There are 6 million people crowded into Vietnam’s second largest city and many have wrapped up their work week.

Getting around Hanoi (Photo: Phillip Martin)

The city streets are buzzing with motorbikes.

Merchants in the old quarter are busy selling silk and jewelry.

In the street side cafes, cooks are chopping up veggies and steams rising from pots of rice noodle soup called Pho.

Can you name this Vietnamese cultural capital?

Long day in Hanoi's Old Quarter (Photo: Phillip Martin)

Phillip Martin is a reporter for WGBH Radio. He is currently on a reporting trip in and aroundHanoi, Vietnam, the answer to our Geo Quiz. So far he has been caught in a monsoon, strolled through the Old Quarter markets, talked with Vietnamese vets, and managed to stay clear of packs of city motorbikes. Now have a listen to his take on what’s happening in Hanoi on a Friday night!

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(Photo: Phillip Martin)

by Phillip Martin

50 years ago this month, black and white activists boarded buses in Washington and headed into the Deep South. That took courage in 1961.The year before, the Supreme Court had made segregation illegal in interstate travel. But the law wasn’t being enforced in the South. And so those bus passengers forced the issue.

They became known as the “Freedom Riders.”

This month, a racially integrated group of 40 American – and foreign – students recreated the Freedom Riders’ journey. Ray Arsenault, the author of a history of the Freedom Riders of 1961, is leading a group of 40 College students on a tour of one of Alabama’s most notorious sites. This place just outside of Anniston, Alabama, is where fifty years ago, the Ku Klux Klan attacked a Freedom Riders’ Greyhound bus bound for New Orleans. After slashing the tires, the bus was firebombed, which forced the riders into the road.

Along this highway outside of Anniston, Zilong Wang, who was born many years after 1961 in Baotou, China, is thinking about the lessons of non-violence practiced by the original Freedom Riders and how they might guide his beliefs and actions.

“This is not just a healing of the past but also it sheds a light on the future. Not just a future of the United States but also for China, because China will definitely go through a similar period,” Wang said. “How can we use non-violence and civil disobedience to bring meaningful reform into China’s social system under the condition of social harmony and stability, I think we’re learning a lot from them.”

Wang, a philosophy student at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, is one of a handful of students chosen to board a bus from DC to New Orleans, to re-create the journey of 50 years ago along with original freedom riders. They met important figures from the time along the route.

Like John Siegenthaler, who was an assistant to US Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1961. He pointed out the contradictions of era – the Administration was pushing for freedoms around the world even as president Kennedy tolerated segregation and injustice throughout the Jim Crow South.

“The timing of the Freedom Rides and the conflagration that he (President Kennedy) hoped would never come, came at exactly the wrong time,” Siegenthaler said. “Came at the moment when’ he ‘s not able to make a convincing case about freedoms around the world, is not able to convince the Soviet Union ‘look free your people, let your people go. He’s not able to make that case because he had not let his own people go.” Siegenthaler said that the critical worldwide focus on domestic events in the USA helped to push the Administration into supporting civil rights.

Those events included attacks on Freedom Riders at this Trailways Bus Terminal in Birmingham, Alabama. This is the 8th city visited by the students on Freedom Ride 2011. Here Zilong Wang comes face to face with Freedom Rider James Zwerg, whose bloodied face peered from newspapers in 1961 helped compel hundreds of new riders to join the movement. Zwerg offers the college kids some pointers for their struggles, whatever they may be.

Follow the money: “If you want to bring about change you’re going to have to go the decision makers. In trying to change the movie theaters, it wasn’t going to happen,” Zwerg said. “In Nashville, for example, we had to make the people who owned the theaters decide to change.”
On this journey South, Zilong Wang and his fellow travelers also learned about the ultimate price that some paid for the advancement of human rights in the United States. The bus carring the 40 students has stopped in front of the 16th Street baptist Church in Birmingham. A bomb planted here took the lives of four little girls on September 15th , 1963.

Zilong Wang is only one of several foreign students on this tour of history and memory. Bakhrom Ismoilov is studying at Eastern Oregon University. He’s from Tajikistan. He equated some of the violence his country has recently experienced with the segregation of the south during the 1960’s. “It helps me a lot to see how much bigger and how much bigger scale it was. I can definitely relate this to terrorism, and actually putting a population of black Americans in fear,” Ismoilov said.

And over the din of the 16th Street Baptist Church Choir, Doaa Dorgham, a Palestinian born in Kuwait who wears a headscarf, laments what she sees as the irony of past and present discrimination in her adopted American land. “The irony of this situation is here I am celebrating how 50 years ago we made great strides to stop segregation in public transportation and discrimination, and then I’m in an airport and have to go through a body scan and have to go through a pat-down. And how is it that no one is able to see the correlation?” Dorgham asked.

As the Freedom Riders’ Tour winded down, students were asked what they will do with the knowledge they’ve collected along the way. Tanya Smith, who grew up in Haiti, and plans to return there to lead a non-violent movement on behalf of youth, spoke up.

“Just like the Freedom Riders saw the need in society for change, Haitian youth realize the power they do have and the stake they have for building Haiti’s future,” she said. “And I want to be able show that non-violence is more effective in the sense that you’re able to do what you’re doing without resorting to the same tools that your oppressors are using against you.”

Marsaxlokk, Malta

Dusk is falling on the fishing village of Marsaxlokk on Malta. On one of the fishing boats, members of the mostly foreign crew all nod when asked if they have spotted or rescued African migrants on these waters.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said a man from Egypt.

Another fisherman, named Teela, from Indonesia, who declines to give a surname, joins the conversation.

“African people yes, yes, on the water. I see one person dead already. Yes, dead. So just looking and then we go.”

The fishermen then ask me to turn off my recorder. One of them said that he smuggled a boatload of Africans from Malta to Sicily — about 66 miles away — to make some extra money during the EU imposed fishing ban period.

Pozzallo, Sicily

And the port city of Pozzallo is where many undocumented migrants first land in Sicily.

“We have almost every week boat people landing here,” said Otillio Falcone, a humanities teacher and a tour guide here.

“Pozzallo is one of the places, closest places and there are lots of people arriving,” he said. “In the past, much more. Now a bit less, but still. This story has been going on for years. Now, let’s just say, its normal now.”

Malta’s strict detention policy is one reason why the numbers have dropped. The pacts to limit immigration signed by Italy and Libya have also greatly affected immigration flow. Even so, the stream of illegal migration to Sicily continues.

In the ancient Sicilian, seaside village of Taormina the theme from the Godfather greets the crowds of tourists. But on a Medieval backstreet, Samuel, a migrant from Senegal, stuffs unsold tourist trinkets into a bag. He vents his frustration after being chased off the main road by police “Bruto Italia. Ill scifo. No buono qua. Milo pesa.”

Samuel, as he calls himself, said Italy is ugly and he makes little money here. A few months ago, he was in a jail cell in Malta. After his release he fled to Italy, illegally, he said, but this is not what he had hoped for. What he has found in Sicily is what other Africans say they too are discovering: Italy is no longer the ideal place they once imagined: In Rosanna, Italy ,last winter, clashes between Africans and local residents demonstrated enormous tensions over migration, skin color and race.

The Rainbow House

Back on Malta, Herta Troponi, who runs a residence for African families that is translated as the Rainbow House, said migrants lately have their sights on other countries that they believe to be more hospitable to people with dark skin.

“Northern Europe, Sweden, Norway; all those countries in the north. They know there are problems even in Italy. So the further they can go north the better.”

One 24-year old Somali resident, who first arrived in Malta in 2004, is ready to leave again. She first slipped out of Malta illegally one year after she arrived here, after being denied European Union asylum. She settled in Switzerland and one of her three children was born there.

However, in 2008, after being fingerprinted, her illegal status was discovered and she was deported back to Malta. Now she wants to return to Switzerland, and seems unaware that the country today is led by a vehemently anti-immigrant party. What matters to her is the life she led in that West European nation.

“When I stayed In Switzerland they gave good house, and good life, good money and good education. Malta is small, they can’t.”

Unrealistic expectations are common to migrants everywhere. For a 15-year-old Ethiopian named Faisa, the desire to reach Norway is based on something quite simple and less elaborate.

“Because I like the name, Norway,” she said.

Denver

More than three thousand miles away, a Somali immigrant is struggling to establish himself in a new home. On this day, Daoud Ali Muhammad, whom we met at the beginning of this series, is learning his way around wintry Denver on the tram.

Daoud’s long journey to Denver also took him through Malta, where he applied for and received humanitarian asylum in the US.

“I attempted twice to leave Malta. I went to Germany and was caught and sent back and then I went to Italy and then they caught me and sent me back to Malta too. And I went to a priest and I told him my life story and my family died in Somalia and he told me to go and register with the UNHCR.”

Though less popular than Europe, according to migrant surveys and the United Nation’s agency responsible for refugees, the UNHCR, the US is also a much-desired destination for the accidental tourists in Malta.

“The idea is to recognize that Malta is doing a humanitarian service for the world,” said Doug Kmiec, US ambassador to Malta. “I was with a government official and he said ‘we can’t accommodate them all because we’re a small country, so we’re very grateful to the United States for taking a good portion of those that they can. The United States provided resettlement opportunities for about 200, and we have taken that most recently to 340.”

Most of those brought from Malta to the United States are Sudanese, Eritreans and Somalis. This is why Daoud Ali Muhammad is now in Denver, where he is also receiving help from Omar Nour, who helps run the Somali Community Center of Colorado. Nour traces Daoud’s long route from Africa to Denver by running his index finger across a world map; from Somalia to Libya, to Malta, to Germany to Italy, back to Malta and then across the Atlantic to the US Nour expects many more Somalis will follow and laments that his native land has become a growing source of homeless nomads.

“One of the tragedies about this migration is it used to be the men who used to migrate and now we’re seeing woman, old people, just trying to get out of Somalia,” Nour said. “And a lot of them are wasted in the Sahara, in Libya, in Central Africa. Everyday when you look on the news or Somali websites you’ll hear very horrific stories about people dying. It’s very tragic. A whole nation uprooted and everybody wants to get out.”

The US is the eighth country that Daoud has lived in since 1992 and suggests this may not be his last.

“I really don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to settle in one place and say this is the place, this is home,” Daoud said. “My life story seems to say that I keep moving and that never leaves me alone. I would like to settle one day and have a home. But God knows how long it’s going to take.”

Sadly, Daoud Ali Mohammed’s long journey may not be over. He recently lost his job driving a cab, he’s behind on the rent, his heater is broken and he’s barely eking out an existence in wintry Denver. Now, he said he’s thinking about moving on.
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Our series on Nomadic Migration and Skin color was edited by Anthony Brooks. The Color Initiative is made possible by funding from the Ford Foundation.

• The Color Initiative

'The conditions in our detention centers really leave much to be desired,' says Father Joseph Cassar, Malta Director of Jesuit Relief Services, JRS

Day after day, Daniel sits on a wooden crate on a busy corner in the oldest piazza in Malta’s capital, Valletta. After leaving his native Ghana and trekking through desert and seven African countries, Daniel arrived in Malta eighteen months later, only to spend another 18 months in mandatory detention:

“After I came out I could not get any proper documents,” he said. “So I’m in Malta here for nothing.”

I ask him how long has he been looking for work.

“I’ve been here so many times. Since I’ve started to come to this corner, I haven’t received what I like. So I’m still waiting. We are just sitting here for nothing, no work to do. So we don’t know what to do here. Even though you can see many, many blacks, and many immigrants here, they are just roaming about, doing nothing.”

At the outdoor bus terminal, dozens of dark-skinned men tell similar stories:

“The situation in Malta is critical.”

Salif came from Nigeria, and like many migrants stuck her in Malta, he had hoped to get to mainland Europe.

“The immigrant here is suffering.”

I ask him: “why Malta? why did you come here?”

“Well we were going to Italy but along the line we get to Malta.”

“If you can’t stay in Malta, where would you like to go,” I ask:

“I would like to go to Italy, Spain, but they cannot give me passport. “

“So you have no passport, so you are basically stuck here in Malta?”

“Yes, I do not have passport to leave. That’s why I’m here.”

Malta’s Justice Minister, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, is sympathetic, but only to a point.

“And so this Nigerian fellow feels that he has got the wrong deal because had he come to Italy the situation would have been completely different. Because he would have been an asylum applicant there and that would have allowed him to move along. I have only one solution. To send them back to their countries of origin, which is difficult.”
Difficult because Malta doesn’t have repatriation agreements with most of Africa.

“How to repatriate persons who are economic migrants, who are not in any way involved in the labor market , is an issue.”
That means it can’t send these migrants home; and it can’t send them on to third countries, SO many languish here in Malta. And for many white Maltese, that’s a problem: Yuriken Borsch, A 16-year-old student, fears the migrants are overwhelming his tiny island nation.

“We’re a small country and we have many illegal immigrants for a small country that we are. Every immigrant someday will have to buy a home in Malta and there’s no place for them.”

That is why most Africans in Malta end up in the Hal Far open centre.

“It was an airplane hanger here,” a Somali man said, who asked to be identified as “Ahmed.”

Ahmed took me on tour of the restricted Maltese facility. It is an old airplane hanger, lined with bunk beds and home to African men and women released from detention. The men and women live in separate facilities. Despite the rank odor of porta-potties and overflowing kitchen waste, no one appears to be malnourished or abused. But Ahmed said Hal Far is unfit for human habitation:

“I can’t live in this situation. I told them, the government, I would prefer to go to my home country to living here. I have no place to sleep; Nothing to eat. I don’t have anything, so I prefer to go to Somalia, and they told me you can’t go to Somalia because Somalia is a dangerous place.”

“These large numbers of people who are new comers to our society need to be housed somewhere,” said Alexander Tortell, the director of the Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers.

“We cannot house them on ships. We cannot house them in the countryside, which we do not have. And, therefore, these people are placed either in open centers or else when they leave the open centers, they themselves make their own arrangements to live in the community.

Some also live IN the Rainbow House outside of the capital city. True to its name, a spectrum of bright colors decorates the front door. This is one of several government-run homes for migrant women, children and families, most of them from Somalia. Herta Tropinai, a social worker who runs this facility, said the neighbors aren’t happy.
“To say the truth we have had a lot of complaints—about the noise, about the fact that we’ve got a lot of rubbish outside. They are petty things, but they sometimes have a good reason for it. But they wouldn’t cause these problems if they were Maltese people.”

Alexander Tortell does not disagree:

“Well I think it (skin color) is a factor, and I would add sadly that a persons appearance determines the success or otherwise of integration. The difference between the Bosnian, and I would add, Albanian arrivals, is that it was more silent in the sense that, let’s just take 2008 arrivals, for example, 2775 persons arriving all at once practically in the space of a few months.”

Until recently, Rainbow House resident Abdul Aziz and his family lived in the open camps.

“This house is better. Before I lived in Hal far. But this house is better for me. It’s near my job.”

“What is your job?” I ask.

“Paint.”

“You’re a painter. Is it full-time?”

“Not full time. Maybe six hours, five hours, always.”

“Was it difficult to find a job?”

“Yes.”

The Maltese government gives each asylum seeker a stipend of about one hundred Euros per month. But even that meager amount has stirred resentment among some Maltese who believe that Europe is being overwhelmed by African asylum seekers. In some instances, that has led to violence against migrants AND their supporters:
“On two instances, someone came on the grounds of two of our communities and cars were set alight,” said Father Joseph Cassar of Jesuit Refugee Service of Malta – OR JRS.

“And then just one month later. It was the car on the front door of our human rights lawyer while the family was inside at night. Although no one has been caught or indicted or anything of this sort, we can very much say that this has to do with the position which JRS has been taken advocating the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.”

Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici accuses the right wing media and others of stirring up racist anti-immigrant opposition.

“Unfortunately we had a rise of political speeches from different parties saying you should get these persons as soon as they come here and get them another boat and send them back from where they came. These arte all the roots of an alarmist approach, because in point of fact we have in this country less than 5000 persons resident here, so we are speaking of one person who is a colored skin to a thousand.”

But with more than 5,000 migrants stuck in this tiny country, government officials like Alex Tortell fear a greater backlash if the migrants cannot be integrated into society.

“The experience of integration all over Europe is that integration cannot start—in the strict sense of the word—before a person has a full time legal job. Unfortunately, because of Malta’s limitations, we have thousands of people who haven’t gotten to that point and we have to admit, they won’t get to that point because we can not get to that point because the limitations, the limitations are real.”

Some illegal migrants qualify for what’s known as subsidiary status, which allows them to go to another European Union country. But thousands remain stuck in Malta, jobless and living in difficult conditions – eager but unable to leave this tiny island nation. Download MP3

• The color initiative

Father Joseph Cassar, Malta Director of Jesuit Relief Services, JRS. 'The conditions in our detention centers really leave much to be desired.'

Not far off the coast of Malta, the coast guard has intercepted a leaky boat carrying dozens of Africans, and it’s sinking fast. Donning gloves, burly Maltese sailors pull men and women from their flooded dinghy to a hanging ladder.

Thousands of other dark-skinned immigrants have made similar attempts to reach continental Europe through Maltese waters, said Major Wallace Camilleri of Malta’s Maritime Squadron:

“It’s not relevant for me how many do cross over,” he said. “How many do make it. Sometimes I ask myself ‘how many do not make it?’”

These illegal migrants are among the lucky ones. A short time later the coast guard enters the port of Valletta — Malta’s capital – carrying the latest group of accidental tourists to come to this island nation.

“We wanted to reach Italy but they told us you cannot go in Italy,” said Ahmed from Somalia, one of the men among them. “You have to come to Malta.”

And once here, illegal African migrants like Ahmed often languish in detention for up to 18 months. That’s how long it can take to determine their status, and whether they’ll be permitted to go on to continental Europe, sent home or remain here.

Dr. Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici is Malta’s Justice Minister. He said his nation of 400,000 –the smallest of the European Union’s 27 countries — is trying to balance humanitarian obligations while protecting Malta from a tidal wave of economic migrants.

Bonnici said African migrants understand all too well the advantages of reaching continental Europe.

“Those advantages are naturally abused by those who are not entitled to that status,” Bonnici said. “So these persons realize that coming to Malta means that they will be put into these detention centers and they’ll have to wait. And if they are not entitled they will remain in detention for 18 months.”

And Ta’ Kandja is where many of the illegal immigrants find themselves within hours of setting foot in Malta: a detention center surrounded by barbed-wire.

“We are at the solidarity block within the Ta’ Kandja detention center,” Bonnici said. 96 people can be accommodated in each detention center.”

Lt. Brian Gatt, a six-foot seven army officer, supervises this prison. We enter a holding area with dozens of bunk beds. Among the detainees here is Obaswan Osagakenney, who said he was fleeing Muslim-Christian fighting in Central Nigeria:

I ask him: “Would you have come if you knew you were going to be here for 18 months?”

He first looks at the floor and then calmly says: “For me I believe it would be better for me because I was running for my life and if I had a place where my life would be secure for the next 18-months, I think it is better”

But because of its strict immigration rules, the European Union rarely grants humanitarian refugee status to Nigerians. So just what will happen to Osagakenny — and when – is unclear.

The same uncertain fate awaits an asylum seeker from Eritrea, who — in spite of the EU’s view of his country as a major violator of human rights — was surprised to learn that he could be held at Ta’ Kandja for as long as a year and a half.

“Eight months or 18 months? We came to get freedom,” he said. “I surprised if they say 18 months, what can we do. We can’t do anything.”

Maltese officials hope that the country’s strict detention policy will discourage other African migrants from making the hazardous journey from Libya across the Mediterranean.

But critics, like Father Joseph Cassar of Jesuit Refugee Service of Malta, call the policy unfair.

“The conditions in our detention centers really leave much to be desired, and as far as I’m concerned do not meet the minimal standards established by the European Union,” Cassar said. “And we’re talking here about administrative detention, so it’s not the result of a judicial process, but administrative detention for illegal entry into Malta’s territory, which last for as long as the refugee procedure determination takes. In other words, if it takes eight months for your application to be examined and determined than you’re going to be eight months in detention.”

What’s worse, Father Cassar says the policy is racist. He argues that in the 1990s, thousands of Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats fled the Balkan Wars and found safe haven In Malta – a benefit that he says is often denied dark-skinned Africans.

“I would say skin color in this particular circumstance has a lot to do with it,” Cassar said. “Because it makes people in a homogenous society, as the Maltese one would be or would have been until quite recently, that makes people more visible. There are many more foreigners living on Malta who come from countries that are not members of the European Union. In other words third country nationals from other European countries. These people would be far less visible because they are of the same racial background.”

For his part, Ta’ Kandja prison superintendent Brian Gatt scoffs at the notion that race has anything to do with Malta’s detention policy. He said the guidelines are needed to send a firm message to illegal migrants that life in Europe is not all its cracked up to be:

“Because in many places in Africa they receive a lot of satellite TV stations which picture Europe as being paved with gold,” Gatt said. “And that is a reason why so many people cross from Africa to Europe. They think that they will make money, become rich, which is not the case. Because in Europe, everyone can see with his own eyes where many of these people end up. Underneath card board boxes on the fringes of cities with nothing to do, begging, etc. etc.”

And Mike Cassar, a supervisor at the Detention facility, and no relation to Father Cassar, says Malta treats all of its detainees well.

“They are safe, and they know they have a person here, a team of people here, who care about them,” Cassar said. “Because if you don’t care about them, you’re no good for this job. We don’t get trouble here. We don’t get trouble here.”

But in 2009, there was trouble. According to Maltese officials, Somali detainees rioted to protest their detention, and it took dozens of police to restore order.

And several months ago, residents of an open center protested a government ban on the use of a loudspeaker system to announce the Muslim call to prayer. Meanwhile, migrants continue to arrive in Malta, in search of new lives and opportunities.

What many of them don’t know is that in many places the doors to entry into Europe are slamming shut. Download MP3

• The color initiative

African migrants rescued at sea by the Armed Forces of Malta (AFM). The AFM has come to the aid of hundreds of illegal migrants in an area at sea the size of Texas

Inside a classroom at the Emily Griffith school in downtown Denver, Twenty-Seven year old Daoud Ali Muhammad is trying to improve his English. The class gives Daoud a chance to talk about the challenges he is facing in the US:

“Daoud Is your apartment hot or cold?” asks the ESL instructor. “Cold,” said Daoud. “I don’t have it (heat). I don’t have it. Today I wake up and report it. I tell them. I tell my apartment manager…I have no heat. I was freezing. It doesn’t work.”

In spite of day-to-day hardships in chilly Denver, this city has welcomed Somali refugees for decades. Many came directly from that failed state; the poorest and most unstable in Africa. Others were airlifted to the US from refugee camps in neighboring countries. But Daoud represents a new kind of refugee; one who’s route to the US was much more complicated, said Barbara Eiswerth of Iskash*taa Refugee Harvesting Network, a non-profit based in Tucson, which assisted Daoud along the way.

“With Daoud, we’re seeing a different Somali population coming in, in that their paths were longer and more convoluted,” Eiswerth said. “So that is different, in that they have been struggling and adapting and readjusting and resettling in various countries.”

Toward the end of the night, Daoud throws on a thick coat as his English class comes to an end. It’s 15 degrees outside and he said the cold weather and unemployment makes life in Denver difficult. But it’s nothing compared to the journey he took to get here: Before landing in the US, Daoud had lived in seven different countries—most recently on the small island nation of Malta. He first fled on foot across Somalia’s border in 1992 at the age of nine.

“My family was killed,” he said through a translator. “And that was the tipping point for me to leave Somalia. I fled to Kenya and lived there until 2003. Then from Kenya, I went to Ethiopia. I couldn’t live there and then left Ethiopia. And from Ethiopia, I moved to Sudan and lived there for a while and then I moved to Egypt. And from Egypt I went to Libya.”

Libya is where tens of thousands of desperately poor Sub-Saharan migrants, like Daoud, end up. They attempt the often-deadly trip in spite of red-hot deserts, hungry hyenas and rampant banditry. Some of those who make it find work in Libya, but most become stranded there with little to do. And most set their sights on Europe. Daoud tried to make the trip north aboard a smuggling vessel, but he was arrested as he tried to board, and sent to a prison in Tripoli, where he became seriously ill.

“I believe it used to be a chemical plant because all of us had skin rashes and the Libyan prison guards used to beat us at least twice a day,” Daoud said. “And that’s what created and forced us to break out of jail. My intention was just to get out of Libya and head to the seas and to see where my luck takes me.”

Daoud alleges that his dark skin color had a lot to do with how he was treated in Libya: “They directly called me a slave. So, it was horrible. They will tell you in your face.”

Jean-Philippe Chauzy is director of communications for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva. He’s traveled frequently to Libya, and said, Daoud’s story is shared by many migrants there.

“They came in clandestinely or their passports have been confiscated or lost,” Chauzy said. “They’ve got no money. They’re not getting any proper jobs. They cannot go forward because they realize the risk and do not have the money to pay smugglers. They can’t go back because they do not have the documentation. The smuggling routes only work in one direction. South, North.”

And North was where Daoud Ali Muhammad was determined to go when he boarded a second smuggling boat with the goal of reaching Italy.

“Some of our friends had relatives overseas so we received money from them and paid a middle man and he put us on a boat that wasn’t working well, and when we left Libya and were just a couple of miles the engine died. So we had to swim back to shore. Look around to make sure the Libyan Coast Guard didn’t catch us again.”

A 2009 treaty between Italy and Libya has substantially reduced the number of African migrants that actually make it to Europe. But poverty, war and instability in their home countries compel many to keep trying. So after nearly 24 months in and out of Libyan jails, Daoud again headed to sea. He boarded a dinghy with dozens of other Africans in yet another effort to reach Europe.

“The 3rd time we successfully landed in Malta.”

The Maltese Navy rescued Daoud and his fellow travelers after their boat began to sink. When Daoud finally stepped foot in Europe several years ago, it was not the Europe of his dreams.

“We were immediately detained, and we were in prison for almost five months,” Daoud said.

Eventually, with the help of both the US and the United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, Daoud finally got out of Malta and made it to Denver, where’s he’s now trying to start a new life. But thousands of other African migrants trying to reach mainland Europe remain stuck in Malta, the European Union’s smallest member state.

With a population of just 400,000, the tiny island nation is trying to discourage illegal migration to its shores. Most black asylum seekers who arrive there are jailed like Daoud, some of them for as long as 18 months. Maltese officials say they have little choice in the matter because they simply do not have room or resources to cope with this wave of illegal migrants.

The number of migrants has slowed dramatically in recent months from a high of nearly 3,000 in 2009 to just several hundred this year. So officials in that nation have had some success in getting the word out that “these tired, poor and huddled masses” are not welcome in Malta. Download MP3

• The Color Initiative

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

KATY CLARK: We close today’s program on a beach in the Philippines. A makeshift group of percussionists practice there. These drummers are known locally as The Jungle Boys. This audio postcard comes to us from reporter Phillip Martin.

PHILLIP MARTIN:  I’m at a popular spot on the beach between a rock cliff and the sea. It’s filled with Filipinos, Australians, Japanese, Chinese, Americans and visitors from everywhere it seems. All dancing barefeet in the sand with sound of drums. The Jungle Boys are a loose band of percussionists from across the Philippines.

BUGS ABONAN:  They’re in different parts of the Philippines. Like someone from Visayas, someone from Luzon, someone from Mindanao.

MARTIN: And this is where they all met, says [PH] Bugs Abonan, one of the members of the band.

ABONAN: We’re [INDISCERNABLE] and then we fall in love, we stay. We know how to play music and then we jam. No background. As long as you know how to play instruments then [SOUNDS LIKE] we’ll take it.

MARTIN: Bugs has been in Boracay since 1996. He says drums, any kind of drums, are what holds the group together.

ABONAN: Drums. Like indigenous instruments. [INDISCERNIBLE] you find on the beach, [SOUNDS LIKE] shells, [INDISCERNIBLE] you can use it to make music, no?

MARTIN: What kind of drums are we looking at here?

ABONAN: African drums.

MARTIN: So you’ve African drums and you got what else?

ABONAN:  [SOUNDS LIKE] Djembe drums from our native Philippine culture. Whatever, as long as it sounds good, it’s okay.

MARTIN: One local bartender describes The Jungle Boys as a loose collection of surfers, poets and bohemians. And at any given time their ranks swell with newcomers.

ABONAN: Yeah, and do this and then they stay here and then be part of our group also. Family. Maybe staying for six months and you been with us every single day jamming. Oh, it’s like part of the group. German, Australian, American, different kinds of members.

MARTIN: As long as they can play the drums?

ABONAN: Yeah.

MARTIN: The Jungle Boys seem content to make music and little else on this south Asian island. Have you thought about recording a CD?

ABONAN: We don’t have yet cause everybody’s having fun. We know we can do that if we do it seriously, but we don’t have to spend time such things, cause we’re happy every moment already.

MARTIN: For The World, I’m Phillip Martin, Boracay, the Philippines.

CLARK:  And so, we’ll end today’s program on the beach. Don’t forget the sunscreen. From the Nan and Bill Harris studios at WGBH in Boston, I’m Katy Clark. We’re back tomorrow.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

At the entrance of Camp Lira, soldiers grab their rifles, peer into open car windows, and after a moment or two, wave a reporter through. This is headquarters FOR a joint military and police investigation unit. Until just a few weeks ago, four leaders of the Ampatuans, the country’s most notorious private army, were jailed here. Colonel Pedro Austria IS the unit’s Regional Chief.

“They are, the Ampatuans, considered high-risk personalities. They are not ordinary person who are being charged for the crime.”

The suspects are accused of leading a massacre last November of 57 people in a region just north of here. The wife of a local politician was on her way to register her husband’s candidacy when her convoy was ambushed by one hundred guns-for hire. Those armed men were connected to a powerful warlord who has links to the country’s outgoing president. Even for a population used to pre-election violence this act of brutality shocked the country and made international news.

“The killings were brutal. Many of those shot dead were women. More than half were journalists. The Ampatuans were allowed to run a private army.”

Banner protesting the massacre

The murders led to a government order to disarm so-called private armies ahead of national elections in May. Colonel Austria says the national police are conducting aggressive operations at regular checkpoints.

“Personnel who are traveling, they are subjected to checkpoint, and if somebody is carrying gun, it will be confiscated and they will be charged accordingly.“

But at a checkpoint on this provincial highway, no one is on duty, and so we breeze right by.

Jay Mathew Mariano

“The whole coastline of Sarangani is actually a long stretch. And there are some places where you would not really feel comfortable traveling with only two police escorts if you are a politician.”

So some politicians hire hundreds, even thousands of private guards, ostensibly for protection. There are 117 such groups throughout the country, but months after the government order, only a handful has been disarmed and Mariano says he’s concerned that the “wrong people” are giving up their guns:

“Those people who are actually playing by the rules, so to speak, will be the ones that will be disarmed. Those people who are insurgents, they will not be disarmed actually. So you are just exposing people who are playing by the rules to danger.”

But critics say all the private armies have been used to intimidate political rivals. And some of them have links to the Philippine armed forces. In fact, tons of munitions and firearms confiscated from the group charged in the November massacre have been traced to the military. Colonel Pedro Austria says that’s being looked into.

“It is under investigation so I cannot just give comments as far as where the firearms came from. Allegedly they came from the military, allegedly from the police. That is why we placed under investigation.”

Jocelyn Kanda-Kalinaw

“I have this friend, a civilian volunteer, and his uncle was used by a certain political leader to be part of what they’re doing there, even though it’s violent. It’s killing. He’s paid by a government funds because he’s a civilian volunteer.”

Kalinaw suggests that as long as there is government tolerance for any armed paramilitary group, ensuring violence-free elections is not possible. Just last week, remnants of the private army that shot and hacked to death 57 people last year threatened to disrupt Monday’s vote in protest of the detention of their leaders.

For The World, I’m Phillip Martin, General Santos City, the Philippines.

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MARCO WERMAN:  Author Stephen Kinzer feels that both Turkey and Iran are key to U.S. foreign policy.  Kinzer is the author of the forthcoming “Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future”.  Stephen Kinzer, we just heard in that story from Phillip Martin about the rising tensions in Turkey between those promoting the country’s secular tradition and those backing Islamization.  Given the tensions, how fragile do you think Turkey is at the moment?

STEPHEN KINZER:  I don’t think the basic fundamental principles of the Turkish State, or the stability of Turkey are really in danger.  One of the things that has contributed to Turkey’s success in its 80 year history is that it has managed to evolve with the times.  Turkey keeps up with the [phonetic] Zeit Geist.  Turkey was formed in the 1920′s at a time when the idea of authoritarian dictatorship was ascendant in the world and it was founded within that context, with a dictatorship under Ataturk.  Then after World War II as the world became more democratic Turkey had its first multi-party election and moved into a democratic era.  Now in the modern age, Turkey is moving a little bit further back towards some of its religious beliefs that people thought maybe that Turks had abandoned.  The Turkish political system is able to evolve.  It is able to withstand confrontations and tensions.  So I don’t think this current dispute fundamentally threatens the stability of that country.

WERMAN: And despite these religious secular tensions and a seeming perennial series of coup plots since Prime Minister Erdogan was elected, do you think Turkey can be and continue to be a bona fide partner for Washington?

KINZER: Absolutely.  Turkey is not only stable at home despite its political confrontation, nonetheless its also something more important for the United States and that is its taken on a very interesting regional role.  The new Turkish Foreign Minister proclaimed several years ago that his policy would be zero problems with neighbors.  And when you look around the neighborhood, Turkey indeed had very tense and difficult relationships with Iraq, with Iran, with Syria.  All those relationships have dramatically improved.  In addition, Turkey has shown itself able to talk to factions and groups and governments across a remarkably broad range, broader than the range of groups and factions that the U.S. can talk to.  Turkey is friendly with Israel, but it’s also friendly with Hamas.  It’s friendly with Iran and the United States; with Russia and Georgia.

WERMAN: Now, in your view though, the Turkey/U.S. relationship isn’t just crucial, it’s also joined by another spoke on the wheel.  You write in your book, in only one other Muslim country in the Middle East does the democratic heart beat as passionately as Turkey.  It is also the only country that might suddenly emerge to rival or even surpass Turkey’s level of political freedom; Iran.  I got to say, Iran is not a place we think of as a beacon of democracy.

KINZER: When you look back over the history of the last hundred years, you see that there are only two countries in the Muslim Middle East that have spent that period working toward democracy.  And those two are Turkey and Iran.  One thing we’ve learned from recent history, if it wasn’t clear already, is that democracy thrives and grows after a long period of acclimation.  Democracy cannot be introduced overnight in a country where it is seen as a foreign implant.  In Turkey and Iran, democracy has been developing over a hundred years and it’s seen very much as a domestic product.  It’s something that people there have decided on their own that they want.

WERMAN: Do you think that a more democratic Iran could co-exist with Israel?

KINZER: In the past, Iranians have had remarkably good relations with Israel.  And if you look further back into history, the relations between Persians and Jews have been quite strong over a period of thousands of years.  Iranians, don’t forget, are not Arabs.  They’re not necessarily on the same wavelength with Arabs when it comes to dealing with Israel and I don’t see any reason why there’s a built in hostility between Iran and Israel.  Probably even less so than there is between Israel and Arab countries.

WERMAN: Stephen Kinzer, the author of the forthcoming “Reset:  Iran, Turkey and America’s Future”, very nice to speak with you, thanks.

KINZER: Thank you sir.

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MARCO WERMAN:  The U.S. also wants Turkey onboard for sanctions against Iran, but Turkey has been reluctant to go along.  It has political and business ties with Iran and right now Turkey has something else to worry about.  Authorities there continue to investigate what they say was a serious attempt to overthrow the government.  The alleged coup reflects deepening anxiety over what some Turkish citizens fear is creeping Islamization in a country with a strong secular tradition.  Phillip Martin reports.

PHILLIP MARTIN:  On this day as the sky over Istanbul turns from iron grey to a widening patch of blue, one is reminded of Turkey’s Islamic faith.  Turkish citizens this week also woke up to another reminder.  With the arrests of seven power officers, the ever-present tensions between Islam and secularism bubbled to the surface.  The seven were said to be part of a plot called sledgehammer.  It’s allegedly designed to create unrest that would allow the military to take over the government.  It’s a charge that military men say is absolutely untrue.  Isik Biren, a retired Turkish Admiral.

ISIK BIREN:  I think that some people are just collecting some sort of information which they say piles up to 5,000 pages and is the plan or something like that.  I’ve never heard of the 5,000 page plan in my whole life.  So there must be some misunderstanding in certain places.  To me, its nonsense.

MARTIN: For decades Islam has existed side by side with a deep commitment to secularism enshrined in Turkey’s Constitution.  Whether the coup plot is true or not, the tensions underlying this week’s events are widespread.  Popular jazz pianist, Ali Perret says he doesn’t want to lose what he calls “Turkey’s free spirit”; a way of life he fears is threatened by the ever-increasing growth of Islamist parties.

ALI PERRET:  First of all they’re a conservative government.  But he main reason is going towards fascism and we all it Islamo-Fascism.  The country is divided; the secular ones and the Islamic religious conservative people.  So it’s really bad times for Turkey and the Turkish people.

MARTIN: Demographers have also documented a surge of religion in recent years and an increase in the number of radical Islamic parties.  But Ilber Ortayli, Director of the Topkapi Palace, a center of Ottoman and Islamic history, says he’s not particularly concerned.

ILBER ORTAYLI:  This so-called fundamentalists, repeat, so-called fundamentalists, they have nothing to do with fundamental ideas.  They like to sing about their past.  Today Turkey is, of course, a western country.

MARTIN: But for many Turks, that’s precisely the problem.  Islamists, Nationalists and others have criticized Turkish institutions for being too accommodating to the United States and Israel.  Some are calling for the severing of military relations with the U.S. which maintains an air base in southern Turkey.  That’s one of the reasons why talk of a coup should have the U.S. deeply concerned says Bill Martel, professor of Security Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

BILL MARTEL:  The geo-strategic concern has to be that instability or chaos in Turkey has a set of consequences that weaken both the American and the European ability to have a positive, productive role in that part of the world.

MARTIN: Turkey’s armed forces, the second largest in NATO have overthrown at least four civilian governments over the course of the last half century.  Jazz pianist Ali Perret says any way you look at it, Turkey is in trouble.

PERRET:  There is a danger of civil war.  In the seventies when I was a teenager we had the military coup in ’71, so that was pretty fascist years.  Now it even looks worse.

MARTIN: Perret says he worries that he may soon lose the freedom to play his music late into the night without interference from religious conservatives or military bent on keeping oil.  For The World, I’m Phillip Martin, Istanbul, Turkey.

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[MUSIC]

MARCO WERMAN: Sikh musicians welcomed a group of religious leaders from around the world this week. The priests, rabbis, imams, and others gathered at Windsor Castle in England. They met to collaborate on an issue that the world’s governments are having a hard time agreeing on – climate change. The conference came just weeks before a global summit on climate change in Copenhagen. The World’s religion editor, Jane Little, was there in Windsor.

[MARCHING BAND]

JANE LITTLE: It’s not everyday that you see an army of black, white, red, and orange robes processing up the cobbled hill to Windsor Castle. But these religious men, and women, are on their way to lunch with Prince Phillip, the Queen’s husband, and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon both of whom have thrown their weight behind religious efforts to tackle climate change. Ban addressed the assembled.

BAN KI MOON: Together the major faith groups have established, run, or contributed to over half of all schools worldwide. You are the third largest category of investors in the world. Your potential impact is enormous.

LITTLE: That’s why the UN is helping to fund an array of plans developed by members of nine world religions from Muslims and Christians to Bahais and Sikhs. The organizers at Windsor say that between them the religions represented here claim more than 85 percent of the world’s population. That’s convinced long time secular environmentalists that they’re vital allies. Patrick Holden is a leader in the organic food movement.

PATRICK HOLDEN: I think the power of four billion people, if it is that, ought to drive change especially because faith communities think long term. They have fantastic communication networks and they’ve got resources. Should not be underestimated.

LITTLE: The meeting marks a significant evolution in the relationship between many religious traditions and environmentalism. Martin Palmer is head of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation.

MARTIN PALMER: I think the real problem for Christianity, and to some extent for Judaism and Islam as well, was fear of paganism. They saw respect for nature as being tantamount to worship of nature. And all sorts of deep barrier to theological traps kind of went bing, bing, bing when the environmental movement came into being.

LITTLE: Palmer adds that many American Evangelicals were resistant because they saw environmental destruction as a necessary prelude to the end times when Christ would return.

[PRAISE HIM PSALM 148]

But the presence here at Windsor of many Evangelicals including a choir from the Baltimore New Psalmist Baptist Church reflects a significant conversion. Many have been moved to look again at their bibles and encouraged to see that respect for nature doesn’t mean worship of it. Creation care has become a new buzz term. Perhaps the most ambitious initiative announced here was the Muslim’s seven-year action plan. Sheikh Ali Goma’a, the influential Grand Mufti of Egypt, spoke of protecting the earth as a religious duty. The plan calls for the construction of so-called green mosques and even cities as well as a TV channel for Islam and the environment. Goma’a also announced the greening of pilgrimage cities including Medina in Saudi Arabia.

ALI GOMA’A: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

TRANSLATOR: First they will increase the green area. Second they will work very hard to create a natural balance for the carbon. Third replace everything that’s being wasted in friendly environmental way.

LITTLE: Millions of Korans will also be published on sustainably sourced paper. Meanwhile Jews from America and Israel pledge to try to cut meat consumption among their communities in half by 2015. Livestock production is a major source of greenhouse gases. And Shintos in Japan and Daoists in China will convert thousands of temples to green energy. It’s an ambitious agenda perhaps. But Martin Palmer says the goals announced here are achievable. Maybe more so than what political leaders are attempting at the UN’s climate summit in Copenhagen next month.

PALMER: I’ve been asked a number of times; do you think the governments of the world will take this seriously? And my answer’s been the same every time. I really don’t care. Because the religions are going to do this anyway.

LITTLE: And he adds if governments can’t come through at Copenhagen religions will just have to show them the way. For The World this Jane Little, Windsor.

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• ‘Skin’ homepage
• Phillip Martin’s reports on albinism
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KATY CLARK: It’s been 15 years since South Africa abandoned its brutal system of racial segregation. But a new movie is reminding South Africans of the days when apartheid was the law. The film is called Skin. It’s based on the painful true story of Sandra Laing, a woman with dark skin born to white parents in 1955. Phillip Martin has the story.

PHILLIP MARTIN: Sandra Laing’s skin color didn’t matter in her early years. She and her family lived in a rural part of South Africa. It was only when her parents enrolled her in a white boarding school that her troubles began. Her older brother went to the school but he had lighter skin and was considered white. But Sandra’s skin was darker and she wasn’t welcome. Her father played by actor Sam Neill shows the headmaster documents to prove his daughter’s whiteness.

FATHER: What does this say?

HEADMASTER: A piece of paper is not going to reassure all the parents who call me everyday to complain that there’s a black child at this school. Sandra is a disruption. Sandra does not belong here.

MARTIN: Sandra is then reclassified as colored, the South African term for mixed race, and is forced to leave the school. Her father, a proud Afrikaner, challenges the classification. A 10-year-old Sandra Laing gets brought before government board. They measure her head, her torso, and the thickness of her curly hair. Her father erupts.

FATHER: I’m telling you she’s white. I’m her father. I’m as white as you are. This is her mother. Undeniably white. And Sandra is our daughter. Blood of our blood.

MARTIN: Then a genetics expert testifies on behalf of Sandra’s family.

GENETICS EXPERT: I believe there’s a plausible genetic explanation for Sandra’s appearance. The history of our country is such that many indeed we believe most Afrikaners carry black genes.

JUDGE: Silence. Please go on.

GENETICS EXPERT: So two white-looking parents can contribute enough black genes to produce a child quite a lot darker then themselves.

MARTIN: The South African government accepted the explanation and amended the constitution to recognize the children of two white parents to be white, regardless of appearance. And so Sandra Laing was reclassified as white. But she never returned to the school. At age 16 Sandra fell in love with a black man and ran away. She was then jailed for violating laws against interracial relationships. Her parents won her release and invited her home. But Sandra then pregnant chose to move with her boyfriend to a black township. She then tried to get herself reclassified again as colored. Sandra eventually left her husband and moved with her children to the outskirts of Johannesburg where she worked in a factory. Anthony Fabian, the director of skin, heard about Sandra’s story a few years ago when he was interviewed on the BBC.

ANTHONY FABIAN: I was moved to tears by her story and also very angered by it because it was clear that although Sandra’s white family had prospered Sandra was living still in abject poverty in a township. Didn’t own her home. Could barely afford to clothe or feed her children. And I felt that some kind of reparation needed to be done. And as a filmmaker I had an opportunity not only to tell her story and bring it to the world but also to make a difference at the center of it.

MARTIN: Sandra tried for years to contact her parents but her letters were always returned. Then in 2001, 27 years after she left home, Sandra was reunited with her mother who died soon after. She never saw her father again but in an interview Sandra Laing says she believes he never stopped loving her.

SANDRA LAING: My mother told me that my father died and she wanted my address to send me some money that my father left me. I just felt that my father still loved me which is angry because I left him.

MARTIN: But to this day Laing’s brothers refuse to speak to her. Directory Anthony Fabian says Sandra’s story reaches far beyond South Africa.

FABIAN: It’s about how we treat people who are different from ourselves. In the United States with a bi-racial president the racial identity debate has really come to the fore. And I think it’s very important that we keep that debate present – that we keep talking about these issues because they haven’t gone away.

MARTIN: Skin, the film about Sandra Laing, opens today in New York and Los Angeles. For The World I’m Phillip Martin.

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“I can tell you that throughout the whole area of Africa, beliefs exist that people with albinism are cursed, that the mother had sex with the white man, that she had sex with a European ghost, that these people are evil, that they’re possessed, that they’re substandard, that the disease is contagious.  There’s a host of myths that prevail for hundreds of years for people with albinism in large parts of Africa.”

Listen to Part 1:

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To see more photos from Tanzania, click here.

In part two of Phillip Martin’s series on albinism worldwide, he surveys global efforts to show albinos in a more favorable light. Martin interviews Rick Guidotti, a fashion photographer who, in 1999, photographed a young albino woman named Christine (at left) for a Life Magazine photo essay entitled “Redifining Beauty.” Guidotti remembers:

“She walked into my studio with her head down, shoulders hunched, eyes down as well, one word answers, no eye contact.  This kid had zero self esteem because of being teased her entire life because of her albinism.  So I thought, well I’m going to photograph her in respect to the way I would photograph anyone, Cindy or Claudia.  So the lights went on, the music the fan. I grabbed a mirror, and was like, ‘Christine look.’   This kid looked in the mirror, and for the first time, saw a beautiful girl.”

Listen to Part 2:

Download MP3

For see more of Rick Guidotti’s pictures, click here, or visit Rick’s website, Positive Exposure.

To hear more of Phillip Martin’s reporting, visit The Color Initiative.

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Albinos lack pigmentation in their skin and their hair. It’s for this reason alone that Albinos have been the victims of mutilations and ritual crimes, especially in Africa. Human rights advocates have documented the slaughter of more than 40 Albinos in Tanzania, Burundi and Kenya. Philip Martin reported yesterday on the sometimes deadly prejudice against Albinos. Today he surveys global efforts to show Albinos in a more favorable light.

PHILIP MARTIN: For years, Manhattan based Rick Guidotti made his living as a fashion photographer, shooting pictures of beautiful women who are known by their first names only – Cindy, Claudia and Tyra. Then one day he was introduced to a young Albino woman named Christine.

RICK GUIDOTTI: She walked into my studio with her head down, shoulders hunched, eyes down as well, one word answers, no eye contact. This kid had zero self esteem because of her being teased her entire life because of her albinism. So I thought well I was going to photograph her with respect the way I would photograph anyone, Cindy or Claudia. And so the lights went on, the music, the fan. I grabbed a mirror and was like, Christine, look. And this kid looked in the mirror and for the first time saw a beautiful girl.

PHILIP: That photograph became the centerpiece of a 1999 award winning photo essay in Life Magazine called “Redefining Beauty”. Soon Rick Guidotti was being asked by people all over the world to photograph their Albino children, families and entire Albino communities.

RICK: So I started traveling.

PHILIP: Guidotti became an advocate for people with albinism, and formed a nonprofit called Positive Exposure. He visited places round the world where Albinos were shunned and persecuted. But he also discovered places where they are deified. And in the Cook Islands of New Zealand for example, he found that Albinos are revered in legend.

RICK: And it’s a legend about hate turning discrimination into prejudice. I mean awareness, education, acceptance, friendship, then love, and out of that love comes this first person with albinism.

MALE: [SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

PHILIP: This recording made by Rick Guidotti, is of a tribal leader in the islands of the Atlantic coast of Panama. It’s home to the Kuna, an indigenous people with one of the highest rates of albinism in the world. More than one in 200 of the islanders are Albinos. This man is a Kuna spiritual leader. He says Albinos are Godlike children of the moon, and they face no discrimination because they are his brothers and sisters.

PETER ASH: Panama is a rare example and we’ve heard of this and a few other indigenous tribes, where people with albinism are worshiped and revered.

PHILIP: Peter Ash is a successful businessman in Vancouver. He’s also a person with albinism. His Canadian nonprofit, Under the Same Sun, advocates for Albinos worldwide.

PETER: Obviously I’d certainly prefer that than having them killed. But I mostly just prefer that you treat us as anybody else. Because the problem with having them worshiped and revered is that if the chief of that tribe changes or the tradition of that tribe changes, it’s still undergirded by this notion that they’re somehow magical or different.

PHILIP: Ash blames popular culture for this widely held perception. For example, he believes African films that glorify witchcraft have fanned anti Albino superstition and violence in East Africa. And he says Hollywood is also to blame.

PETER: Even in North America, every single Hollywood portrayal of a person with albinism – think of Da Vinci Code, The Princess Bride, The Matrix Reloaded, Powder.

MALE: Afraid you’re going to get a little color on that marshmallow ass of yours.

MALE: Look man, you better get out of here. Johnny. How about it, huh?

PETER: Think of them all. When have you seen a person with albinism portrayed in a positive way? In every single instance the person with albinism is a villain, they’re evil, they’re twisted, they’re odd.

PHILIP: The portrayal of Albinos in popular culture including in film, is the focus of a recent documentary from South Africa called “White Negro”. [MUSIC]

FEMALE: I’m also what they call an Albino. It means that I have no pigmentation, but believe it or not, both my parents are black. My father was shot when I was four. He did not accept me as his child.

PHILIP: In South Africa, which has a relatively large Albino population, anti Albino prejudice including job discrimination, is widespread. Not according to Thabo Leshilo. Leshilo is editor of the Sowetan newspaper, which has led a campaign against anti Albino bias in this self-proclaimed racial democracy.

THABO LESHILO: Every year we run a writing competition, with the South African Albinism Society. This competition is aimed at helping people understand albinism, and also to help eradicate in a small way ignorance about albinism in Africa, and also in South Africa specifically.

[ANNOUNCEMENT]

PHILIP: Alberto Pascoal, the Brazilian jazz instrumentalist, is an Albino. Like other famous Albino musicians, notably Salif Kieta of Mali and King Yellowman of Jamaica, Pasquale sees himself as a global ambassador for people with albinism, even in places where anti Albino prejudice runs deep.

HERMETO PASCOAL: Because even in Africa, two years ago when we were on tour in Johannesburg, I was treated with great respect, even as the audience acknowledged that I was an Albino.

PHILIP: As a teenager growing up in Caru-aru, Perhambuco in Brazil’s northeast, Pascoal says he was always being stared at, and sought comfort in the company of other Albinos.

HERMETO: The name of the street where I lived was Black Street, and there was one section where only Albinos lived. There’s a black drummer I love who also lived on Black Street, who now lives not far from here in Curitiba. We used to hang out on Black Street and play music all night. Blacks and Albinos on Black Street.

PHILIP: Pasquale says he has no problem with any race, and believes Albinos can do pretty much as they please in Brazil. They also have one clear advantage, he jokes. They’re all beautiful. As internationally acclaimed artists like Hermeto Pascoal talk openly about their lives, they’re challenging popular notions of what it means to be Albino.

MURRAY BRILLIANT: Albinism teaches us I think a lot about our assumptions about race.

PHILIP: This is Dr. Murray Brilliant, a geneticist and expert on albinism at the University of Arizona.

MURRAY: We define race primarily by pigmentation, and so any change in that pigmentation could change our perception of race, because when we see people who have different skin pigmentations and hair color, we make certain assumptions about them. And then when you see people with albinism those assumptions are not there anymore.

PHILIP: Thabo Leshilo, editor of the Sowetan newspaper of South Africa, agrees.

THABO: It also shows you I mean just how ridiculous it is, an obsession with color. To find some people with albinism, actually being whiter than a lot of white people that I know.

PHILIP: In fact, many non Albinos still don’t understand the truth of albinism, which explains why anti Albino prejudice remains pervasive in many parts of the world. But human rights advocates say education and the promotion of positive images of Albinos in popular culture is slowly helping to turn that prejudice around. For The World, I’m Philip Martin.

LISA: Our reports on Albinos were edited by Anthony Brooks. You can find photos and more on Albinos worldwide at our website. Just visit theworld.org.

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