Racism by country

The article describes the state of race relations and racism in a number of countries. Racism of various forms in found in almost every country on Earth. Racism is widely condemned throughout the world, with 170 states signatories of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by August 8 2006. In different countries, the forms that racism takes may be different for historic, cultural, economic or demographic reasons.

Australia

Prior to the establishment of a national federal government in 1901, the territory of Australia was occupied from 1788 by various British Colonies (which have since become Australia's States) that had commenced the dispossession of about 300 Aboriginal nations which had come to exist on the continent during the previous 40,000 years. One of the first Acts of the new Australian government was the White Australia Policy that aimed to purify the new nation by denying citizenship rights to non-Whites already resident and allowing only Whites to immigrate. Australia's Aboriginal people were not included in the constituency of the new nation and it was not until the 1960s that they were included in the census and given the right to vote in national elections.

By the 1930s the White Australia Policy had succeeded in reducing the non-White component of Australia's population such that the nation was about 98% White. Following World War II, interest in migrating to Australia from traditional sources declined (due to reconstruction efforts in Europe and the relative desirability and proximity of Canada and the USA). The post-war nation-building imperative of 'populate or perish' thereby required a slight broadening of the White Australia Policy to include Southern Europeans, particularly Greeks and Italians, large numbers of whom have since made Australia home. Further relaxations followed, allowing an increasingly diverse migrant intake from all parts of the world.

Australia officially became a multicultural country in 1973 when the Australian government adopted policies of multiculturalism. However, like most contemporary settler societies, such policies have never had universal acceptance within the community and there have been some high-profile issues of race-based violence (for example the 2005 Cronulla riots) as well as upsurges of popular race-based discourse since the 1996 election of the Liberal-National Coalition Government led by Prime Minister John Howard, who was criticised in some quarters for allowing the views of Pauline Hanson to circulate without censure. In her maiden parliamentary speech, Hanson said that "a multicultural country can never be a strong country" and supported this assertion with a number of widely publicised remarks about Asians not assimilating and living in ghettos.

Following her meteoric rise to prominence on the national political scene, Hanson formed the One Nation Party, which attracted significant support for a few years. Many of Hanson's policy proposals about restricting the entry of asylum seekers and refugees have since become official Howard government policy while her One Nation Party's political stocks have dramatically declined.

Austria

Austria has sometimes been criticised of trying to sweep its Nazi past under the carpet, typified by the widely pronounced myth that Austria was a victim of Nazi aggression rather than a willing participant. This has its origins as an Allied propaganda tactic. This complacency was severely tested in the 1986 presidential race when it emerged that Kurt Waldheim (a former UN secretary general) had concealed (or forgotten) certain facts about his war-time military service with the Wehrmacht. The revelations caused much controversy in Austria as well as in the outside world. Nevertheless Waldheim was elected President. Controversy again erupted in 2000 when Jörg Haider's centre-right Freedom Party entered into coalition with the conservative People's Party having gained 27% of the vote.

However much progress has been made with settling the disputes and compensation for Jews and others whose property and assets were seized during the Nazi era, with a deal completed in 2001. Elections in 2002 saw a significant drop in support for the Freedom Party, with the party subsequently splitting into opposing factions. Jörg Haider now leads the "Alliance for the Future of Austria".

Botswana

Since the mid-1990s the central government of Botswana has been trying to move Bushmen out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve even though the national constitution guarantees the Bushmen the right to live there in perpetuity. As of October 2005, the government has resumed its policy of forcing all Bushmen off their lands in the Game Reserve, using armed police and threats of violence or death. Many of the involuntarily displaced Bushmen live in squalid resettlement camps and some have resorted to prostitution and alcoholism, while about 250 others remain or have surreptitiously returned to the Kalahari to resume their independent lifestyle.

“How can you have a Stone Age creatures continue to exist in the age of computers?“ asked Botswana’s president Festus Mogae. A report released by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemns Botswana's treatment of the 'Bushmen' as racist.

Brazil

Some Brazilian Universities (State and Federal) have created systems of preferred admissions (quotas) for racial minorities (blacks and native Brazilians).

Bulgaria

Racism in Bulgaria has been geared towards the Romani people who are perceived to be of different racial and ethnic background. However, not all Bulgarians are racist towards the Roma, and it really depends on the individual's upbringing, education, area where they lived, and other factors. Bulgarian nationalists are also wary of the country's large Turkish minority because of their perceived ambitions for greater power in Bulgaria and potential separatism in areas where Turks predominantly live. The forced assimilation campaign of the late 80s and early 90s directed against ethnic Turks resulted in the permanent emigration of some 300,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey. During this period, Turks were forced to change their names to Slavic Bulgarian ones and Turkish culture was heavily suppressed. Muslim Bulgarians (ethnic Bulgarians practicing Islam) were also targeted as Islam was seen as a "foreign "Turkish element" that stood against Bulgarian interests. The National Union Attack or Ataka, a party widely considered fanatically xenophobic, surprisingly won 10% of the popular vote at the recent 2005 elections.

Canada

Canadian society is often depicted as being a very progressive, tolerant, diverse, and multicultural. Accusing a person of racism in Canada is usually considered a serious slur. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms legally assures equal treatments, rights and freedoms without discrimination based on race (among other criteria). Nevertheless, racism is still present in Canada, and continues to affect the lives of all people who live in Canada.

Canada's treatment of Aboriginals is governed by the Indian Act, which provides special treatment for Indians, Inuit and Metis. In 1999, the Canadian government created an autonomous territory, Nunavut for the Inuit living in the Arctic and Northernmost parts of the country. Inuit composed 85% of the population of Nunavut, which represents a new level of self-determination for the indigenous people of Canada.

There are notable records of slavery in Canada in the 1600s. More than half of all Canadian slaves were aboriginal, and the United Empire Loyalists brought their slaves with them after leaving what became the United States. In 1793, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, passed a bill called the Act Against Slavery making it illegal to bring a person into the colony for the purposes of enslavement, and mandating the gradual emancipation of all slaves in Upper Canada. Slavery was fully outlawed across all of Canada in 1834. Most of the emancipated slaves of African descent were then sent to settle Freetown in Sierra Leone and those that remained primarily ended up in segregated communities such as Africville outside Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Starting in 1858, Chinese "coolies" were brought to Canada to work in the mines and on the Canadian Pacific Railway. However, they were denied by law the rights of citizenship, including the right to vote, and in the 1880s, "head taxes" were implemented to curtail immigration from China. In 1907, a riot in Vancouver targeted Chinese and Japanese-owned businesses. In 1923, the federal government passed the Chinese Immigration Act, commonly known as the Exclusion Act, prohibiting further Chinese immigration except under "special circumstances". Japanese Canadians were also subject to anti-Asian racism, particularly during World War II when many Canadians of Japanese heritage — even those who were born in Canada — were forcibly moved to internment camps. The government of Canada officially apologised and made restitution for the treatment of Japanese Canadians in 1988. The Exclusion Act was repealed in 1947, the same year in which Chinese Canadians were finally given the right to vote. Restrictions would continue to exist on immigration from Asia until 1967, when all racial restrictions on immigration to Canada were repealed, and Canada adopted the current points based immigration system.

In Northwest Territories in the Canadian north, Aboriginals are given preference for jobs and education and are considered to have P1 status. Non-aboriginal people who were born in the NWT or have resided half of their life there are considered a P2, as well as women and disabled peoples. White males receive the lowest priority, P3.

Chile

Located in South America, Chile is a country that viewed itself with a high degree of both European and/or Amerindian blood, but demography and national politics has argued over whether or not Chileans are more of a white people, a mestizo majority, or descendants from a multiplicity of ethnic groups, since Chile had attracted waves of European immigrants in the late 19th/early 20th centuries.

If the Chilean people feel they have Amerindian, Spanish or in many cases: British (English/Irish), French or Swiss, German or Austrian, Italian, Portuguese, Yugoslavian (Serbian/Croatian) and Arab (Lebanese/Syrian) ancestry, it won't explain the problematic issues faced by most Latin American countries is poverty affects a large segment of Chilean society the same way the middle-classes are 40 percent of the population, one of Latin America's largest groups of affluent or financially secure peoples. Disputed but asymmetrical statistics shown that between 20 to 50 percent of the Chilean population, are poor and in the low income strata, mainly consists of mestizos and Amerindians.

The national cultural profile of Chile appears more of a white country located in the southern hemisphere surrounded by more Amerindian or mestizo majority Latin America, might indicated the political and cultural ethos of the Chilean government under an elite not typically identified as mestizos, since its' independence in 1818 from Spanish rule.

The Chilean government like most Latin American nations, used policies and public messages in attempt to encourage their people to take pride of their mestizo background, but like its mostly white neighbor Argentina, insisted it has a more European cultural integrity. Chile passed several laws and changed their 1925 constitution to prohibit racial discrimination in public or private employment, and despite its Catholic majority, the country allowed freedom of religion for its small Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Mormon and other religious communities.

Chile had a history of high levels of socio-economic inequality despite its' tradition of ensured economic prosperity and social protection laws enacted in the early 20th century. But the country's small wealthy elite is predominantly of Spanish and other European descent, whom might been allowed to take Mapuche, Aymara or Incan wives in order to procreate children to inherit the land.

The Roman Catholic Church promoted the white Spanish settlers and later European immigrants to intermarry the indigenous or mestizo majority, with disregard to their racial origin or skin color, in order to procreate a new colony. From the first census in 1821 to the 1901 census report, Chile had grown from 500,000 to near 3 million people, but still today much of the country is sparsely populated.

However, Chile has experienced many levels of racial conflict between its' indigenous peoples (esp. between the Mapuches) and Spanish conquistadors who from 1541, had a 350-year conflict ending in defeat and oppression of the Mapuche by chileanos.

The Mapuches were expert warriors and knew how to have battles with little casualties or defeats with the first Spanish, then Chilean armies, but the Mapuches' fighting skills declined in efficiency and they surrendered to the Chileans in the 1880s, to increase their level of racial malignment and economic status in the next century, as they joined the ranks of lower-class Chileans (esp. mestizos not considered "white" or not from land inheritance families) into the status of underpaid or overworked farmers and miners in the early 20th century.

When it comes to a history being a land of untapped natural sources abound in its' thin (its widest point is 100 miles) but 3,000 mile long shape, Chile should highly profited from its' major byproducts: copper, nitrates and sulfates exported to the global market, esp. in high demand in World Wars I and II, provided a high source of financial revenue for the "white" political and business elite.

The Mapuche only made up 3 percent of the country's population, but continued to encounter open and subliminal forms of racial prejudice, and the majority of Mapuche migrated to the cities in search of work and opportunity find themselves in the bottom of the country's defined class system. In Santiago, the country's capital and largest city, the endless influx of rural tenants now represent over half the city population, neighborhoods of dirt floor slums, rackety shacks and substandard housing, and these areas are avoided by local upper middle classes don't want to witness or get near the poverty and racial tension of Amerindians under "white" rule.

Similarly Polynesian Rapanuis of Easter Island, located 2,000 miles (1.400 km.) west of Chile, has been under Chilean rule since 1888. But until 1966 the Rap Nui were not granted full Chilean citizenship, and for most of that time they were confined to the town of Hanga Roa and its environs and not allowed to visit their ancestral homes. When Chile annexed the island only 111 Rapa Nui survived after two centuries of slave raiding, European diseases, famine and civil war, numbers have now recovered somewhat but tensions remain.

The Rapanui recently demanded more political autonomy and cultural preservation after introduction of culture and technology from the outside world, in the same time the Rapanui had very high rates of poverty than Chileans on the mainland, and until the late 1980s the Chilean government restricted the Rapanui language, cultural practices and although mostly Catholic, their animist religious elements to preserve their traditional integrity as a South Pacific people. In the late 1990s, autonomous rule was granted to the Rapanui of Easter Island.

Chileans had a strong emotional pull on issues relating to poverty, racism and class distinction, although the Chileans are discovering how deep the impact of racial and class divisions had on the country in the 1940s and 1950s, along with a growing concern in leftist circles to produce a small opposition to promote liberal reforms. The country had a large political presence of left-wing activists and an active Communist party from the 1930s (the first in Latin America, but was banned under law in 1956 and permanently in 1973) whom opposed what they felt the country's economic system was oppressive, a highly unequal distribution of wealth, and lack of opportunities that most rural mestizos and Amerindians encountered.

The leftists called the system as an anathema of a developing country, once in the late 1960s had a billion-dollar surplus in its' treasury accumulated by mining profits, could been used to fund one of the world's oldest social welfare state programs. After leftist parties were elected to majority status in Chilean congress, they created farm work programs and subdivided large estates into collective farms, but was small land plots for rural mestizo peasants.

In 1970, Salvador Allende, the first Marxist president elected in the western hemisphere tried to decrease the country's huge class disparities through changes in banking, the national treasury, land ownership and nationalization of private industry. Allende promised to boost the buying power and financial security of the poorest and working-class Chileans (especially mestizos and Amerindians) he got the most popularity from, but this came with a price by high opposition of the upper-class and businessmen got the Chilean army to take care of an ailing economy, and protect their wealth and business interests from damage by the Allende regime.

In the bloody coup in 1973, Allende was found dead (or allegedly killed), might put an end to his socialist reforms to decrease racial and class disparity, as Chile fell under a military dictatorship by general Augusto Pinochet from evident assistance from the US-CIA, as Chilean leftists and worldwide left-wing activists claimed, meant to preserve the "status quo" of the rich "white" Spanish elite whom supported Pinochet to take power, over the Amerindians, mestizos and the working poor.

From 1973 to his retirement in 1990, Pinochet had a "laissez-faire" approach to business, and promised to restructure the social, political and economic functions of Chile left damaged or neglected by previous governments and when civilian rule returned in 1989, the Chilean congress began to focus again on racial and ethnic issues once scorned by Pinochet in order to avoid being labeled as "socialist agitation". Pinochet wanted to preserve the status quo of business elite interests, emphasized a more nationalistic ideology of conservative and patriotic values on what he viewed the Chilean people, and took little consideration on poverty and racism faced by large numbers of lower-class mestizos.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, Chile enjoyed unprecedented economic growth and more middle-class Chileans began to have a higher standard of living by a mixed socialist/capitalist free market. The Chilean government with restored democratic rule began to discuss on including every Chilean not of upper-class or mostly European ancestry to not only share, but invest in financial gains after authoritarian rule ended.

Chilean poverty rates were cut in half from 45% in 1989 to 18% in 2005. However, its small Mapuche minority whom lived apart and encountered racial insults by non-Amerindian or "white" Chileans struggle to keep their autonomy and livelihood, a byproduct of over four centuries of their servitude and inferior status in a Hispanic country.

Recent waves of immigration from East or South Asia, Eastern Europe and other Latin American countries came to Chile in a fast pace, but most Chileans hold little prejudices on the basis of race or ethnicity but Chileans complained they wanted these immigrants to assimilate and contribute to the country, the homogeneous "melting pot" concept known as Chileanadad at large.

But, Chile was also a site of pro-Nazi political activity to nearly claimed electoral victories in the 1930s and early 1940s, but Chile was a wartime ally against Nazi Germany. In recent years (early 2000s) Chile got into news reports as active in far-right and "skinhead" gangs had racial and anti-Semitic views, and the country has an image of low percentages of black Africans (less than 1 percent, lower than numbers of east Asians or Japanese-Chileans), but this came from a low need for slavery in colonial Chile has explained the ethnographic trend.

The country had an emotionally charged argument for so long whether or not to admit a mestizanaje side in a Hispanic culture modeled on that of Northern/western Europeans, and the country's small black minority doesn't feel regularly threatened for their race, since Chilean law has traditionally avoided racial segregation, but nonetheless experienced the plight of its' "non white" mestizo, black, Asian, Amerindian and Rapanui populations.

China

Further information: [[:Nanjing anti-African protests]]

For decades African students in China have been treated with hostility and prejudice. Their complaints regarding their treatment were largely ignored until 1988-9, when "students rose up in protest against what they called 'Chinese apartheid'". African officials, who had until then ignored the problem, took notice of the issue. The Organization of African Unity issued an official protest, and the organization's chairman, Mali's president Moussa Traoré, went on a fact-finding mission to China. The issue was so severe that, according to a Guardian 1989 Third World Report titled "'Chinese apartheid' threatens links with Africa", "'Chinese apartheid', as the African students call it, could threaten Peking's entire relationship with the continent."

Further information: [[:Anti-Japanese sentiment in China]]

Anti-Japanese sentiment in China is an issue with old roots. Japan started off like other Western powers by annexing land from China towards the end of the Qing Dynasty. Dissatisfaction with the settlement and the Twenty-One Demands by the Japanese government led to a severe boycott of Japanese products in China. Bitterness in China persists over the atrocities of the Second Sino-Japanese War and Japan's post-war actions. Today, textbook revisionism and censorship remain contentious issues.

Fiji

Relationships between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians have often been strained, and the tension between the two communities has dominated politics in the islands for the past generation. The level of tension varies between different regions of the country. [5] [6]

France

The French have a long history of ethnic and racial conflicts. Anti-Semitism, a common trend in European history, is also highlighted in French history by events such as the Dreyfus Affair at the turn of the nineteenth century, and France's treatment of its Jewish population during the Vichy regime. Likewise, the treatment of North Africans and other former colonials during the colonial era, the atrocities committed in Algeria during the War of Independence (1954-1962) and also the Paris massacre of 1961 are also signs of intolerance. The fact that Algerians formed the bulk of late-twentieth century immigration has raised delicate issues, which are exacerbated by the degradation of the general social situation. In the 1970s Jean Raspail wrote The Camp of the Saints which some felt implied African immigrants should be drowned or shot to prevent them from entering France.

In 1998 the Council of Europe's European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) made a report stating concern about racist activities in France and accused the French authorities of not doing enough to combat this. The report and other groups have expressed concern about organizations like Front National (France). In a recent Pew Survey, 47% of the French deem immigration from Eastern Europe to be a bad thing. A small minority shows signs of Anti-Semitism. Roughly 11% had an unfavorable view of Jews [7] and 8% felt that US policy was most influenced by the Jews [8]. In the colonial age some French also displayed negative sentiments toward black Africans.

Nevertheless these judgments should be balanced by the following: Canadians had roughly the same percentage linking US policy to Jews as France did. Furthermore, France had been ruled by Jewish leaders during the twentieth century (most notably Léon Blum and Pierre Mendès-France, who were both highly popular). Indeed, France has a long history of support for universalism dating back to the Enlightenment : the unenforced constitution of 1794 gave the right to vote to all "foreigners" (independently of any racial consideration) living in France for more than one year. The French also generally have a greater interest in African culture and aid to the region.

The Palestine question is widely known to have "imported" Jews vs Arabs' mutual hatred into the French society as a whole. When in October and November of 2005, violent riots erupted in north-east Paris, and later other cities around France, after two presumably innocent youths of North African origin were accidentally electrocuted after they were chased by the police, some German and French media accused Israeli's secret services, the Mossad, of covert operations behind the general troubles.

France is home to Europe’s largest population of Muslims — about 6 million — as well as the continent’s largest community of Jews, about 600,000. Over the last several years, anti-Jewish violence, property destruction, and racist language has been wildly increasing and French-Jews are worried more every month that it will spiral even higher. Jewish leaders perceive as intensifying anti-Semitism in France, mainly among Muslims of Arab or African heritage, but also growing among Caribbean islanders from former colonies.[9]

In May 2005, there have been explosive riots between North Africans and Romas in Perpignan, France, after young Arab man was shot dead and another Arab man was lynched by a group of Roma.

It must be added here, as a conclusion to this chapter about racism and anti-semitism in France, that in the 2007 presidential elections, the French have elected Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of an immigrant Hungarian, who, together with his wife Cecilia, are both of Jewish descent. Nicolas Sarkozy, who is right wing, has nominated many personalities also of Jewish descent, although left wing, to head important ministries in his government, most noticeably Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. Recently, in September 2007, Kouchner very suddenly raised the question of a threat of "war" with Iran provoking general controversy and criticisms about the new government seemingly open bias, now representing a clear rupture with France's usual and traditionally more balanced foreign policy.

Germany

Further information: [[:Nazism and Christian antisemitism]]

File:Nazi poster Der ewige Jude.jpg

The Eternal Jew (German: Der ewige Jude): 1937 German poster advertising an antisemitic Nazi movie, exhibits drawn Jewish caricatures are examples of negative ethnic stereotypes perpetuated by "racial" Nazi propaganda.

The history of Germany has included many acts and policies of racism. If one includes pre-19th century acts of anti-Semitism as racism, the history stretches back to at least the eleventh century, when Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor expelled Jews from Mainz in 1012. Other acts of anti-Semitism included numerous bloody attacks on Jews living in the area in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, most notably the massacres of Jews in the 1340s after they were blamed for spreading the Black Death.

In the nineteenth century, Germany became one of the major centers of nationalist thought, with the Völkisch movement, and also a major area for development of racial theories, many of them virulently racist See above. Anti-semitic campaigns in this period took on a definitely "racial" valence, as definitely distinct from a purely religious one.

The period after World War I led to an increased use of anti-Semitism and other racism in political discourse, for example among General Ludendorff's followers, which was capped by the ascent of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party in 1933. Nazi racial policy and the Nazi Nuremberg Laws represented some of the most explicit racist policies in Europe in the twentieth century, and culminated in the Holocaust, a systematic murdering of millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, disabled people and other "undesirables".

In the post-World War II era, German reconciliation with its anti-Semitic past has been a protracted experience. Recent concerns about racism have centered around immigrants (Ausländer), who encounter prejudice when seeking jobs and apartments, or can even experience direct violent attacks by some right-wing groups. This pattern is similar to what is happening in some other European countries.

The immigrants came in two waves, the first in the 1950s, the so called Gastarbeiter (Guest Workers) and their families. These people came from countries such as Turkey and Yugoslavia in West Germany, and Vietnam and Angola in East Germany. The Gastarbeiter were expected to remain on limited contracts, and then leave. Many did not. Starting from the 1980s, the second wave were the Asylbewerber (Asylum Seekers) from countries such as Sri Lanka and Lebanon. This second group were considered by some locals to not be genuine cases, but so called Wirtschaftsflüchtlinge (Economic Migrants).

Guyana

There has been racial tension between the Indo-Caribbean people and the African-Caribbeans. This is evident during elections where major riots by the blacks occur when an Indian is president.

Hong Kong

File:Hk anti-discrimination poster.jpg

An anti-discrimination poster in a Hong Kong subway station. Circa. 2005

In a population of almost 7 million [10] Hong Kong has gained a reputation as international city, while remaining predominantly Chinese. This multi-culturalism has raised issues of racial and sex discrimination, particularly among the 350,000 ethnic minorities such as Nepalese, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, who have long established minority communities since the founding days of the former colony or have come to Hong Kong recently to work as domestic workers. There are also around 380,000 immigrants from mainland China who have also suffered discrimination [11], as evidenced by cases of high unemployment rates, poor working conditions, psychological and physical violence, lack of minimum wage. In 2003, the number of complaints filed with the body handling discrimination issues, the Equal Opportunities Commission [12] was up by 31 percent.

A race discrimination bill has been demanded by human rights groups for the last 10 years, and the government has been accused of putting the issue on the back burner.

Last December 3, 2006 was the first time a drafted bill was released onto the Legislative Council, and is expected to be passed before the end of 2008. However, the bill is criticized to be "too conservative" [13]. The exclusion of mainland Chinese immigrants has also been a source of controversy, with the government claiming that they are not considered to be of a different race. Another issue of the bill has been of language instruction in schools. Low-income ethinic minority parents who cannot afford to send their children to English-instruction schools have to send them to Chinese-instruction schools, where they fall behind in classes or make little progress.

India

It is claimed by some activists [14] that casteism practised in India is a form of racism, but this is debated by those who believe that casteism has nothing to do with physical attributes, unlike racism. At the UN world conference on racism (August 31 - September 7 2001) the Indian Government opposed the discussion of caste in the conference, saying that "the caste issue is not the same as racism" [15].

Such allegations have also been rejected by many sociologists such as Andre Béteille, who writes that treating caste as a form of racism is "politically mischievous" and worse, "scientifically nonsense" since there is no discernable difference in the racial characteristics between Brahmins and Scheduled Castes. He writes that "Every social group cannot be regarded as a race simply because we want to protect it against prejudice and discrimination". In addition, the view of the caste system as "static and unchanging" (which would indicate a form of racial discrimination) has been disputed by many scholars. Sociologists describe how the perception of the caste system as a static and textual stratification has given way to the perception of the caste system as a more processual, empirical and contextual stratification. Others have applied theoretical models to explain mobility and flexibility in the caste system in India.. According to these scholars, groups of lower-caste individuals could seek to elevate the status of their caste by attempting to emulate the practices of higher castes.

Sociologist M. N. Srinivas has also debated the question of rigidity in Caste. For details see sanskritization.

Pakistani-American sociologist Ayesha Jalal also rejects these allegations. In her book, "Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia", she writes that "As for Hinduism, the hierarchical principles of the Brahmanical social order have always been contested from within Hindu society, suggesting that equality has been and continues to be both valued and practiced."

Historically, many Hindu reform movements have actively combated casteism and the practice of untouchability (segregation of the lower castes). In order to curb the practice of caste-based discrimination, numerous laws, including constitutional laws, have been passed in India outlawing casteist discrimination. Special quotas are provided to the lower castes in access to schools and jobs. Lower caste political parties have achieved increasing prominence in the Indian political landscape since India's independence. The public practice of casteism has diminished significantly among the large urban and cosmopolitan classes in India. Nonetheless, the fight to end casteism is an uphill struggle, especially in rural areas where education and modernity are scarce, and numerous hate crimes have taken place in India that have been attributed to Casteism.

India's treatment of its lower-class Dalits has been described by UNESCO as "India's hidden apartheid". According to Rajeev Dhavan, of India's leading English-language newspaper The Hindu, "casteism is India's apartheid which will continue in its most vicious and persistent forms for decades to come." Eric Margolis has claimed that India "frantically tr[ied] to prevent its caste system, which is often called ‘hidden apartheid" from being put on the agenda of the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban.

They were not allowed draw water from the same wells as those with caste, and they usually lived in segregated neighborhoods outside the main village. The majority of rural Dalits still live in segregation and experience atrocities to the scale of 110,000 registered cases a year according to 2005 statistics. Additionally, Anti-Brahmanist racial sentiments have been expressed by extremist fringe groups among Dalit Nationalists.

However, such allegations of apartheid are regarded by academic sociologists as a political epithet, since apartheid implies state sponsored discrimination, and no such thing exists in India. Anti-dalit prejudice and discrimination is a social malaise that exists primarily in rural areas, where small societies can track the caste lineage of individuals and discriminate accordingly. Sociologists Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman, Angela Bodino, while being critical of casteism, conclude that modern India does not practice any "apartheid" since there is no state sanctioned discrimination. They write that Casteism in India is presently "not apartheid. In fact, untouchables, as well as tribal people and members of the lowest castes in India benefit from broad affirmative action programmes and are enjoying greater political power."

In the Indian caste system, a Dalit, often called an untouchableis a person who lay outside the Indian Caste System. Historically, Hindu Dalits were forbidden to worship in temples and Muslim Dalits forbidden in mosques [16]. Dalits who converted to Christianity are frequently discriminated against by upper-caste Catholic priests and nuns.[17] They were not allowed draw water from the same wells as those with caste, and they usually lived in segregated neighborhoods outside the main village. Additionally, Anti-Brahmanist racial sentiments have been expressed by extremist fringe groups among Dalit Nationalists. Caste Discrimination, while still being present in private life and in politics, has all but disappeared from urban public life.

Indonesia

See Jakarta Riots of May 1998 and Anti-Chinese legislation in Indonesia.

A number of discriminatory laws against Chinese Indonesians were enacted by the government of Indonesia. In 1959, President Soekarno approved PP 10/1959 that forced Chinese Indonesians to close their businesses in rural areas and relocate into urban areas. Moreover, political pressures in the 1970s and 1980s restricted the role of the Chinese Indonesian in politics, academics, and the military. As a result, they were thereafter constrained professionally to becoming entrepreneurs and professional managers in trade, manufacturing, and banking. In the 1960s, following the failed alleged Communist coup attempt in 1965, there was a strong sentiment against the Chinese Indonesians who were accused of being Communist collaborators. In 1998, Indonesia riots over higher food prices and rumors of hoarding by merchants and shopkeepers often degenerate into anti-Chinese attacks.

Amnesty International has estimated more than 100,000 Papuans, one-sixth of the population, have died as a result of government-sponsored violence against West Papuans, while others had previously specified much higher death tolls. The 1990s saw Indonesia accelerate its Transmigration program, under which hundreds of thousands of Javanese and Sumatran migrants were resettled to Papua over a ten-year period. Prior to Indonesian rule, the Asian population was estimated at 16,600. Critics suspect that the Transmigration program's purpose is to tip the balance of the province's population from the heavily Melanesian Papuans toward western Indonesians, thus further consolidating Indonesian control.

Iraq

During World War II, Rashid Ali al-Kaylani blamed British hostility toward his pro-Nazi stance on the Iraqi Jewish community. In 1941, Iraqi nationalists murdered 200 Jews in Baghdad in a pogrom.

Further information: Farhud

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Iraqi Jews faced persecution so great that by 1951, approximately 100,000 of them left the country while the Iraqi rulers confiscated their property and financial assets.

During 1987-1988, Iraqi forces infamously carried out a genocide against the Iraqi Kurds that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Further information: Al-Anfal Campaign

The UN reports that although Christians comprise less than 5% of Iraq's population, they make up nearly 40% of the refugees fleeing Iraq. More than 50% of Iraqi Christians have already left the country since 2003. Iraq's Christian community numbered 1.4 million in the early 1980s at the start of Iran-Iraq War. But as the 2003 invasion has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians' total numbers slumped to about 500,000, of whom 250,000 live in Baghdad.

Furthermore, the Mandaean and Yazidi communities are at the risk of elimination due to ethnic cleansing by Islamic extremists.

A May 25, 2007 article notes that in the past seven months only 69 people from Iraq have been granted refugee status in the United States.

Ireland

For most of the last eight centuries of Irish history discrimination in Ireland has been experienced in terms of oppression against the indigenous Irish people by a succession of English rulers beginning with the English supported Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. This persecution was felt in terms of laws forbidding land ownership (the Penal Laws, restrictions on freedom of religion (persecution of the Roman Catholic faith, following the Protestant reformation in England), denial of the right to vote or hold office and inaction during the The Great Famine leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths. In cases of wars and rebellions, such as the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, Irish Rebellion of 1798 and the Irish War of Independence of 1919-[1921]] war crimes, massacres and attrocities where committed by British forces or British supported paramilitaries.

Following independence in 1921 there was traditionally very little immigration by non-whites to the Republic of Ireland due to historic poverty, though in recent times growing prosperity in the country (see: Celtic Tiger) has attracted increasing numbers of immigrants, mainly from Africa, China, and Eastern Europe. Also the absence of any colonialist baggage has meant that foreign people are not drawn to Ireland by "mother country" factors that have affected other European countries. Descendants of Irish people who emigrated in the past have also started moving to the country. Most immigrants have settled in Dublin and the other cities. Though these developments have been accepted or tolerated by most, there has been a rise in racist attitudes among some sections of society. Much of this racism takes the form of verbal and other abuses. However, in 2002, a Chinese man Zhao liu Tao (29) was murdered in Dublin in what was described as the Republic of Ireland's first racially motivated murder. [18] Later that year Leong Ly Min, another Chinese man who had lived in Dublin since 1979, was beaten to death by a gang who had been racially abusing him. [19]

Several issues relating to immigration have gained publicity in recent years. After 1997 and prior to 2005 any baby born in the Republic was entitled to Irish citizenship due to stipulations in the Good Friday agreement. This led to claims that many pregnant women from Africa (overwhelmingly from Nigeria), having discarded their identification documentation, were travelling to Ireland expressly to give birth and thus allow their child to gain Irish citizenship. This became known as citizenship tourism. Following these alleged abuses of the loophole in the Irish Constitution a referendum on the issue was held. The referendum was duly carried and the loophole was closed.

In 2005 Nigerian student Olukunle Elukanlo was deported after his asylum application was rejected. Following an outcry by various left-wing activist groups at the decision he was allowed to return to complete his Leaving Cert. He was later deported. It is understood that one factor in the decision was Mr Elukanlo's recent plea of guilty in court to charges of driving without insurance or tax, along with the fact that he already has a previous conviction for a road traffic offence. The issue highlighted the growing numbers of failed asylum seekers being deported, an issue which is highly controversial to some (despite that fact that very few failed applicants are actually deported). This has been highlighted in recent television and radio programmes focused on exposing the extreme high cost to the Irish taxpayer of processing false asylum claims in addition to the cost of returning bogus asylum-seekers to their country of origin.

Many Irish people are very proud of being in the European Union, but increasingly large numbers resent migrants from outside the Union coming to Ireland expressly for the purpose of claiming asylum, without having applied for asylum in other countries along their route as is required by international law. There are several "anti-racism" groups active in the Republic, as well as those seeking tighter immigration laws such as the Immigration Control Platform.

Israel

On 22 February 2007, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will consider the report submitted by Israel under Article 9 of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination. The report states that “Racial discrimination is prohibited in Israel. The State of Israel condemns all forms of racial discrimination, and its government has maintained a consistent policy prohibiting such discrimination”. [20]

However, this report was challenged by several reports submitted to the Committee by other bodies. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel alleges “Israel's discriminatory planning practices”, the “discriminatory permit regime” and “egregious and systemic discrimination against Palestinians based solely on their national origin . . . reminiscent of policies characteristic of an Apartheid regime.” [21] Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel alleges that “the State of Israel pursues discriminatory land and housing policies against Palestinian citizens of Israel” and that “the needs of Palestinian citizens of Israel are systematically disregarded” [22] A joint report submitted by 19 Israeli, Palestinian and international NGOs alleges “State laws and institutions that dispossess the indigenous Palestinian and Syrian populations”. [23]

Also see Israeli Arab discrimination, Anti-Arabism in Israel and Racism in Israel. See: Haaretz:UN panel to hear Israel respond to charges of bias against Arabs

Italy

See Northern League (Italy)

Ivory Coast

In the past recent years the Ivory Coast has seen a resurgence in ethnic tribal hatred and religious intolerance. In addition to the many victims among the various tribes of the northern and southern regions of the country that have perished in the ongoing conflict, foreigners residing or visiting the Ivory Coast have also been subjected to violent attacks. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the Ivory Coast government is guilty of fanning ethnic hatred for its own political ends.

In 2004, the Young Patriots of Abidjan, strongly nationalist organisation, rallied by the State media, plundered possessions of foreign nationals in Abidjan. Calls for violence against whites and non-Ivorians were broadcast on national radio and TV after the Young Patriots seized control of its offices. Rapes, beatings, and murders of white expatriates and local Lebanese followed. Thousands of expatriates and Lebanese fled. The attacks drew international condemnation.

Japan

Further information: [[:Ethnic issues in Japan]]

Japanese society, with its ideology of homogenity, has traditionally been intolerant of ethnic and other differences. It is safe to say that there has been a growing sense of xenophobia since it has opened borders to foreigners. For example, the Dutch sailors landed on the Japanese shore were characterized by their "butter-like" body odor, hairiness, and unsophisticated behavior. Those who were identified as different might be considered "polluted" —- the category applied historically to the outcasts of Japan, particularly the hisabetsu buraku, "discriminated communities," often called burakumin, a term some find offensive —- and thus not suitable as marriage partners or employees. Men or women of mixed ancestry, those with family histories of certain diseases, and foreigners, and members of minority groups faced discrimination in a variety of forms. In 2005, a United Nations report expressed concerns about racism in Japan and that government recognition of the depth of the problem was not total. The author of the report, Doudou Diène (Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights), concluded after a nine-day investigation that racial discrimination and xenophobia in Japan primarily affects three groups: national minorities, Latin Americans of Japanese descent, mainly Japanese Brazilians, and foreigners from "poor" countries.

Japan accepted just 16 refugees in 1999, while the United States took in 85,010 for resettlement, according to the UNHCR. New Zealand, which is smaller than Japan, accepted 1,140 refugees in 1999. Just 305 persons were recognized as refugees by Japan from 1981, when Japan ratified the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, to 2002. Japanese Minister Taro Aso has called Japan a “one race” nation.

South Korea

Like their Japanese neighbors, Koreans tend to equate nationality or citizenship with membership in a single, homogeneous ethnic group or "race" (minjok, in Korean). A common language and culture also are viewed as important elements in Korean identity. The idea of multiracial or multiethnic nations, like Canada or the United States, strikes many Koreans as odd or even contradictory. Both Japan and South Korea are among the world's most ethnically homogeneous nations. It has been criticized that South Korean schools often hire only white Americans who apply to teach English, because Koreans regard fair skin color as representative of "American" or "English"-ness.

Madagascar

Ethnic tensions in Madagascar often produce violent conflict between the highlanders and coastal peoples. The Merina people in particular are often the targets of violence especially during political campaigns to elect a new president.

Malaysia

Economic policies designed to favour Bumiputras (ethnic Malays), including affirmative action in public education, were implemented in the 1970s in order to defuse inter-ethnic tensions following the May 13 Incident in 1969, but these have not been fully effective in eradicating poverty among rural Bumiputras and have further caused a backlash especially from Chinese and Indian minorities. The policies are enshrined in the Malaysian constitution and questioning them is technically illegal.

Malaysia is multiethnic country, with Malays making up the majority, close to 52% of the population. About 30% of the population are Malaysians of Chinese descent. Malaysians of Indian descent comprise about 8% of the population. Regarding the favouritism towards malay, the chinese and the indians should understand because they are not the sole race in Malaysia and before Merdeka itself, they are seen as an immigrant from their parent country. The reason why the favouritism is imminent is because Malaysia doesn't want another of her state to be given to another race as what happened to Singapore. Singapore is a malay settlement since the early 15th century, but it has fallen out to the chinese through an issue that has been put up by them during the early days. Apparently in Malaysia, Malay and Chinese co-exist together in a good way without any discrimination, but the indians, which largely came from the lowest cast in india is seen as not trustworthy, dumb and the race is only meant for labour work, as desribed by the Malay and chinese in their meetings in the 40's. [24]

Mauritania

Further information: [[:Slavery in Modern Africa]]

Slavery in Mauritania persists despite its abolition in 1980 and affects the descendants of black Africans abducted into slavery before generations, who live now in Mauritania as "black Moors" or haratin and who partially still serve the "white Moors", or bidhan, as slaves. The practice of slavery in Mauritania is most dominant within the traditional upper class of the Moors. For centuries, the so-called Haratin lower class, mostly poor black Africans living in rural areas, have been considered natural slaves by these Moors. Social attitudes have changed among most urban Moors, but in rural areas, the ancient divide is still very alive.

The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned people) are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages. Many descendants of the Beni Hassan tribes today still adhere to the supremacist ideology of their ancestors. This ideology has led to oppression, discrimination and even enslavement of other groups in the Mauritania.

According to some estimates, as many to 600,000 black Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour. Slavery in Mauritania was finally criminalized in August 2007.

Netherlands

In 2006 the Dutch Equal Treatment Commission got 694 requests to judge if a treatment legislation law had been broken. By far the most cases concerned age discrimination (219), race discrimination followed (105). THE CGB brought out 261 judgements; 46 per cent of the cases where declared discrimination.

In the early twenty-first century, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and film maker Theo Van Gogh (film director) both aired highly controversial views on immigration, particularly North African immigration. Adding further controversy were their subsequent murders.

Pim Fortuyn was murdered by Volkert van der Graaf, an animal rights activist, while Theo van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, who was, in fact, of Moroccan descent.

New Zealand

Although New Zealand did not have an official policy along the lines of the White Australia Policy, it did impose a poll tax on Chinese immigrants during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The poll tax was effectively lifted in the 1930s following the invasion of China by Japan, and was finally repealed in 1944. An official apology to the Chinese community of New Zealand was afforded by Prime Minister Helen Clark in 2004.

After World War II, immigration policy remained largely pro-British Isles until the mid-1980s, although war refugees, non-Anglo-Celtic migrants, and foreign students studying under the Colombo Plan were allowed into the country in varying numbers. In the 1960s and 70s, large numbers of British immigrants and their proliferation in the trade union movement gave rise to popular Anglophobia in the media and on the streets. This was typified by talkback radio host Tim Bickerstaff's promotion of his "punch a Pom a day" campaign.

In the 1975 election campaign, opposition leader Robert Muldoon ran a scare campaign directed against Pacific Islands migrant workers, which was followed by a series of dawn raids on suspected overstayers. In response, a Pacific Islands group known as the Polynesian Panthers came to prominence. Indigenous land issues came to a head in the late 1970s with Maori protesters occupying the Raglan Golf Course and Bastion Point, with land claims on both being settled by the following decade.

In 1986, country-of-origin rules were abolished, leading to major inflows of immigration for the first time in years, in particular large groups of skilled and business migrants. However, anti-immigration rhetoric directed mainly towards Asians from the populist Maori politician Winston Peters has since forced immigration rules to be tightened. A 2003 study by the Human Rights Commission showed 70% of New Zealanders think that Asians face significant discrimination. Many non-Polynesian ethnic minorities perceive official policy to be indifferent towards them in the context of the Maori-Pakeha bi-culturalism issue.

Individuals of Māori or other Polynesian descent are often afforded preferential access to university courses, and scholarships.

Niger

In October 2006, Niger announced that it would deport the Arabs living in the Diffa region of eastern Niger to Chad. This population numbered about 150,000. While the government was rounding Arabs in preparation for the deportation, two girls died, reportedly after fleeing government forces, and three women suffered miscarriages. Niger's government had eventually suspended a controversial decision to deport Arabs.

In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study has found that more than 800,000 people are still slaves, almost 8% of the population. . Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger and was finally criminalised in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International and Nigerian human-rights group, Timidria.

Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practiced by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic groups. The slave masters are mostly from the lighter-skinned nomadic tribes — the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs. It is especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria. In the region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed of slaves.

Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their black slaves during war raids into other peoples’ lands. War was then the main source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples.

Pakistan

Main article: 1971 Bangladesh atrocities

Prior to the independence of Bangladesh through the Bangladesh Liberation War, the eastern region of Bengal, populated by ethnic Bengali people was under Pakistani occupation and called East Pakistan. The Pakistani ruling elite practiced systemic racial discrimination against the Bengali people.The genocide and gendercidal atrocities perpetrated by the Muslim-majority Pakistani regime during the liberation war of Bangladesh were strongly motivated by anti-Bengali racism, especially against the Bengali Hindu minority. Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. The military commander during the Bangladesh war, general Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, referred to Bengalis as a 'low lying people.' The attitudes exhibited by the Pakistani ruling class against the ethnic Bengalis stands compared to the antisemitism of Nazi Germany. Bengalis were called "scum" and "vermin" that were to be exterminated. Bengali Muslims were subjected as much to stereotyping and scapegoating as were Bengali Hindus.The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, 'We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.' This is the arrogance of Power." Bengalis were scapegoated, accused of dual loyalty with India, and discriminated against on the basis of what Pakistani authorities called "security concerns". This situation degenerated into outright anti-Bengali racism under the rule of General Ayub Khan

The minorities of Bangladesh, especially the Hindus, were specific targets of the Pakistan army. There was widespread killing of Hindu males, and rapes of women. More than 60% of the Bengali refugees that had fled to India were Hindus. This widespread violence against Hindus was motivated by a policy to purge East Pakistan of what was seen as Hindu and Indian influences. The West Pakistani rulers identified the Bengali culture with Hindu and Indian culture, and thought that the eradication of Hindus would remove such influences from the majority Muslims in East Pakistan.

Historian Christoffe Jaffrelot argues in his landmark work "Pakistan. Nationalism without a Nation" that contemporary Pakistan is essentially little more than a Punjabi racial ethnocracy.He refers to the phenomenon as the "Punjabization of Pakistan"He observes systemic ethnic and cultural irredentism in Pakistan that intentionally minimizes and disparages non-Punjabis (such as the Sindhi,Baluch or Pukhtun ethnic minoroties). The Pakistani government machinery is heavily dominated by Punjabis, and systemic discrimination, as well as underrepresentation, against non-Punjabis in the country is the norm. Endemic and systematic discrimination against the Baluch has given rise to Baluch freedom fighters such as Nawab Akbar Bugti and the Balochistan Liberation Army, which seeks to build an independent Baluch republic free from discrimination against them.Other ethnic and sectarian strife in Pakistan that has it's roots in racism, or perceptions of race, are the Muhajir Urdu movement, and Pashtun nationalism.

Russia and other post-Soviet states

Further information: [[:Racism in modern Russia, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union]]

Racism inside Russia is quite a modern post-USSR phenomenon that has been steadily growing in the past decade. In the 2000s, neo-Nazi groups inside Russia have risen to include as many as tens of thousands of people. [25] Racism against the peoples of the Caucasus, Africans, Central Asians and East Asians (Vietnamese, Chinese, etc.) is an ever-increasing problem. [26]

A Pew Survey showed that of those who believed some religions are more violent than others; 10% of Russians named Judaism as the most violent. [27] This was the highest percentage outside the Muslim world. Furthermore, a previous poll showed that 25% of Russians had an unfavorable view of Jews. [28] Racism towards central Asians is said to be even more widespread.

Slovenia

Roma people are the main target of Slovenian racists, although situation is gradually improving and problems arise mostly from personal issues, while legislation is more or less egalitarian.

Spain

Further information: [[:Pureza de sangre, Bartolomé de Las Casas, and Eduardo Galeano]]

At the end of the Reconquista, Spanish Inquisition imposed pureza de sangre ("racial purity") against Jews and Muslims. Discovery of the New World also led to the famous Valladolid Controversy, in which Bartolomé de Las Casas opposed Sepúlveda's denegation of the existence of "Indian souls". See Eduardo Galeano's The Veins of South America .

Racist abuse aimed at black footballers has been reported at Spanish football league matches in recent years. This has led to protests and UEFA fines against clubs whose supporters continue the abuse. Several players in the Spanish league including Barcelona player Samuel Eto'o have spoken out against the abuse. In 2006, Real Zaragoza player Ewerthon stated : "the Spanish Federation have to start taking proper measures and we as black players also have to act.

Sudan

In the Sudan, black African captives in the civil war were often enslaved, and female prisoners were often used sexually, with their Arab captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission. According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for US$50 apiece. In September, 2000, the U.S. State Department alleged that "the Sudanese government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs." Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the south by north is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.

Sweden

According to the report Racism and Xenophobia in Sweden by the Board of Integration Muslims are exposed to the most racial harassment in Sweden. Almost 40% of the interviewed said they had witnessed verbal abuse directed at Muslims.

Trinidad

Trinidad is a melting pot of cultures and has been also a place of great ethnic tensions between the politically and economically empowered African-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean people.

Turkey

Further information: [[:Pan-Turkism, Pan-Turanism and Greco-Turkish relations]]

The Istanbul Pogrom directed against Turkey's Greek minority resulted in the deaths of 16 Greeks and 1 Armenian. The supporters of MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) (also known as Grey Wolves) advocate the supremacy of Turkish race and promote hatred against Armenians, Greeks and "separatist" Kurds in Turkey. Smaller right-wing groups like "National Socialist Turkish Movement" [29] and followers of Turkish racist Nihal Atsiz [30] also promote hate speech and violence against Kurds, Africans, and Jews. None of these activities are prosecuted by Turkish authorities. Recently, in the course of Turkey's accession to the EU, fringe nationalist groups (often with racist tones) are reported to gain considerable support among Turkish youth.

Uganda

In the 1970s Uganda and other East African nations implemented racist policies that targeted the Asian population of the region. Uganda under Idi Amin's leadership was particularly most virulent in its anti-Asian policies. In August 1972, Idi Amin declared what he called an "economic war", a set of policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly Indians born in the country, whose ancestors had come to Uganda when the country was still a British colony. [31] [32]

The forced expulsion of Uganda's entire Asian population attests to the persecution of Asian peoples residing in the country at the time. Today, Asian/Indian residents of Uganda continue to face marginalization being given an inferior status.

United Kingdom

This postcard from the 1900s depicts an Englishman calling "BOY!" to a Chinese man to bring him a drink. The caption reads "The Call of the East."

There were race riots across the United Kingdom in 1919: South Shields, Glasgow, London's East End, Liverpool, Cardiff, Barry, and Newport. There were further riots by immigrant and minority populations in East London during the 1930s and Notting Hill in the 1950s.

In the 1980s, perceived societal racism, discrimination and poverty - alongside further perceptions of powerlessness and oppressive policing - sparked a series of riots in areas with substantial African-Caribbean populations. These "uprisings" (as they were described by some in the community) took place in St Pauls in 1980, Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side in 1981, St Pauls again in 1982, Notting Hill Gate in 1982, Toxteth in 1982, and Handsworth, Brixton and Tottenham in 1985.

The report identified both "racial discrimination" and a "racial disadvantage" in Britain, concluding that urgent action was needed to prevent these issues becoming an "endemic, ineradicable disease threatening the very survival of our society". The era saw an increase in attacks on Black people by white people. The Joint Campaign Against Racism committee reported that there had been more than 20,000 attacks on non-indigenous Britons including Britons of Asian origin during 1985.

More recently in 2001, there have been both the Bradford riots and the Oldham Riots. These riots have followed cases of perceived racism - either the public displays of racist sentiment (including crimes against members of ethnic minorities which were subsequently ignored by the authorities), or, as in the Brixton Riots, racial profiling and alleged harassment by the police force. In 2005, there have been Birmingham riots between the Black British and British Asian communities, with the spark for the riot being an alleged gang rape of a teenage black girl by a group of Asian men.

The British Crime Survey reveals that in 2004, 87,000 people from black or minority ethnic communities said they had been a victim of a racially motivated crime. They had suffered 49,000 violent attacks, with 4,000 being wounded. At the same time 92,000 white people said they had also fallen victim of a racially motivated crime. The number of violent attacks against whites reached 77,000, while the number of white people who reported being wounded was five times the number of black and minority ethnic victims at 20,000. Most of the offenders (57%) in the racially motivated crimes identified in the British Crime Survey are not white. White victims said 82% of offenders were not white.

Racism in one form or another was widespread in Britain before the twentieth century, and during the 1900s particularly towards Jewish groups and immigrants from Eastern Europe. The British establishment even considered Irish people a separate and degenerate race until well into the 19th Century.

Since World War I, public expressions of white supremacism have been limited to far-right political parties such as the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s and the British National Front in the 1970s, whilst most mainstream politicians have publicly condemned all forms of racism. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that racism remains widespread, and some politicians and public figures have been accused of excusing or pandering to racist attitudes in the media, particularly with regard to immigration. There have been growing concerns in recent years about institutional racism in public and private bodies, and the tacit support this gives to crimes resulting from racism, such as the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Gavin Hopely and Ross Parker.

The Race Relations Act 1965 outlawed public discrimination, and established the Race Relations Board. Further Acts in 1968 and 1976 outlawed discrimination in employment, housing and social services, and replaced the Race Relations Board with Commission for Racial Equality. The Human Rights Act 1999 made organizations in Britain, including public authorities, subject to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Race Relations Act 2000 extends existing legislation for the public sector to the police force, and requires public authorities to promote equality.

There have been tensions over immigration since at least the early 1900s. These were originally engendered by hostility towards Jews and immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe. Britain first began restricting immigration in 1905 and has also had very strong limits on immigration since the early 1960s. Legislation was particularly targeted at members of the Commonwealth of Nations, who had previously been able to migrate to the UK under the British Nationality Act 1948. Virtually all legal immigration, except for those claiming refugee status, ended with the Immigration Act 1971; however, free movement for citizens of the European Union was later established by the Immigration Act 1988. Legislation in 1993, 1996 and 1999 gradually decreased the rights and benefits given to those claiming refugee statues ("asylum seekers"). 582,000 people came to live in the UK from elsewhere in the world in 2004 according to the office of National Statistics.

Some commentators believe that a huge amount of racism, from within all communities, has been undocumented within the UK, adducing the many British cities whose populations have a clear racial divide. While these commentators believe that race relations have improved immensely over the last thirty years, they still believe that racial segregation remains an important but largely unaddressed problem, although research [33] has shown that ethnic segregation has reduced within England and Wales between the 1991 Census and 2001 Census.

The United Kingdom has been accused of "sleepwalking toward apartheid" by Trevor Phillips, chair of that country's Commission for Racial Equality. Philips has said that Britain is fragmenting into isolated racial communities: "literal black holes into which no one goes without fear and trepidation and nobody escapes undamaged". Philips believes that racial segregation in Britain is approaching that of the United States. "You can get to the point as they have in the U.S. where things are so divided that there is no turning back."

The BBC has reported that the latest crime statistics appear to support Phillips' concerns. They show that race-hate crimes increased by almost 600 per cent in London in the month after the July 7 bomb attacks, with 269 more offenses allegedly "motivated by religious hatred" reported to the Metropolitan Police, compared to the same period last year.

In 2007 racist remarks made by contestants on the Celebrity Big Brother TV series against Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty caused widespread outrage, not least in the UK with the British public phoning in to make Shetty the series winner and the other ethnic minority contestant Jermaine Jackson the runner up. Demonstrators in Banglore burned effigies of the TV Channel's directors.

Scotland

It has been reported that racial minorities are underrepresented in the police force [34]. Philomena de Lima noted that Scots sometimes feel there is "no problem here" because ethnic minorities are regarded as small in number, "invisible", and "silent." However, she found that in most schools, at least 4% of students were ethnic minorities. In the urban areas tensions between Whites and Pakistanis occasionally flare up. In the past football (soccer in US English) has at times divided on racial lines with "Asian teams" versus "Scottish teams" causing conflict. Though not yet on the same scale as the longstanding Scottish sectarianism between Catholic and Protestant. There is however a more sinister and deep seated racism towards foreigners in Scotland, especially those from Pakistan. Several items regarding this type of racism in Scotland are reported here. [35].

In 2005-6, 1,543 victims of racist crime in Scotland were of Pakistani origin, while more than 1,000 victims were classed as being "white British".

Kriss Donald was a Scottish fifteen-year-old who was kidnapped and murdered in Glasgow in 2004.Five British Asian men were later found guilty of racially-motivated violence; those convicted of murder were all sentenced to life imprisonment.

The BBC, in 2002, has reported on poll conducted by System Three which "suggested that one in four Scots admitted to being strongly or slightly racist" and that "almost 50% said they did not believe it was racist to use terms such as 'Chinky' or 'Paki' in relation to food or shops.

However, there are indications that the Scottish authorities and people are well aware of the problem and are trying to tackle it. Among the Scottish under 15 years old there is the positive sign that, "younger white pupils rarely drew on racist discourses." [36]

There is also a strong current of anti-English prejudice in Scotland; see Anglophobia.

Northern Ireland

Racism in the United Kingdom is particularly acute in Northern Ireland, which has prompted The Guardian newspaper to label it the "race hate capital of Europe" [37]. Despite having the smallest numbers of non-whites in the UK it has the highest levels of racist violence in the country (racially motivated attacks are at 16.4% per 1000 of the minority population, whilst in England and Wales the figure is 12.6%).

More recently non-white people, especially Chinese, have started to live in Northern Ireland, primarily in the capital Belfast. The population of Northern Ireland is 99% white. Discrimination takes many forms such as the spraying of racist graffiti, intimidation, assaults, general harassment, protection racketing, vandalism and house burning. Attempts to build a mosque in Portadown were met by much opposition — the plan was eventually dropped.

Tanzania

The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964 put an end to the local Arab dynasty. As many as 17,000 Arabs were massacred by the descendants of black African slaves, according to reports, and thousands of others were detained and their property either confiscated or destroyed.

United States of America

Main article: Racism in the United States

This racist item from the 1900s shows a denigratiing depiction of black women.

Many historians have argued that racism has been an integral part of the United States of America since it was first colonized by Europeans. In general, the question of race and the practices of racism have been major issues in American politics and daily life since before the country became independent in the late eighteenth century, and continue to have a major role in political and social life today. Racism exists among members of every ethnic group and demographic, specifically among those of African American; European American (e.g. Irish, German, Italian, Polish); Jewish (although in the US a Jewish identity is treated as a solely religious, not a racial/ethnic designation), Asian American/Pacific Islander, Native American/Alaska Native and Latin/Hispanic heritages. Despite the attention on immigration issues in the late 20th century, other Latinos like Chicanos — whose families lived in the Western US in the 1850s when the US annexed lands formerly part of Mexico and Puerto Ricans — are born US citizens. All of these ethnic groups have racists within, and likewise all of these ethnic groups have members within that have been a victim of racism. Another controversy is what makes an American...too often the concept of assimilation, integration, national loyalties of second-generation Americans, promotion of cultural uniformity, and doing away with ethnic discrimination...has forgotten the needs and issues of African Americans and other racial minority groups.

Slavery

In colonial America, before colonial slavery became completely based on racial lines, thousands of African slaves served European, alongside other Europeans serving a term of indentured servitude. In some cases for African slaves, a term of service meant freedom and a land grant afterward, but these were rarely awarded, and few Africans became landowners this way. In 1676, Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt against the Governor of Virginia and the system of exploitation he represented: exploitation of poorer colonists by the increasingly wealthy landowners. However, Bacon died, probably of dysentery, and the revolt lost steam. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, slavery was a major national controversy that divided Americans, to politicians and religious leaders as much it divided land owners, businessmen and workers argued on the principle of the human dignity of slaves versus the right of free enterprise should not have government intervention (abolition of slavery).

The central cause of concern to landowners was the unity of Bacon's populist movement. It raised the question to the landowners of how to divide the population politically in ways that would keep the poorer colonists divided enough to rule. To the Governor, the most threatening, and unexpected, aspect of Bacon's rebellion was its multi-racial aspect. So from that time on, the wealthy landowners determined that only Africans would be used as slaves — and European colonists were promised whatever benefits would have gone to Africans had they continued to be indentured servants. The fuel of the racism was due to the fear of sex among Africans and Europeans. This relationship was specifically afraid of African, Native American, Asian, and Latin (Hispanic) men with European women. The thousands of lynchings were testimony to this. This legacy is still seen in the antimiscegenation laws which were repealed only within the past few years. This change began the infamously long period of the American slave society, in which slaves were primarily used for agricultural labor, notably in the production of cotton and tobacco. African slavery in the Northeast was less common, usually confined to involuntary domestic servitude. The social rift along color lines soon became engrained in every aspect of colonial American culture.

According to 1860 census, there were about 385,000 individuals who owned slaves. Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of White American in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves). However, in New Orleans over 3,000 free African American owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free African American in that city. [38] [39]

Post-slavery racism

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, freed all slaves in the Southern states that had made up the Confederacy except slaveholding border states which had not seceded from the Union, and those states already under Union control. Slavery ended in the whole country with the 13th Amendment which was declared ratified on December 18, 1865. Despite this, discrimination continued in the United States with the existence of Jim Crow laws, educational disparities, widespread criminal acts perpetrated by local and vigilante groups, and vigorous action by trade unions and their allies to enact Minimum wages, which had the effect of pricing the typically unskilled and untrained black and immigrant laborers out of the labor market.

In the 1950s and 1960s a mass-based movement of predominantly African Americans capitalizing on the gains made by the New Deal engaged in a series of local movements, national lobbying and legal attacks on segregation and discrimination. These groups included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Congress of Racial Equality, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and a variety of local groups and labor unions. This movement culminated in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" — Martin Luther King, "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. (28 August, 1963).

While attention to race relations in the United States has been focused largely on that between European Americans and African Americans, the changing racial makeup of the American population (when Asian Americans, Latinos, Arab Americans, Native Hawaiians and non-English European Americans), began to advance higher in political representation and slowly but surely climbed the socioeconomic ladder) at the beginning of the twenty first century has caused many voices to call for the inclusion of other races in the equation. It is estimated that by 2050, European Americans will comprise less than 50% of the total population (Latinos, for example, will acount for 25% of the U.S. population). Thinking about race relations in the United States is therefore broadening to include Latinos (the fastest growing ethnic group) and Asian Americans. At this writing, at least four states, California, Texas, Hawaii, and New Mexico (and the District of Columbia) are deemed "majority minority" states, where whites are a minority of the population. Native Americans dealt with similar issues on color-based racism, greater demands for tribal autonomy, fought social discrimination and economic disparities for a people whom encountered hardship and oppression for centuries after the first Europeans entered the land to become the United States.

With 9,346 victims of hate crime violence between 1995 and 2002, European Americans are the second most targeted group for the racial & ethnic categories combined, with African-Americans being the first. There are more hate crimes against whites than against Hispanics, Asians, American Indians and Multiple race groups. Whites are also the racial & ethnic group the most frequently targeted for inter-racial crimes.

US Department of Justice survey stated that more than 6.6 million violent crimes (murder, rape, assault and robbery) are committed in the United States each year, of which about 20%, are inter-racial crimes. According to research done by Larry Elder, a radio host and New York Times best-selling author, of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence each year, nearly 1,200,000 involved black-white crime. In 90% of those crimes, black offenders attacked white victims. African Americans are more than 50 times more likely to commit violent crimes against White Americans than vice versa.

According to United States Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, in the United States in 2005, 37,460 White females were sexually assaulted or raped by a Black man, while between zero and ten Black females were sexually assaulted or raped by a White man. There were overall 111,590 white victims of rape/sexual assault in 2005. In those 111,590 cases the offender was White in 44.5 percent of the cases and Black in 33.6 percent of the cases.

Double standard when it comes to interracial crime is significant. The overwheliming majority of interracial crime involves White victims and Black or Hispanic suspects, yet very few of these crimes are classified as "hate crimes." The opposite is assumed when a crime features a White suspect and a minority victim. On Saturday, January 6 2007, Channon Christian, 21, and Christopher Newsom, 23, of Knoxville, Tennessee, went on a date from which they would never return. On their way to the home of another couple, they were carjacked and kidnapped. Over the next 24 hours they were beaten, gang-raped, tortured, and murdered. Some commentators complained that the murders highlighted a double standard in American journalism: that if Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom had been black and their killers white, their story would have received more attention.

The 2006 Duke University lacrosse case attracted widespread media attention almost from the moment it became public. The apparent circumstances—three white males from privileged backgrounds at an elite university apparently taking advantage of a student and single mother from a crosstown black college, trying to make ends meet by working as a stripper—seemed tailor-made for wall-to-wall coverage.

Affirmative action in the United States occurs in school admissions, job hiring, and government and corporate contracts. Its intended beneficiaries are ethnic minorities (approximately 33% of the population). White males are the most disadvantaged group. Affirmative action has been the subject of numerous court cases, and has been contested on constitutional grounds. California, Michigan, and Washington have banned various forms of affirmative action by government organizations. According to U.S. Office of Personnel Management's annual report "Federal Equal Opportunity Recruitment Program", a total of 48,033 new minority employees have been hired by the feds from FY 2001 to FY 2006. During the same period there has been a net decrease of 3,960 white male employees in federal jobs.

Minority racism is sometimes considered controversial because of theories of power in society. Racist thinking among and between minority groups does occur, for example conflicts between blacks and Korean Americans (notably in the 1992 Los Angeles Riots) or between blacks and Jews (such as the riots in Crown Heights in 1991 [40]) in various urban environments, new immigrant groups (such as Latinos [41]) or towards whites. [42] [43]

There has been a long running racial tension between African Americans and Mexican Americans. There have been several significant riots in California prisons where Mexican American inmates and African Americans have targeted each other particularly, based on racial reasons. There have been reports of racially motivated attacks against African Americans who have moved into neighborhoods occupied mostly by Mexican Americans, and vice versa. There had also been cases in the late 1920s California in which Filipino immigrants have been victimized for moving into a predominantly white neighbourhood, or for working in an overwhelmingly white workplace. Recently there has also been an increase in racial violence between whites and Hispanic immigrants, between whites and Native Hawaiians, between Asians and Hispanics and between African immigrants and American blacks.

The Aztlan movement has been described as racist. The movement's goal involves the pursuit of repossessing the American southwest. It has also been called the Mexican "reconquista"(re-conquest) whose name was inspired by the Spanish "reconquista" which led to the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. [44]

According to gang experts and law enforcement agents, a longstanding race war between the Mexican Mafia and the Black Guerilla family, a rival African American prison gang, has generated such intense racial hatred among Mexican Mafia leaders, or shot callers, that they have issued a "green light" on all blacks. A sort of gang-life fatwah, this amounts to a standing authorization for Latino gang members to prove their mettle by terrorizing or even murdering any blacks sighted in a neighborhood claimed by a gang loyal to the Mexican Mafia. [45]

South Africa

See History of South Africa in the apartheid era.

Government’s employment legislation reserves 80% of new jobs for black people and favours black owned companies.

Zimbabwe/Rhodesia

Until majority rule in 1980, the minority white government of Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then called) practised institutionalised racism similar in most respects to the apartheid system in South Africa. White Rhodesians "lived in the best houses, owned most of the best land, enjoyed a high standard of living and controlled the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the means of coercion." (Godwin, P. & Hancock, I., 1993. Rhodesians never Die, Baobab Books, Harare, Zimbabwe.)

The laws enforcing racial segregation, however, were not always welcomed by the local white community. They were viewed as not only being racist, but expensive and unnecessary. This was highlighted in an incident, called "The Battle of the Toilets" in 1960, involving a new theatre that would be open to all races.

Twenty years after Independence, whites in Zimbabwe remained a market dominant minority through their continued ownership of the vast majority of arable land, the most valuable resource in a country like Zimbabwe where agriculture is the leading industry. In 2000, the government, arguing that the country's landownership patters were the result of longtime failure to address the legacies of colonialism and racism in Zimbabwean society, began a controversial land reform process directed at confiscating the land of the white resident farmers and redistributing it to the poor black majority. Mugabe, however, has come under heavy criticism and accusations of having apportioned land to supporters, doing so in a disorganized and anarchical manner. This was coupled with renewed criticisms (originally directed decades ago) that a comprehensive land reform has been long overdue. (Astrow, A., 1983, Zimbabwe: A revolution that lost its way?, Zed Books, London)