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Rabat – Even while appearing to highlight Morocco’s historic World Cup run in Qatar, some in the Western media have been using shockingly racist and Orientalist tropes in their coverage of the Moroccan national football team. The latest such coverage came as a Danish TV channel compared images of Moroccan players celebrating with their families to a “family of monkeys.”
A video of the segment was widely circulated on the internet, featuring the journalists ironically expressing their admiration for the strong unity between Moroccan players and their families, notably their mothers.
One of the journalists said: “In continuation of the talk about Morocco and their families in Qatar, we have also an animal family gathering to keep warm, and that is how beautiful those goblin monkeys are.”
As the other journalist asked his colleague about the correlation between the previously mentioned topic (Moroccan players and families) and the family of monkeys, the journalist explained: “because they (monkeys) stick together and that is also done with family reunification in Qatar and Moroccans.”
Viewers were outraged by the comparison, deeming it extremely racist and inappropriate.
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“Dehumanization of Africans, Arabs, and Muslims. Been going on for a long time … You are blind if you can’t see it,” said an Instagram user.
Another commenter described the act as “blatant racism that’s been planned behind the scenes,” noting: “They make the comparison to monkeys seem ‘innocent’ so when the hammer drops they can use the excuse that they didn’t intend to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
Another Instagram user said, “First it was the German journalist comparing Morocco’s football team to ISIS, and now this.”
This was not the first instance of racism targeting Moroccan players during the global tournament in Qatar.
Earlier this month, a German news outlet made controversial statements about some Moroccan players for doing the “Tawhid” sign during their game against Portugal. Tawhid is a sign used by Muslims and it is done by raising the index finger.
