven years ago and is now a Belgian citizen, Dankwa, 33, recounts how he is often followed around town by slow-moving police cars.

"My heart races, I get a shock in my system, I feel sick. But am I going to confront them?" He flashes a sour grin, remembering Ebow. "You do, and you are dead."

Racism's 'new face'

The EU will begin to compile statistics on hate crimes for the first time this fall through its Vienna-based Observatory of Rascist and Xenophobic Incidents. But there are plenty of stories that support the need for official data and action to curtail racist incidents.

During the official Year Against Racism, a 16-year-old North African running a road block was killed by French police. In the German city of Mecklenburg, neo-Nazis doubled their attacks on foreigners, sometimes setting them on fire. And, in a less severe but equally telling practice, soccer players of color were littered with insults each weekend in stadiums throughout Europe.

Absorbing European disenchantment are a variety of far-right political organizations, notably France's National Front, Italy's Northern League and Austria's Freedom Party. Today's aggressive climate of hate is what worries many immigrants.

"Racism has a new face," says Said Charchira, president of the Brussels-based lobbying group European Migrants Forum. "It used to be a racism of rejection, today it is an attacking racism. We are seen as problems to fix, not as people."

This is particularly true in Antwerp, as evidenced by the success of Vlaams Blok, or Flemish Block, whose platform has expanded from its original goal of winning independence for Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, which also includes a French- and German-speaking populace) to immigrant extradition.

The party won 27% of the vote in the last election and currently holds 18 of 56 seats in the city council. It hopes to run the nation's second-largest city by 2000.

'Racist party'

When Vlaams Blok's support began to mushroom in the early '90s, fed by unemployment and crime, city officials created Belgium's first-ever post of municipal ombudsman.

"They are a racist party," says ombudsman Bernard Hubeau, "but I think most people vote for them because they aren't happy with things. You won't find many people who will actually admit to voting for Vlaams Blok."

"We are not in favor of a multicultural society, which mass immigration is leading us to," said Vlaams Blok leader Filip Dewinter.

"It's not just the disappearance of our native culture, but the political problem (of a swelling immigrant population). We won't have anything to say in our own country." Dewinter pauses. "We wouldn't have racism if everyone lived in their own country.""

An opening salvo in the war on racism will come on March 22 when demonstrators will gather in Brussels in support of giving resident non-Europeans the vote.

But there is some question just how much time Europe has. Those in the trenches already show deep battle scars.

"Sometimes," says artist Dankwa, "I don't have the feeling to live."

By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY

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