Basic HTML Version
ers. Blacks
fight blacks
"in a kind of
racial frat–
ricide," is how
o n e news–
magazine de–
scribed it.
More and
more U.S.
blacks encoun–
ter open bitter–
ness in hosti le
white neigh–
borhoods.
From Ser-
muda to Britain, North America to
South Africa, people project their
own inadequacies on those who be–
long to a different category–
whether class, race, nationality, age
or religion.
·
Where did today's conflicts and
racial strife begin? How d id the
peoples we have met in this article
come to live side by side with eth–
nic groups that speak other lan–
guages and toil toward d ifferent
purposes?
lmmigrants Helped Rebuild Europe
For centu ries Europe has experi–
enced mass migration. Caught in
the throes of religious and eco–
nomic upheaval, J ews fled from
one country to another in Europe
and even acr oss the Atlantic;
French Huguenots fled northwest
and to the New World and South
Africa, and more recently Spanish,
Portuguese and Italians migrated
to factories to the north.
Much of the contemporary racial
mix in Western Europe started af–
ter, and because of, World War
ll.
An economic and industrial boom
was breaking out all over the Con–
tinent, and immigrants from the
West l nd ies, North Africa,
Turkey, Pakistan and other places
were eager to work. Tbe migrant
workers for the most part were
welcomed.
By the mid-'70s Western Europe
had become multiracial.
T hen hard times carne. lndustry
slumped and factories closed. The
work was over; unemployment was
high.
Blacks and Asians and the
British themselves wrestle with un–
employment, restless youths, poor
bousing and overcrowding of mi-
Aprll 1986
norities. As the
Continent's reces-
sion drags on, sorne
West Europeans
vent frustrations on
guest workers with the mes-
sage ' 'Go home!"
Many of Western Europe's 12
million immigrants are, as put by
one newsmagazine, "trapped be–
tween old count ries tbat cannot
feed them and new countries that
no longer want them."
In the words of one Turkish
worker living in West Berlín:
"T hey asked us to come and work
here, but now that things don't go
well, they want us out."
The children of immigrant work–
ers are tired of disrespect and re–
jection. Maj ority and minority
youths realize they belong to a
blocked generation, whose future is
troubled and confused. Drug use,
prostitution and other crimes now
flourish in both majority and mi–
nority populations.
In North America, Too
S lave traders once funneled Iarge
numbers of African slaves and in–
dentured servants into British
colonies. Now today, one Britisb
magazine described prejudice in
America as ' 'developing parallel
with the growth of democracy."
Now, at the midway point in the
1980s, in the United States, a small
group of "white supremacists" arm
themselves, while "black
supremacists" arouse blacks to
"take over the earth" and call
whites "devils who will die in an
explosion of holy fire."
W he re
will man–
kind's folly
stop? Will
society's racial
bombs cause
the genocide
of not only minor–
ity but
majority
groups also?
Why lntegration Didn 't End
Discrimination
In America, the Supreme Court set
the country's directions with a de–
cision May 17, 1954, mandating
integration in public schools.
Despite a majority backlash,
other judicial measures spurred in–
tegration by implementing quotas
of blacks, Hispanics and women of
all ethnic groups in factories and
offices.
Former U.S. President Dwight
D. Eisenhower warned at the time,
"lt's all very well to talk about
school integration if you remember
you may also be talking about so–
cial disintegration. "
The U.N., in a noble effort to
combat racial prejudice around the
globe, has sought to abolish racial
discrimination by drafting charters
and declarations, and by promoting
conventions, covenants and pro–
grams. A Decade for Action to
3