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1Black Women in European Politics: from Struggle to Success
2Nowadays, it is a common occcurence to witness African-born women having successful careers in Europe.
3Despite the evident challenges, many of them have also distiguished themselves in politics.
4Still, it was not so long ago that such success would have seemed impossible.
5To achieve greatness, these women have often come a long way, both literally and figuratively.
6In order to better appreciate the progress made, one needs to think back to the 19th century and consider the image of black women in Europe then.
7For the purpose of this article, we will only address the story of women from the African diaspora who have been elected to positions of leadership in countries other than the colonial powers that previously ruled their home countries.
8Sorte kvinder i europæisk politik: Fra kamp til succesA history of racism Postcard depicting Sarah Baartman, Wikipedia (public domain)
9At the beginning of the 19th century, this servant was brought to Europe and became a fairground attraction because of her prominent physical attributes.
10Some “scientists” used her presence to support the theory that the “black race” was inferior.
11When she died at only 25, her genitals and her brain were placed in jars of formaldehyde.
12Her skeleton and a molding of her body were exhibited at the Museum of Man in Paris.
13It was only in 2002 that France agreed to return Sarah Baartman's remains to South Africa, thereby drawing to a close a long running legal and diplomatic imbroglio [fr].
14Sarah Baartman died in Paris on 29th September 1815.
15More than 100 years later, the Khoïkhoï people in South Africa called on Nelson Mandela to demand the restitution of Sarah's remains.
16The demand was met with the refusal of the French authorities and the scientific community citing the inalienable heritage of science and the state, but France eventually repatriated the body to South Africa where, in accordance with the rites of her people, it was purified and placed on a bed of dried herbs which were set alight.
17Norway
18Two centuries later, the position of black women in Europe has drastically changed.
19Amongst others, many have now been elected to political office.
20Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen on Wikipedia (Norway) (CC-BY 3.0)
21Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen in Norway is one of these women, and one of the most interesting because she shows the contradictions that still exist within some countries.
22She had to step down from a ministerial post in the Norwegian government just four months into her job.
23An article on Grioo.com sets out her career [fr]:
24Born in Martinique, 44 year old Manuela Ramin-Osmundsen gained her post as Minster for Children and Equality in the centre-left Norwegian government on 18th October 2007 […] She is married to Terje Osmundsen, a politician and member of the Norwegian conservative party.
25After their marriage she took Norwegian nationality and renounced her French nationality as the country does not allow dual nationality.
26In an interview with Patrick Karam from the website fxgpariscaraibe.com in 2008 she explains [fr] some of the things that played in her favour in being appointed and why she stepped down following a controversy over an alleged conflict of interest in the hiring of a political appointee:
27In Norway there must be parity of representation between the two sexes within the administrative councils, with a minimum of 40% women.
28We are also pursuing a policy which encourages men to take more responsibilty at home, leaving women able to pursue a career.
29I also worked on child endangerment, violence, abuse… I worked for four months without criticism and it was a real success.
30Au début du XIXème siècle, cette servante est emmenée en Europe et devient un objet de foire en raison de ses attributs physiques proéminents.The criticism began with the appointment of an ombudsman for children. In hindsight everyone can see it was something being made out of nothing.
31Certains “scientifiques” utilisent sa présence pour théoriser l'infériorité de la “race noire”.I gave in to the power of the media. Sweden
32Nyamko Sabuni, Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA)
33In 1981, at the age of 12, she arrived in Sweden with her mother and three of her brothers and sisters.
34Lorsqu'elle meurt à seulement 25 ans, ses organes génitaux et son cerveau sont placés dans des bocaux de formol, et son squelette et le moulage de son corps sont exposés au musée de l'Homme à Paris.There she was reunited with her father, an opposition politician imprisoned several times in Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), who had come to the Nordic country with the help of Amnesty International. The Netherlands
35Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wikipedia (public domain)
36Born in Somalia in 1969 and circumcised at the age of 5, Ayaan Hirsi Ali went to a Muslim girls school.
37Subjugated by her parents, her clan and her religion up to the age of 23, she took advantage of a trip to visit family in Germany to flee and escape a forced marriage.
38Taking refuge in Holland, she adopted Western liberal values to the extent that she became a young member of parliament in The Hague and declared herself to be an athiest.
39After having worked in the country's social services she knows, at first hand, the horrors tolerated against women in the name of multiculturalism.
40A fierce apponent of some of the aspects of Islam and African traditions that go against basic human rights, she founded an NGO whose aims are set out, on her website Ayaan Hirsiali in the following terms:
41In response to ongoing abuses of women's rights, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her supporters established the AHA Foundation in 2007 to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West from oppression justified by religion and culture.
42Italy
43The first black person to be elected to the Italian parliament is Mercedes Lourdes Frias from the Dominican Republic, in the Caribbean.
44This is how she is described [en] on the blogging site Black Women in Europe:
45The most surprising of the black women to have been elected via universal sufferage or appointed to positions of elevated responsibility in European countries is Sandra Maria (Sandy) Cane, elected in 2009 on a Northern League ticket; the most racist and xenophobic of Italy's political parties.
46One of the party's objectives is the secessoin of some of the northern part the Italian peninsula (though the boundary is not clearly undefined) because the party leaders do not like Southern Italians.
47The blog stranieriinitalia.it (foreigners in Italy) gives a brief outline of her career [it]:
48Italy's first coloured mayor wears a green shirt [the colour worn by Northern League supporters].
49Sandra Maria (Sandy) Cane won the tricolour scarf of the Mayor of Viggiù, a town of five thousand inhabitants in the Valceresio region, between the town of Varèse and the Canton of Tessin, with a margin on only 38 votes.
50C'est seulement en 2002 que la France accepte de rendre la dépouille de Saartjie Baartman à l'Afrique du Sud, concluant ainsi un long imbroglio juridique et diplomatiqueA past with a long history of migration. The new mayor's family on her mother's side were stone masons, originally from Viggiù, who migrated to France.
51During the Second World War, her father, an African-American soldier from the United States arrived in France.
52The new Mayor was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1961, but ten years after the separation of her parents she followed her mother back to her home village.
53This, according to the blog associazioneumoja.wordpress.com, is how she found herself [it] in politics, with a rather unlikely ideological platform:
54I have always supported the Northern League without ever being very active.
55When I was a little girl their posters used to make me laugh, they were curious and had a big impact.
56Then, around fifteen years ago I became a little more involved.
57[…] I see it as being “very American”, even the Northern League, because they insist on a rigorous respect for the law, even for illegal immigrants.
58Even so, she points out that there are no problems of integration and still yet security in Viggiù.
59One of her priorities is to reignite tourism in the area, with events and a focus on culture.
60Despite the marked progress in the inclusion of African women in European politics, they represent isolated cases as, beyond the difficulties they face due to racism or culture and religion, even within their own families and their own societies, they also have to face up to the challenges that all women across the world face [fr]: domestic violence, the challenge of bearing children, marginalisation and under-representation.