Video highlights racism, oppression
“THE less you think about oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.”
This was the message shared by a platform aiming to give a voice to international students in North Cyprus who say they suffer “racism”, “social injustice”, “sexual harassment” and “poor working conditions”.
With a poignant video of two women talking about oppression, the Voices of International Students (Vois) Cyprus posted the video on its Facebook page this week as “a message for all international students and the people of Northern Cyprus”.
“Ropes nor chains did I come here with, so what makes it easy for you to treat me like this,” says one of the women poetically.
“Hopes and dreams, both we have. In another life we could have been brothers, or father and son. But we are none. So put away the chain in your mindset and look to the sun and realise that I bleed red like you.”
A second woman says: “Racial oppression may be social, systematic, institutionalised and internalised.”
“Oppression comes from a place of misuse of power rather than use of power. It comes from a place of exploitation of privilege, and we lose more lives every day due to that than you think. The less you think about oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.
“Let’s not normalise it. Let’s not accept it. Let us fight against it. Let us come together as a society and do better,” she says.
With Turkish subtitles, the video has received more than 3,000 views since it was shared on Tuesday.
Cyprus Today revealed Vois’s debut last month with a video by Miriam Dede, the sister of murdered Nigerian student Kennedy Taomwabwa Dede, in which she suggested the murder and the lack of information given to her about her brother’s death was the result of racism in the country.
Vois also invites foreign students to share their stories, telling them: “You have a choice to remain anonymous.”