 The
BBC has received complaints of alleged racism on the Today programme
Thought for the Day, following a claim in the Radio 4 show's
long-running spirituality slot that Africans suffered from an endemic
moral deficit.
In a Today broadcast on June 30, the journalist and author Clifford
Longley said he had spoken with a Nigerian theologian who suggested that
"African culture has always lacked a developed sense common humanity,
which he said explained Africa's propensity to turn to massacre and
genocide.
His words prompted the BBC's Black and Asian Forum to complain to the
corporation's director of news, Helen Boaden, and Today editor Ceri
Thomas.
In the Thought for the Day broadcast, Longley said: A Nigerian moral
theologian I met recently was quite frank about it: African culture has
always lacked a developed sense of common humanity, of the solidarity
that extends beyond village and family and which entails a commitment to
the common good.
This 'us and them' mentality was not just tribal. The moral deficit
explained, he said, how African tribal chiefs had felt no moral qualms
about capturing slaves from neighbouring districts and selling them to
white slave traders; and later, doing land deals with white settlers.
Hence also Africa's propensity to turn to massacre and genocide such as
we saw in Rwanda and Congo, and narrowly avoided seeing again very
recently in Kenya.
The BBC said it had received nine complaints about the June 30 Thought
for the Day broadcast but was unable to comment further at the time of
publication.
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