Rabat – Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, one of the top executives at the largest banking institution HSBC, has sparked outrage for the racist, anti-Arab comments he made during a dinner event at Oxford University last month.
According to the Mail on Sunday, which first reported the news, Cowper-Coles, who also served as UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said at the dinner event that he wished he had learnt another language like Chinese instead of Arabic.
“The Arabic mind is empty compared to the Chinese,” reports quoted the HSBC head of public affairs as saying at the Oxford University dinner.
Many have condemned the comments, with one Twitter user describing the HSBC executive as adopting the “Raj mentality.”
“The Raj mentality still lives on in HSBC, I guess,” he said, adding that remarks like Cowper-Coles’ racist comments are “very disruptive and unhinged.”
IT’s particularly “disappointing” that such intolerably racist comments “came from a senior member of one of the most international and respected global banks,” the commenter detailed.
Many others have called for Copwer-Coles’s resignation, stressing that this will be “the least thing the bank could do” in response to his racist comments.
Another Twitter user denounced the HSCB executive’s anti-Arab comments, saying that statements such as those reflect the executive’s deep-seated hatred against Arabs.
“Actually the Arabic mind is not empty; it’s active genius but you hate Arabs you are racist you blackmail Arabs for that reason you pretend that arabs are nothing in your philosophy ideology & your mentality,” the commenter tweeted.
It remains to be seen whether HSBC will take any action against its head of public affairs following the racism row.
