Racism in Ethnic Communities
Racism in Ethnic Communities.The whole history of progress of human liberty
Shows that all concessions
Yet made to her august claims
Have been born of earnest struggle.
If there is no struggle
There is no progress.
Frederick Douglass, 1857
Introduction;
To rationalise or “make sense” of the Australian states attempts to control Aboriginal socialisation and identity we must first look into the foundation of the racist ideology and the archaic scientific theories held by the governing body at that time.
It could be argued that racism is a virulent and hateful form of collectivism, it is mass exclusion that creates mass poverty and despair. Racial discrimination is in reality ethnic conflict and is characterised by territorial protectionism basing its ideology on the subconscious philosophical residue of European-style racial theories.
Hollinsworth argues that with the expansionism of the European nations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the ideology and rationalisation of racist theory shifted from that of a class structure to one based on the nessessity to maintain a capitalistic doctrone and support the nationalistic ideals through the labour of non-European cultures. He further contends that most Europeans felt that because of their economic and military domination they were superior in both culture and racial origin. (Hollinsworth 1998)
A few years later in the nineteenth century the scientific community adopted Darwinism. Darwin’s theories were based upon the synopsis that there were no permanent forms of nature and that each species adapted to its environment by natural selection. (Darwin 1859) When Professor Ernst Haeckel developed these theories to incorporate a general theory of human and social development, the notion was used by racists to justify their, ‘conceptions of superior and inferior peoples and nations.’ Ethnocentrism flourished under this philosophy as certain extracts from these theories were used to validate the Europeans racial ideology. (Banton, M. 2000)
The doctrines laid down in the formation of Judeo-Christian religious beliefs also played a primary role in the formation of European ethnocentrism. In order to justify such evil use of power Montague argues that people will appeal to those moral systems which give them a sense of meaning, rightness, and ultimate value in life, their ideological belief systems, which serve as the highest authority in their lives, the moral basis of their existence. (Montague 1965). Using this premise, I would argue that if people use religion to explain their social reality, then a religious ideology with its sacred texts will be used to justify this exploitation, thereby transforming God into the biggest exploiter and racist, even when this may be done unconsciously. If, however, a scientific perspective dominates a person’s worldview, then a scientific ideology will be used to show why some groups of people are inferior to others.
Having briefly touched on the building blocks of the ethnocentric ideology of the European culture and more particularly in Australia’s situation the invading forces of the British imperialistic monolith, a study of the problems faced by the...
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