BY MARIANA NKHOMA
An investigation by the BBC has unmasked a Chinese national by the name Lu Ke as the man who was behind a video that aroused worldwide outrage when it was published on Chinese social media in 2020.
In the video, the children are told to repeat sentences in Chinese by a man who is off-camera and has been identified as Lu Ke.
The video was shot at Njewa trading center on the outskirts of the capital Lilongwe.
Lu Ke was instructing the kids to repeat the sentence, “I am a black monster and my IQ is low.”
The investigation has revealed that Chinese people in Africa make videos like these, which they sell on social media to other Chinese people.
In Malawi, the BBC investigators found Lu Ke who is called Susu (uncle) by the locals and he pays the kids half a dollar a day to perform in his videos in which he would make the children sing, dance, or chant in Chinese.
He would then sell the videos to fellow Chinese nationals in China.
“It’s very painful. We struggle to raise our children and somebody comes and uses them as a business.” Said one of the locals in an interview with the BBC.
The reporters also went to Kamwendo Village in Mchinji where the Chinese man spent several years shooting videos of kids.
A six-year-old child called Bright told the BBC that Lu Ke used violence to force the children say the phrases he wanted.
“He used to pinch us or whip us with a stick when we did something wrong,” Bright said.
The investigators, with the help of another Chinese man, Paul, who posed as a buyer of videos, interviewed Susu and he admitted making the “low IQ” video.
When shown the video, Lu Ke said: “Yes this was mine”.
However, he quickly retracted his words and said that it was shot by his friend.
Lu Ke also advised Paul to never pity black people, saying that is “how they should be treated”.
When the BBC reporters confronted Lu Ke, he denied making the racist videos and assaulting the children but he said he made videos to promote Chinese culture.
Speaking to BBC, one of the parents of the children who appeared in the racist video expressed concerns over the conduct of the Chinese man and demanded that he should be evicted from the area.
Meanwhile, Malawians on social media have described as moronic the behavior of such Chinese and have told the authorities in Malawi to emulate the Rwandan President’s way of handling such people as he simply deports them from his country.
The Malawi Police Service says it is investigating the matter.
Below is the video which has sparked the debate:
