Racial segregation
Racial segregation is a kind of formalized or institutionalized
discrimination on the basis of race, characterized by their separation from each other. The separation may be geographical, but is usually supported by providing services through separate institutions (such as schools) and through similar legal and social structures. See also:
racism.
Societies have practiced racial segregation througout human history.
Nazi Germany
A grotesque example of how miscegenation laws were enacted can be seen during the 1930s, when the racist and Anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws enacted by the Nazis in Germany against the large German Jewish community, forbidding marriages between the Jews (deemed as Untermenschen - "lower people") and German "Aryans" (deemed the Ubermenschen - "higher people"). Many interfaith and intermarried couples committed suicide when these laws came into effect.
In the General Government in 1940 the population was divided on different groups. Each group had different rights, food ratios, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation and restricted restaurants. Listed from the most privilaged to the least:\n*Germans from Germany (Reichdeutsche)\n*Germans from outside, active ethnic Germans, Volksliste category 1 and 2 (see Volksdeutsche)\n*Germans from outside, passive Germans and members of families (this group included also many ethnic Poles), Volksliste category 3 and 4, \n*Ukrainians,\n*Highlanders (Goralenvolk) - an attempt to split Polish nation by using local collaborators \n*Poles, \n*Jews (eventually sentenced to extermination as a category).
During the 1930s and 40s, Jews and Gypsies were forced to wear yellow ribbons, and were discriminated against by the racial laws. Jewish doctors and professors were not allowed to teach Aryan pupils or cure Aryan patients.
\nDuring the WWII, Jews and Gypsies were sent to the concentration camps, solely on the basis of their race.
\nUSA
Racial discrimination was regulated by the so-called Jim Crow laws from the Civil War, primarily (although not exclusively) in the U.S. Southern States. Such legal segregation lasted up to the 1960s. White and black people would sometimes be required to use separate schools, public toilets, park benches, train and restaurant seating, etc. "Miscegenation" laws prohibited people of different races from marrying. In some locales, in addition to segregated seating, it could be forbidden for stores or restaurants to serve different races under the same roof.
During World War II, Japanese people were excluded from the West Coast, on the basis of their race.
Institutionalized racial segregation was ended by the efforts of such civil rights activists as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr, working during the period from the end of World War II through the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act supported by President Lyndon Johnson. Many of their efforts were acts of civil disobedience aimed at violating the racial segregation rules and laws, such as insisting on sitting at the front of the bus (Rosa Parks), or holding sit-ins at all-white diners. On January 26, 1948 President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States Armed Forces.
Although racial equality is, at least in theory, granted to all citizens in the US today, some see the USA Patriot Act as an attempt at covert racial segregation or discrimination against non-citizens. Arabs and Pakistanis, who have similar skin color, are allegedly subjected to different procedures that do not apply to others. However, the US has strict rules against racial profiling to prevent such segregation.
South Africa
Apartheid was a system which existed in South Africa for over forty years, although the term itself had a history going back to the 1910's. It was formalized in the years following the victory of the National Party in the (all-white) national election of 1948 and remained the law until 1990. It was abolished following a rapid change in public perception of racial segregation throughout the world, and an economic boycott against South Africa which had crippled and threatened to destroy its economy.
Rhodesia
\nThe British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), under Ian Smith, leader of the white minority government, declared unilateral independence in 1965. For the next 15 years, Rhodesia operated under white minority rule until international sanctions forced Smith to hold multiracial elections, after a brief period of British rule in 1979.
Israel
\nA number of organisations, including the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights (LAW) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, believe that Israel is an apartheid state under the UN definition.
Arab world
\nInstitutionalized ethnic discrimination exists in many Arab countries. Jordan forbids Jews from becoming citizens. Palestinian refugees are generally treated as second-class citizens at best in their countries of refuge.
Many Gulf states import large numbers of migrant workers from South Asia and other countries to do menial labour, who are often treated extremely poorly. Generally speaking, Arab countries recognize only Arabs as first-class citizens, though treatment of others ranges from tolerance to hostility in different places.
Fiji
\nTwo military coups in Fiji in 1987 removed from power a government that was led by an ethnic Fijian, but was supported principally by the Indo-Fijian (ethnic Indian) electorate, which then made up approximately half of the population. A new constitution was promulgated in 1990, establishing Fiji as a republic, with the offices of President, Prime Minister, two-thirds of the Senate, and a clear majority of the House of Representatives reserved for ethnic Fijians, despite the fact that ethnic Fijians then comprised less than half the population. Ethnic Fijian ownership of the land (which was worked principally by Indo-Fijians) was also entrenched in the constitution.
World-wide condemnation of the 1990 constitution, and a brain-drain of many Indo-Fijian professionals and businesspeople, caused the Fijian government to revise the constitution in 1997. Amendments deleted most of the discriminatory provisions, and subsequent elections in 1999 brought a new government to power, with Mahendra Chaudhry as the country's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister.
Another coup followed in 2000, with George Speight, supported by sympathetic offices in the Army and police force, seizing power, with the aim of ending Indo-Fijian influence in politics. Democracy, and the moderate 1997 constitution, were eventually restored, however.
Current prime minister Laisenia Qarase has refused to adhere to the Constitution by not including members of the largely Indo-Fijian Fiji Labour Party in the government.
Related issues
Although not all advocates concede the validity of the concept of "race" as applied to human divisions, discrimination on color or other ethnic characteristics is often labelled "racist" (see race, racism).
White separatism
White separatism is the belief that that those who are of white or Caucasian race should have separate institutions or even separate societies, territories, governments, and should not "breed" with those considered to be of non-white races. White separatists often label themselves as racialistss rather than racists. White separatism is one among many forms of separatism.
Many white separatists are believers in white supremacy, but some do not. Some consider the segregationists of the Southern United States and the advocates of apartheid in South Africa as being white separatists as these advocates of segregationism and apartheid used the same language of separatism and denied that they were "White supremacists" despite evidence to the contrary. Both groups also had advanced a belief in the inherent "inferiority" of non-whites, whom they claimed are incapable of properly either governing themselves or any other races. Some segragationists put forward the proposition that "separation" doesn't necessarily mean superiority and thus endorsed the "separate but equal" proposition for educational segregation that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in the case of Brown v. Board of Education.
Kevin Alfred Strom, on the National Alliance's white separatist radio program American Dissident Voices, defined the difference between white separatism and supremacy this way:
- "A supremacist—of whatever race—is distinct from a 'separatist.' A separatist may believe that his race is superior to other races in some or all characteristics, but this is not his essential belief. The separatist is defined by his wish for freedom and independence for his people. He wishes them to have their own society, to be led by their own kind, to have a government which looks out for their interests alone. The separatist does not wish to live in a multiracial society at all, so he naturally has no desire to rule over other races—since such rule necessitates the multiracial society the separatist wants to avoid at all costs." [1]
Sociologists Betty A. Dobratz and Stephanie Shanks-Meile contend that terms such as "white separatism" and "white nationalism" are euphemisms that have been adopted by what they refer to as
neo-nazi and
racist groups as a tactical move in order to make their views seem less extreme. The Center for Democratic Renewal likewise called the term "white separatist" a "media gloss."
[1]
Light-skinned people are found among many ethnic groups, and the genetic basis of light pigmintation is not exclusive to any one particular racial category. Generally, white separatists claim genetic affiliation with Anglo-Saxon cultures, and sometimes to beliefs asserting ancestory with the Semitic peoples of the Christian bible. White separatists are often found among
Christian Identity groups, some of whom refer to the United States as the "
Zionist Occupation Government" and propose a "White" homeland in the northwestern corner of what is currently the
United States of America.
The
anti-racist group
Turn it Down, which campaigns against
White Power music, defines the term "white separatist" as follows:
- "white separatist: a euphemism for white supremacist. The label has been adopted by individuals and organizations to obscure or present a more benevolent facade for the beliefs in racial segregation and/or neo-Nazism." [1]
The
National Alliance, a white separatist group which is often accused of being white supremacist and
neo-nazi, has referred to
Adolf Hitler in an editorial as being the "greatest man of our era"
[1], but still claims not to be a white supremacist group and dismisses all criticism of this type as part of a "
Jewish plot" to suppress the "racial defense mechanisms" of white people by accusing those who believe in "white separatist ideals" as being "white supremacists".
[1].
Black separatism
\nParallel to the white separatism, there also exists, particularly in the United States, a similarly politically marginal black separatist movement. Black separatists generally hold that whites are racist oppressors of blacks and that there can be no remedy for black advancement within contemporary white-dominated society. They believe that the only solution for blacks is to break away and to create a separate, segregated black society.
The more specific goals were historically in flux and varied from group to group.
Marcus Garvey in the 1920s outspokenly called for African Americans to return to
Africa, by moving to
Liberia.
Nation of Islam calls, much more quietly, for an independent black state on American soil. Much more mainstream views within black separatism hold that blacks would be better served by exclusively black schools and businesses, as well as by black local politicians and police.
The mainstream black separatism is sharply opposed by anti-segregationists and integrationists within the African American community. They generally hold that blacks can and should advace within the larger American society and call on them to work to achieve that through personal improvement, educational achievement, business involvement, and political action.
Martin Luther King, who led the political effort to overthrow segregation in 1960s, and
Malcolm X, a contemporary black separatist from the
Nation of Islam may personify the opposition between the two views.
Latino separatism
\nSome of the political groups among Latinos, or Americans of Mexican descent, in 1960s advocated racial separatism for the bronze race or the
Chicanos. Some of them wanted to create an independent Chicano state in the south-west of
United States, on the territories that historically were taken by America from
Mexico in the
Mexican-American War in 1848. Some of these views were reflected in the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan document. Modern Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan,
MEChA, is a presumably much less radical political heir of those days.
See also
References
\n*Dobratz, Betty A. and Shanks-Meile, Stephanie L, White Power, White Pride!: The White Separatist Movement in the United States, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, 384 pages, ISBN 0801865379.
External links to material about Israel
\n* Israeli Schools Separate, Not Equal\n*
Amnesty International report 2002 Israel and the occupied territories\n*
American Friends Service Committee item on the history of Jerusalem\n*
LAW paper: "Israel's brand of apartheid: The Nakba continues"\n*
LAW press release regarding their petition against Israel's "apartheid wall"\n*
Islamic Human Rights Commission\n*
"Apartheid In the Holy Land": full text of a paper presented by Nafeez Ahmed of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, at the 2001 UN Conference Against Racism in Durban\n*
Full text of Interview with Shimon Peres\n*
Alon Liel, former director general of the Israel Foreign Ministry, on the question of apartheid\n*
Anti-Semitism - past and Present. Discusses the anti-Semitic motives of some of the individuals who accuse Israel of Apartheid.\n*
ADL statement on the anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic outcry at Durban\n*
Haaretz article about interreligious marriages in Israel (omitted in the official English edition)
External link
\n* A white separatist FAQ
Category:Core issues in ethics\nCategory:U.S. history of slavery\nCategory:U.S. civil rights history\nCategory:Political theories\nCategory:Nazi Germany\nCategory:Anti-Semitism\nCategory:South Africa\nCategory:Neo-Nazi topics\n\n
