WITH the advent and proliferation of information communication technologies (ICT), the world is a mere global village. Very little, if anything, happens today — be it in private or public, in the domestic or foreign sphere — that persons external to the issue are unaware of. Where media, formal and social, have made the Internet a medium/source for sharing events, information, ideas and knowledge — internal or external — once placed on such domain, it can become one of global proportions, galvanising support in one direction or the other.

Such is the situation that the group Black Lives Matter — which grew out of African-American concerns for protection of their right to life and an end to treatment dissimilar to that meted out to their white counterpart under the law — has become a global phenomenon. This evolving concern, whether real or mere perception, that there exists in the USA different treatment for whites vis-a-vis blacks, referred to as ‘white privilege’, has sparked a modern-day revolution to effect change in policies and actions; to topple discriminatory laws, and to see enforcement of laws that would bring about equality in the system.

Evidence of police mistreatment and profiling of African-Americans that resulted in deaths– the last being George Floyd– and other human rights violations remain an angst in the black community. The right to life is sacred, and where a person may have committed an infraction, perceived or real, or regardless of how that person may be despised, it is the responsibility of the court, under the law, to dispense justice.

Black Lives Matter has taken its activism to the political arena, causing politicians to sit up, listen, and act. The USA, in declaring its independence from Britain, established a nation propounding this principle: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That nation’s constitution enshrines the equality of humankind. And given that these tenets remain self-evident, then attendant laws, policies and programmes will have to be instituted to bring about equality in the system. And this is the crux of the matter for African-Americans: All lives matter, including ours, and we are taking a stand in ensuring it happens. The race relations struggle in the USA is not only a struggle to maintain the soul of the nation and the principles under which it was founded. It is also testimony of what can be achieved when a stand is taken. Unmistakably, the activism of Black Lives Matter will be replicated in various forms in other societies, since, in this ICT era, this group has set the tone of action to achieve improvement in race relations around the world, including here.

The United Nations, established to bring about world peace after World War II, in giving due recognition to a world order built on Human Rights, adopted and declared on 10th December 1948, in Article 7, that: “All are equal before the law, and are entitled, without any discrimination, to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration, and against any incitement to such discrimination.”
Man will reach for what is so proclaimed.