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Supremacism is the belief that a certain group of people is superior to all others. [1] The supposed superior people can be defined by age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, language, social class, ideology, nationality, culture, generation or belong to any other part of a particular population.
Some feminist theorists [2] have argued that in patriarchy, a standard of male "supremacism" is enforced through a variety of cultural, political, religious, sexual, and interpersonal strategies. [2] [3] Since the 19th century there have been a number of feminist movements opposed to male supremacism, usually aimed at achieving equal legal rights and protections for women in all cultural, political and interpersonal relations. [4] [5] [6]
Centuries of European colonialism in the Americas, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and Asia were justified by white supremacist attitudes. [7] White European Americans who participated in the slave industry tried to justify their economic exploitation of black people by creating a scientific theory of white superiority and black inferiority. [8] Thomas Jefferson, pioneer of scientific racism and enslaver of over 600 black people (regarded as property under the Articles of Confederation), [9] wrote that blacks were "inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind." [10] A justification for the conquest and subjugation of Native Americans emanated from their dehumanized perception as "merciless Indian savages", as described in the United States Declaration of Independence. [11] [12]
During the 19th century, "The White Man's Burden", the phrase which refers to the thought that whites have the obligation to make the societies of the other peoples more 'civilized', was widely used to justify imperialist policies as a noble enterprise. [13] [14] Thomas Carlyle, known for his historical account of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: A History, argued that European supremacist policies were justified on the grounds that they provided the greatest benefit to "inferior" native peoples. [15] However, even at the time of its publication in 1849, Carlyle's main work on the subject, the Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question, was poorly received by his contemporaries. [16]
Before the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Confederate States of America was founded with a constitution that contained clauses which restricted the government's ability to limit or interfere with the institution of "negro" slavery. [17] In the Cornerstone Speech, Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens declared that one of the Confederacy's foundational tenets was white supremacy over black slaves. [18] Following the war, a secret society, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in the South. Its purpose was to maintain white, Protestant supremacy after the Reconstruction period, which it did so through violence and intimidation. [19]
According to William Nichols, religious antisemitism can be distinguished from modern antisemitism which is based on racial or ethnic grounds. "The dividing line was the possibility of effective conversion ... a Jew ceased to be a Jew upon baptism." However, with racial antisemitism, "Now the assimilated Jew was still a Jew, even after baptism ... . From the Enlightenment onward, it is no longer possible to draw clear lines of distinction between religious and racial forms of hostility towards Jews... Once Jews have been emancipated and secular thinking makes its appearance, without leaving behind the old Christian hostility towards Jews, the new term antisemitism becomes almost unavoidable, even before explicitly racist doctrines appear." [20]
One of the first typologies which was used to classify various human races was invented by Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), a theoretician of eugenics, who published L'Aryen et son rôle social (1899 – "The Aryan and his social role") in 1899. In his book, he divides humanity into various, hierarchical races, starting with the highest race which is the "Aryan white race, dolichocephalic", and ending with the lowest race which is the "brachycephalic", "mediocre and inert" race, that race is best represented by Southern European, Catholic peasants". [21] Between these, Vacher de Lapouge identified the " Homo europaeus " (Teutonic, Protestant, etc.), the " Homo alpinus " (Auvergnat, Turkish, etc.), and finally the " Homo mediterraneus " (Neapolitan, Andalus, etc.) Jews were brachycephalic just like the Aryans were, according to Lapouge; but he considered them dangerous for this exact reason; they were the only group, he thought, which was threatening to displace the Aryan aristocracy. [22] Vacher de Lapouge became one of the leading inspirations of Nazi antisemitism and Nazi racist ideology. [23]
The Anti-Defamation League [24] (ADL) and Southern Poverty Law Center [25] condemn writings about "Jewish Supremacism" by Holocaust-denier, former Grand Wizard of the KKK, and conspiracy theorist David Duke as antisemitic – in particular, his book Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening to the Jewish Question. [26] Kevin B. MacDonald, known for his theory of Judaism as a "group evolutionary strategy", has also been accused of being "antisemitic" and white supremacist in his writings on the subject by the ADL [27] and his own university psychology department. [28]
Cornel West, an African-American philosopher, writes that black supremacist religious views arose in America as a part of black Muslim theology in response to white supremacism. [29]
In Africa, black Southern Sudanese allege that they are being subjected to a racist form of Arab supremacy, which they equate with the historic white supremacism of South African apartheid. [30] The alleged genocide and ethnic cleansing in the ongoing War in Darfur has been described as an example of Arab racism. [31] For example, in their analysis of the sources of the conflict, Julie Flint and Alex de Waal say that Colonel Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, sponsored "Arab supremacism" across the Sahara during the 1970s. Gaddafi supported the "Islamic Legion" and the Sudanese opposition "National Front, including the Muslim Brothers and the Ansar, the Umma Party's military wing." Gaddafi tried to use such forces to annex Chad from 1979–81. Gaddafi supported the Sudanese government's war in the South during the early 1980s, and in return, he was allowed to use the Darfur region as a "back door to Chad". As a result, the first signs of an "Arab racist political platform" appeared in Darfur in the early 1980s. [32]
In Asia, ancient Indians considered all foreigners barbarians. The Muslim scholar Al-Biruni wrote that the Indians called foreigners impure. [33] A few centuries later, Dubois observes that "Hindus look upon Europeans as barbarians totally ignorant of all principles of honour and good breeding... In the eyes of a Hindu, a Pariah (outcaste) and a European are on the same level." [33] The Chinese considered the Europeans repulsive, ghost-like creatures, and they even considered them devils. Chinese writers also referred to foreigners as barbarians. [34]
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany, under the rule of Adolf Hitler, promoted the belief in the existence of a superior, Aryan Herrenvolk , or master race. The state's propaganda advocated the belief that Germanic peoples, whom they called "Aryans", were a master race or a Herrenvolk whose members were superior to the Jews, Slavs, and Romani people, so-called "gypsies". Arthur de Gobineau, a French racial theorist and aristocrat, blamed the fall of the ancien régime in France on racial intermixing, which he believed had destroyed the purity of the Nordic race. Gobineau's theories, which attracted a large and strong following in Germany, emphasized the belief in the existence of an irreconcilable polarity between Aryan and Jewish cultures. [35]
Religious supremacy in form of theocracy or state religions can result in societal discrimination. [36]
Academics Carol Lansing and Edward D. English argue that Christian supremacism was a motivation for the Crusades in the Holy Land, as well as a motivation for crusades against Muslims and pagans throughout Europe. [37] The blood libel is a widespread European conspiracy theory which led to centuries of pogroms and massacres of European Jewish minorities because it alleged that Jews required the pure blood of a Christian child in order to make matzah for Passover. Thomas of Cantimpré writes of the blood curse which the Jews put upon themselves and all of their generations at the court of Pontius Pilate where Jesus was sentenced to death: "A very learned Jew, who in our day has been converted to the (Christian) faith, informs us that one enjoying the reputation of a prophet among them, toward the close of his life, made the following prediction: 'Be assured that relief from this secret ailment, to which you are exposed, can only be obtained through Christian blood ("solo sanguine Christiano")." [38] The Atlantic slave trade has also been partially attributed to Christian supremacism. [39] The Ku Klux Klan has been described as a white supremacist Christian organization, as are many other white supremacist groups, such as the Posse Comitatus and the Christian Identity and Positive Christianity movements. [40] [41]
Academics Khaled Abou El Fadl, Ian Lague, and Joshua Cone note that, while the Quran and other Islamic scriptures express tolerant beliefs, there have also been numerous instances of Muslim or Islamic supremacism. [42] Examples of how supremacists have interpreted Islam include the Muslim participation in the African slave trade, the early-20th-century pan-Islamism promoted by Abdul Hamid II, [43] the jizya and rules of marriage in Muslim countries being imposed on non-Muslims, [44] and the majority Muslim interpretations of the rules of pluralism in Malaysia. According to scholar Bernard Lewis, classical Islamic jurisprudence imposes an open-ended duty on Muslims to expand Muslim rule and Islamic law to all non-Muslims throughout the world. [45]
North Africa has experienced numerous incidents of massacres and ethnic cleansing of Jews and Christians, [46] especially in Morocco, Libya, and Algeria, where eventually Jews were forced to live in ghettos. [47] Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted during the Middle Ages in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. [48] At certain times in Yemen, Morocco, and Baghdad, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face the Islamic death penalty. [49] While there were antisemitic incidents before the 20th century, antisemitism increased after the Arab–Israeli conflict. Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Palestinian exodus, the creation of the State of Israel and Israeli victories during the wars of 1956 and 1967 were a severe humiliation to Israel's opponents –primarily Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. [50] However, by the mid-1970s the vast majority of Jews had left Muslim-majority countries, moving primarily to Israel, France, and the United States. [51] The reasons for the Jewish exodus are varied and disputed. [51]
Ilan Pappé, an expatriate Israeli historian, writes that the First Aliyah to Israel "established a society based on Jewish supremacy" within "settlement-cooperatives" that were Jewish owned and operated. [52] Joseph Massad, a professor of Arab studies, holds that "Jewish supremacism" has always been a "dominating principle" in religious and secular Zionism. [53] [54] Zionism was established with the goal of creating a sovereign Jewish state, where Jews could be the majority, rather than the minority. Theodor Herzl, the ideological father of Zionism, considered antisemitism as an eternal feature of all societies in which Jews lived as minorities, and as a result, he believed that only a separation could allow Jews to escape eternal persecution. "Let them give us sovereignty over a piece of the Earth's surface, just sufficient for the needs of our people, then we will do the rest!" [55]
Since the 1990s, [56] [57] Orthodox Jewish rabbis from Israel, most notably those affiliated to Chabad-Lubavitch and religious Zionist organizations, [56] [57] [58] including The Temple Institute, [56] [57] [58] have set up a modern Noahide movement. These Noahide organizations, led by religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis, are aimed at non-Jews in order to convince them to commit to follow the Noahide laws. [56] [57] [58] However, these religious Zionist and Orthodox rabbis that guide the modern Noahide movement, who are often affiliated with the Third Temple movement, [56] [57] [58] expound a racist and supremacist ideology which consists in the belief that the Jewish people are God's chosen people and racially superior to non-Jews, [56] [57] [58] and mentor Noahides because they believe that the Messianic era will begin with the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to re-institute the Jewish priesthood along with the practice of ritual sacrifices, and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy in Israel, supported by communities of Noahides. [56] [57] [58] David Novak, professor of Jewish theology and ethics at the University of Toronto, has denounced the modern Noahide movement by stating that "If Jews are telling Gentiles what to do, it’s a form of imperialism". [59] [60] [61]
In the aftermath of the 2022 Israeli legislative election, the winning right-wing coalition included an alliance known as Religious Zionist Party, which was described by Jewish-American columnist David E. Rosenberg as a political party "driven by Jewish supremacy and anti-Arab racism". [62]
Patriarchal beliefs assert the "natural" superiority of men with a right to leadership in family and public life.
...imperialist editors came out in favor of retaining the entire archipelago (using) higher-sounding justifications related to the "white man's burden.
Whereas the First Aliya established a society based on Jewish supremacy, the Second Aliya's method of colonization was separation from Palestinians.
Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against, Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
Antisemitism has increased greatly in the Arab world since the beginning of the 20th century, for several reasons: the dissolution and breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; European influence, brought about by Western imperialism and Arab Christians; Nazi propaganda and relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world; resentment over Jewish nationalism; the rise of Arab nationalism; and the widespread proliferation of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories.
White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and was a key justification for European colonialism.
Zionism is an ethno-cultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a Jewish state through the colonization of a land outside of Europe. It eventually focused on the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, a region corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became the ideology supporting the protection and development of Israel as a Jewish state and has been described as Israel's national or state ideology.
Scholars have studied and debated Muslim attitudes towards Jews, as well as the treatment of Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout the history of Islam. Parts of the Islamic literary sources give mention to certain Jewish groups present in the past or present, which has led to debates. Some of this overlaps with Islamic remarks on non-Muslim religious groups in general.
A number of organizations and academics consider the Nation of Islam (NOI) to be antisemitic. The NOI has engaged in Holocaust denial, and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade; mainstream historians, such as Saul S. Friedman, have said Jews had a negligible role. The NOI has repeatedly rejected charges made against it as false and politically motivated.
The Zionist occupation government, Zionist occupational government or Zionist-occupied government (ZOG), sometimes also called the Jewish occupational government (JOG), is an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that Jews secretly control the governments of Western states. It is a contemporary variation on the centuries-old belief in an international Jewish conspiracy. According to believers, a secret Zionist organization actively controls international banks, and through them governments, to conspire against white, Christian, or Islamic interests.
Religious antisemitism is aversion to or discrimination against Jews as a whole based on religious doctrines of supersessionism, which expect or demand the disappearance of Judaism and the conversion of Jews to other faiths. This form of antisemitism has frequently served as the basis for false claims and religious antisemitic tropes against Judaism. Sometimes, it is called theological antisemitism.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Joseph Andoni Massad is a Jordanian academic specializing in Middle Eastern studies, who serves as Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism.
Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race that has inherent traits or characteristics that appear in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from the traits or characteristics of the rest of a society. The abhorrence may find expression in the form of discrimination, stereotypes or caricatures. Racial antisemitism may present Jews, as a group, as a threat in some way to the values or safety of a society. Racial antisemitism can seem deeper-rooted than religious antisemitism, because for religious antisemites conversion of Jews remains an option and once converted the "Jew" is gone. In the context of racial antisemitism Jews cannot get rid of their Jewishness.
This is a list of topics related to racism:
Anti-Judaism is a term which is used to describe a range of historic and current ideologies which are totally or partially based on opposition to Judaism, on the denial or the abrogation of the Mosaic covenant, and the replacement of Jewish people by the adherents of another religion, political theology, or way of life which is held to have superseded theirs as the "light to the nations" or God's chosen people. The opposition is maintained by the adaptation of Jewish prophecy and texts. According to David Nirenberg there have been Christian, Islamic, nationalistic, Enlightenment rationalist, and socio-economic variations of this theme.
Jewish supremacy or Jewish supremacism is a discourse pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that asserts that the ethnonationalist views, policies and identity politics of some actors, particularly within Israel, arise to the level of a form of supremacism. The term "Jewish supremacy" has been used by various critics of Israeli policies, with some arguing that it reflects a broader pattern of discrimination in Israel against non-Jews.
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine—a region partly coinciding with the biblical Land of Israel—was flawed or unjust in some way.
Racism and xenophobia have been reported and investigated in Sweden. Sweden has the most segregated labor market of people with foreign background in Europe, when measured against both high and low educational level by OECD statistics. According to the European Network Against Racism, skin color and ethnic/religious background have significant impact on an individual's opportunities in the labor market.
Racism in the Palestinian territories encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in the Palestinian Territories, of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, irrespective of the religion, colour, creed, or ethnic origin of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. It may refer to Jewish settler attitudes regarding Palestinians as well as Palestinian attitudes to Jews and the settlement enterprise undertaken in their name.
In the Arab world, racism targets non-Arabs and the expat majority of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf coming from South Asian groups as well as Black, European, and Asian groups that are Muslim; non-Arab ethnic minorities such as Armenians, Africans, the Saqaliba, Southeast Asians, Jews, Kurds, and Coptic Christians, Assyrians, Persians, Turks, and other Turkic peoples, and South Asians living in Arab countries of the Middle East.
Racism in Jewish communities is a source of concern for people of color, particularly for Jews of color. Black Jews, Indigenous Jews, and other Jews of color report that they experience racism from white Jews in many countries, including Canada, France, Kenya, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews also report experiences with racism by Ashkenazi Jews. The centering of Ashkenazi Jews is sometimes known as Ashkenormativity. In historically white-dominated countries with a legacy of anti-Black racism, such as the United States and South Africa, racism within the Jewish community often manifests itself as anti-Blackness. In Israel, racism among Israeli Jews often manifests itself as discrimination and prejudice against Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, African immigrants, and Palestinians. Some critics describe Zionism as racist or settler colonial in nature.
Zionist antisemitism or antisemitic Zionism refers to a phenomenon in which antisemites express support for Zionism and the State of Israel. In some cases, this support may be promoted for explicitly antisemitic reasons. Historically, this type of antisemitism has been most notable among Christian Zionists, who may perpetrate religious antisemitism while being outspoken in their support for Jewish sovereignty in Israel due to their interpretation of Christian eschatology. Similarly, people who identify with the political far-right, particularly in Europe and the United States, may support the Zionist movement because they seek to expel Jews from their country and see Zionism as the least complicated method of achieving this goal and satisfying their racial antisemitism.