Strange Fruit

“Southern trees bear strange fruit”. That’s how some people feel. Strange. They feel like they don’t belong to the society. This song by Billie Holiday was produced in the 30’s with the main aim to protest against discrimination that people from the southern countries were facing in America. It is simple, spare but effective poetry. It portrays the atrocities that these minorities were suffering in America: “The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth”, “then the sudden smell of burning flesh”. 

It was not easy to record this song at that time. The mentality of Americans from the 30’s was really close and they didn’t accept differences. “Strange Fruit” was played only rarely on the radio. 

“Here is fruit for the crows to pluck”, I think nobody who never faced any kind of discrimination cannot understand what those people felt, that feeling they are considered nobody, that nobody cares about them, that they didn’t have a voice.

“Here is a strange and bitter crop”. And after all, they are like everybody. We are all equal.

Native Americans

It happened a long time ago, in the 16th/17th centuries, probably. In America people were living happily and peacefully for many hundreds of years before Europeans reached America. They usually hunted animals, gathered plants or fished in order to survive. They were approximately 10 million people living there.

When Christopher Columbus arrived in North America he thought he had reached India, so he called Indians to the native people. Native Americans were pretty amazed by the arrival of the Europeans, because they brought new things from Europe that Americans totally didn’t know, such as metal cooking pots, cloth, guns and alcohol. Not only this, but diseases as well. As Native Americans weren’t strong enough and had no resistance to those viruses, many of them died and others became extremely ill.

But Europeans wanted their land. For Native Americans, land wasn’t supposed to be own, once they were nomads. Consequently, as Americans didn’t know the effects of alcohol, Europeans gave them a lot of drinks, and then it was easy to negotiate their land as well as low prices for their goods. When the chiefs of the tribe got sober, they started to fight against the settlers. Some white people died during the fights and it constituted a proof for Europeans that natives were “wild and had to be controlled”. So America no longer belonged to Native Americans. And according to the article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property”.

Today only 550 tribes remain, which is about 1.2 million people. They live in reservations, where they have the right to fish and hunt as they wish, while other Americans have to get a license. Although Native Americans are US citizens, who have the rights and responsibilities of any US citizen, reservations have their own governments. But it’s difficult to live the traditional life for these people, once activities of other Americans affect the way they live and also their resources.

It’s wrong to call these people Indians, because this name is based on a mistake. However Americans don’t care, once they have little interest in Native Americans and most ignore them. Besides, the natives are often used in films and in books about the “Wild West” to represent the enemies of the cowboys.

The point is that the America that so many people dream with was built on a land stolen from the people who lived there first. And these people are suffering from discrimination because of their race.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in India in 2 October 1869. Later, he adopted the name "Mahatma", which means "great soul". His parents were merchants, however he broke the caste tradition and went to England at the age of 19, to study law. The other students didn't like him and they avoided Gandhi because he was an Indian.

He went to South Africa in 1893, where he developed his politics of peaceful protests and struggled to obtain basic rights for Indian immigrants who lived there and who suffered from racism. He founded the Natal Indian Congress to agitate for Indian rights in 1894.

He was the country's first "coloured" lawyer to be admitted to the bar. However, he was sent to jail twice because he didn't obey to anti-Asian laws.

In 1914 he returned to India where he lauched a campaign of peaceful non-cooperation with the British authorities which included boycotts of British goods and institutions, like courts and government. Besides, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability and increasing economic self-reliance. He was imprisioned again from 1922 to 1924.

India finally won independence in 1947. Unfortunately, one year later on 30 January 1948, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist who thought Gandhi was too sympathetic to India's Muslims.

During his lifetime he lived modestly in a self-sufficient residential community and wore the traditional Indian dhoti and shawl, he was a dedicated vegetarian and he sought to practice non-violence and truth in all situations, and advocated that others do the same. 

He is known in India as the Father of the Nation. His birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday, and world-wide as the International Day of Non-Violence.