In this week’s blog we are supposed to get some hard statistics dealing with our project. Researching statistics is never easy, but it helps when one takes advantage of the library resources. Anyhow, my project deals with racism, therefore my research and statistics will be based on racism and prejudice. First off, lets discuss the definition of racism. Racism can be defined as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Racism is racial discrimination and prejudice. Then the question arises, “What is prejudice Mr. Chima?” Well, to be prejudice, one must decide beforehand; to lean in favor of one side of a cause for some reason or other than its justice. For example, a judge ought to be without prejudice, and he cannot therefore sit in a case where he has any interest, or when a near relation is a part, or where he has been of counsel for one of the parties. Racism and prejudice work together like Stockton & Malone. One “drives through the lane” to your heart while the other “sets a strong pick” into your mind, leaving you confused on how to stop the simple play (please excuse the basketball player personification, I couldn’t help it). Now lets jump into some of the statistics of racism. Despite the “progress” in culture, science and technology, racism, tribalism, nationalism, colonialism and the caste system have been mainly responsible for the death of over 62 million human beings in the last 100 years. These numbers, however, do not tell the full story since no numbers are available for the colonial period. And one really cannot imagine the misery of so many millions who suffered through it although they were not killed. Today there are about 22 million refugees in our world who were forced to abandon their homes essentially because of nationalistic wars.Here are some frightening statistics that should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about the destructive nature of all of these diseased ideologies: The Colonialism-1500s-late 20th century; Colonialism was such a powerful force that by 1900, for instance, 90.4 percent of Africa was under European colonial control. This was a political-economic phenomenon that began in the 1500s whereby various European nations “discovered”, conquered, and exploited large areas of the world. The last century began with almost all countries of the world enslaved under Europian colonial control whose effects are still felt in the shape of neo colonialism and the exploitative power of the few nations of the world. Slavery became a science in the colonial era in which tens of millions of people were killed or enslaved because of their race and color. Some national and racial wars are:
1. The nationalism based wars of Europe resulted in World War I (1914-1918). Over 8 million were killed and over 21 million wounded.
2. World War II (1939-1945) killed 52 million worldwide.
This was marked by the rise of Germany’s fascist dictator Hitler and his Nazi party. Over 20 countries took part in World War II and suffered not only death, but also destruction of homes and infrastructures. The Nazi genocide against a number of groups: Jews, Gypsies and non-whites to name just a few were a clear example of racism.
African-Americans, even today, over 30 years after the civil rights movement, are oppressed in many ways.
-African-Americans numbered about 34.2 million in 1997, making up 12.8 Percent of the total U.S. population, according to tabulations released by the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau (Feb. 7, 2000)
-The income of 2.1 million African-American families (26 percent) was below the poverty level.
-Incidents of racial hate crime reported to the police, by bias motivation in 1998 was 4,468. The highest number was reported by African-Americans: 2,901.
-Between 1975 and 1997, African-Americans had the highest unemployment rate.
-African-Americans aged 12 and up are the most victimized group in America. 41.7 over 1,000 of them are victims of violent crimes, compared with whites (36.3 over 1,000). This does not include murder.
Nationalism continued to play the killing role throughout the last century
Countries, which fought colonialism, fought it on the basis of nationalism learned from the colonial masters. The result is the perpetuation of tragedies based on this idealogy. Muslim countries also suffered through this phase of delayed nationalism.
Here there are several examples:
1. The destruction of the Ottoman Khilafa because of Arab and Turkish nationalism-1924
This fervent Turkish nationalism under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal came into power in Ankara (Turkey’s capital today). The Ottoman empire’s last Sultan, Mohammed VI, fled in 1922 after the Sultanate had been abolished. Every member of the Ottoman empire was expelled from the country two years later. Turkey was proclaimed a republic, with Ataturk as its first president.
Arab nationalism affected the fall of the Caliphate with the view that Arabs, not Turks should be rulers. This nationalism conveniently exploited by the Lawrence of Arabia, led to a push to wrest control from the Turks of the Ummah’s leadership hence expediting the end of Khilafa for the first time in the 1300-year history of Islam.
2. India attacks and still controls Kashmir since 1947. One Indian soldier for every seven Kashmiris is used to further India’s nationalist claim on Kashmir. More than a million refugees, three wars, and hundreds of thousands have been killed as a result.
3. Israel’s Zionism expelled Palestinians from their land (1948). Palestinians still constitute the largest refugee population of the world.
4. Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan)-1971
Bangladesh was once East Pakistan, following partition from India in 1947. But after seething under a number of grievances against West Pakistan (which is the Pakistan today) war erupted and the fight for separation from West Pakistan began.
As many as 300,000 people were thought to have lost their lives in this civil war.
5. Iran-Iraq war of the 1980’s was a nationalistic war which killed 1 million people.
6. 1992-1995-the genocide of Bosnians at the hands of Serb nationalism resulted in 200, 000 killed 2 million refugees.
7. 1997-1999- expulsion of approximately one million Albanian Kosovars from Kosova.
8. Chechnya is suffering right now through the fifth genocide by Russians in last one hundred years along with the Tatars.
9. Over a million Iraqis have been killed as a result of the 1991 Gulf war and the continuing US sanctions against Iraq reaching the genocidal proportions.
Amazing how the world is presently, and how it was in the past. Not much of a change. We just look over it nowadays…
[[[My statistics were sited from http://www.soundvision.com/Info/racism/statistics.asp]]]

This entry was posted on Monday, February 28th, 2005 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Project Progress, Week 07: Research Stats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.