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The article describes the state of race relations and attitudes to racism in a number of countries. It is not an exhaustive list.

In the western world of the 21st century, racism is one of the most difficult moral and political issues, some people treated it as taboo to openly discuss in certain social situations.

Racism in some countries are highly evident, in the case of African-Americans in the United States fought hard and continued to tear down legal and social barriers throughout that country's history, but continued to experience many forms of discrimination and socioeconomic class divisions as a result of over four centuries of racial subjugation could be corrected by political measures, but the U.S. in the late 20th century and today face the difficulties of what's called racial reconcilation.

And the recent civil rights movement by Aborigines, indigenous peoples of Australia to reverse the two-centuries old trend of color-based or racial discrimination, land confiscation and cultural destruction from white European settlers, now composed the continent's majority of 20 million people, has began to abolish both legal codes and social mores that are racist against Aborigines and Asian-Australian minorities as well.

Racial segregation policies in South Africa during the Apartheid era, a strict code of public separation of its' four races (the majority being of Bantu or African origins) from 1948 to the early 1990's left a painful legacy of socioeconomic disparities, and the need for apologies and justice for past crimes by former government officials and law enforcement.

Argentina

While Argentina has considered itself a "crisol de razas" or melting pot, it has only recently begun to recognize itself as a multicultural, multiracial society. The government of Argentina has taken significant formal steps toward the elimination of racial discrimination over the last decade. However, the measures provided by legal and institutional changes are still in the initial stages of implementation and have been substantially hindered by a lack of funds, the logistical and political complications associated with the transfer of power from one party to another in 1999, and Argentina's history of racism.

Most sources report Argentina's population as 97 per cent white (mostly of Italian and Spanish descent) and three percent mestizo (Amerindian' and European), Amerindian, or other nonwhite groups.

The nineteenth century founders of the nation aimed to make Argentina a white nation through various policies aimed at eliminating ethnic minority populations, while simultaneously encouraging European immigration. The 1853 Constitution is still largely in force today, and the preference for European immigration remains explicit. Racial discrimination persists against indigenous peoples, immigrants, Afro-Argentines, mestizo Argentines, Jews and Arabs. Argentina's indigenous peoples face struggles concerning fundamental issues of survival, maintenance of cultural and linguistic integrity, land rights and bilingual education. Furthermore, the small, impoverished, socially maligned population must fight for mere recognition. The indigenous population in Argentina according to the 2005 Complementary Survey of Indigenous Peoples, stands at approximately 318,700 people (0.8 percent of the total population).

Immigration from other South American nations rose in the second half of the 20th century, and Korean immigrants began to arrive in significant numbers in the 1970s (totaling approximately 30,000 by 1998). The delayed 2000 census and the large number of undocumented immigrants makes an accurate assessment of recent immigration difficult, but the 1991 census counted close to five per cent of the total population as foreign born.

Politicians have used rising crime rates in the metropolitan Buenos Aires area to fuel xenophobia and to argue for further restrictions on immigrants. They blame immigrants for the rise in crime, despite the government's own statistics demonstrating that immigrants were not responsible for the majority of crimes. News reports on the proposed legislation referred to foreign workers as an "invasion' and also blamed them for lower wages and high unemployment. Discrimination against Korean immigrants significantly worsened after a series of news reports in 1993 on a case of Korean grocers exploiting undocumented Bolivian immigrant workers and stealing electricity from the State appeared in the press. A previous popular image of Koreans as industrious changed to an image of Koreans as poorly integrated, exclusive, and not willing to learn Spanish. Their presence in good schools and neighbourhoods has been described as an invasion.

The Jewish population in Argentina is estimated at two per cent (the largest in Latin America and fifth worldwide). The most recent manifestations of Argentina's history of anti-Semitism include the terrorist bombings of the Israeli embassy (1992) and the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association (1994), the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and the prevalence of swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans among the graffiti on buildings (including government buildings) in Buenos Aires. Anti- Semitic attitudes are widespread among the populace, and many do not consider Jewish people to be truly Argentine. Anti-Semitism within security forces also remains a significant problem. For example, until popular agitation forced a change in 2000, a police manual contained racist and anti-Semitic expressions.

Former President Carlos Menem, while his Syrian ancestry did not prevent him from being elected -- an important indicator of the lack of discrimination -- he was required to convert to Catholicism when he ran in 1989 (this prerequisite has since been abolished), and informal criticisms of him during his tenure were sometimes radicalized.

On 24 August 1994, the Argentine Constitution was amended in several ways that are relevant to the elimination of racial discrimination. In correspondence with international human rights instruments, new amendments prohibit discrimination, provide equal civil rights to nationals and foreigners, and recognize indigenous communities as previously-extant legal entities entitled to participation in relevant development issues. Under the auspices of the Instituto Nacional de Asuntos Indigenas (National Institute of Indigenous Affairs, INAT), various programmes have been established for furthering land re-distribution, bilingual education, health programmes, and rural economic development. Other articles allow for equal access to education, with protections for cultural identities and diversity, and give international human rights treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, equal standing with the Constitution.

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".

Bulgaria

Racism in Bulgaria has been geared towards the gypsies who are perceived to be of different racial and ethnic background. However, not all Bulgarians are racist towards gypsies, 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

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Canada often depicts its society as being a very progressive, tolerant, diverse, and multicultural nation. However, Canada also has its own history of racism. Although the historical records are not very clear at the very beginnings of the country's history, the first documented instance of racism in Canada may have occurred during the first trip of Jacques Cartier in 1534, when he brought two Iroquois more or less against their will back to France, which greatly amused the French royal court. Later, although still not very clearly recognised in the mainstream culture (where it is more seen as territorial wars), much racism occurred between the French and the First Nations people, between First Nations tribes themselves (fuelled by alliances of certain tribes with the French, and others with the English), between the English and the First Nations, and between the English and the French. Although the country's history was influenced greatly by these wars, the relationships between all those ethnicities has changed a lot since the beginning of European settlement in Canada.

Moreover, there are notable records of slavery in Canada in the 1700s. 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, Upper Canada governor John Graves Simcoe passed a bill making it illegal to bring a person into the colony for the purposes of enslavement, and slavery was fully outlawed 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. (Today there are four remaining slave cemeteries in Canada: in St.-Armand, Quebec, Shelburne, Nova Scotia and Princeville and Dresden in Ontario.)

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". The Exclusion Act was repealed in 1947, the same year in which Chinese Canadians were finally given the right to vote.

Restrictions still existed on immigration from Asia. In 1967, all racial restrictions on immigration to Canada were repealed and Asian immigrants were given the same rights as any other group. In 1999, Adrienne Clarkson, the child of Chinese immigrants who moved to Canada in 1942 under the "special circumstances" clause, became Governor General of Canada. 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 made restitution for the treatment of Japanese Canadians in 1988.

Notable organizations in Canadian history have included the Parti national social chrétien, and the Heritage Front. Other notable individuals in this context include Adrien Arcand, Ernst Zündel, Doug Christie, Wolfgang Droege and Don Andrews.

In 1982 the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was signed, legally assuring equal treatments, rights and freedoms without discrimination.

While having French recognised as an official language was seen as a step towards multiculturalism for Francophones, there has been nothing similar that can be described as culturally validating for Aboriginal Canadians. Canada's treatment of Aboriginal-Canadians is still governed by a document frequently described as racist , the Indian Act in the 1980s.

In 1999, the Canadian government assisted in the creation of an autonomous territory, Nunavut for the 55,000 Inuit living in the Arctic and Northernmost parts of the country. However, the Nunavut Inuit are often marginalized despite the flow of Canadian culture has changed the way the ancient people lived, are more likely to be unemployed and on social welfare, lacked access to health care and public education, and claimed the Canadian government failed to recognize or protect their language (written in a specially developed alphabet), spiritual-religious traditions (rituals and ceremonies) and modernization altered an older way of life once relied on fishing (which requires a license) and seal hunting, now illegal in Canada.

Caribbean

Many countries in the Caribbean have a history of racism. Both Asians and African-Caribbeans are marginalized due to the respective disadvantages of each group. African-Caribbeans face higher poverty rates due to the economic dominance of the Asian group while Asians are more likely to be victimized by policies which may be discriminatory(whether intentional or not) due to the political dominance afforded to African-Caribbeans. Countries such as Guyana and Trinidad are often plagued with racial political divides. Barbados also see cases of European-Caribbean people being charged with racism.

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Chile

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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 assymetrical 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 it's 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 it's 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 had under 3 million people, but today much of the country is sparsely populated.

However, Chile has experienced many levels of racial conflict between its' indigenous peoples (esp. the Mapuches) and Spanish conquistadors ever since they first arrived in 1541, will have a 350-year conflict resulted in wars and oppression of the Mapuche whom escaped defeat by the colonial Spanish.

The Mapuches were expertise warriors and knew how to have battles with little casualities 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.

This is the same problem for the Polynesian Rapanuis of Easter Island, located 2,000 miles (1.400 km.) west of Chile, was under Chilean rule since 1888 by the Chilean navy sent to protect the Rapanui from frequent slave raids by traders from Australia, French Polynesia, and South America, in which the island population declined after two centuries of neglect and exploitation by the European visitors.

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 1980's 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 1990's, 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 1940's and 1950's, 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 1930's (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 inequal 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 1960's 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 alledgely 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.

But, that hasn't received worldwide attention to Pinochet's brutal military rule until when Pinochet was arrested in 1998 to stand trial for human rights abuses, and political dissidents as his victims for challenging his regime, like socialist president Michelle Bachelet, the first woman elected to presidency in a major Latin American country. But critics point out Bachelet is affluent and had a very "white" appearance in the same time her promise to combat racial and class stratification is ironic. Chile had three other socialist presidents, Aylwin, Lagos and Ruiz-Tagle, had put the elimination of social class barriers and racial tension between mestizos and white Chileans, as a top priority after democratic rule was restored.

In the 1990's and early 2000's, 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, it's 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.

The Chilean government has became innovative to combat discrimination in public services by class and occupation, and they advanced on women's rights issues in a country where older conceptions of women in a "macho" society, the male toughness, is challenged by laws granted more rights to Chilean women, but this goes back for 80 years as one of the first Latin American nations to provide women's suffrage, birth control programs, financial aid loans for divorced or widowed women, and politicans considered women's issues as key elements in improvements of Chilean society.

However, Chilean women's groups accused the government for ignoring gender equality issues and their reluctance to legalize divorce, abortion on demand and the need to further expand the voice of lower-income and Amerindian women stuck in conservative rural areas, where the gender strata of male dominance still holds on in the 21st century, and to provide more assistance for Chilean housewives (only 35% of Chilean women work outside the home) as well to break barriers on how to protect or assist single/unmarried mothers in the type of "macho" society.

But, Chile was also a site of pro-Nazi political activity to nearly claimed electoral victories in the 1930's and early 1940's, but Chile was a wartime ally against Nazi Germany. In recent years (early 2000's) 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 anomaly.

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.

Finland

Sami people were traditionally feared for being wizards and Russians for being criminals, but the fear was more cultural. In the nineteenth century, the ruling Swedish-speaking minority considered Finnish-speaking people to be a separate race and inferior to the Germanic race. The discrimination since transformed into mainly linguistic.

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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 and 8% felt that US policy was most influenced by the Jews . 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.

In late October of 2005, violent riots erupted in north-east Paris, and later other cities around France, after two youths of North African origin were accidentally electrocuted after supposedly fleeing police.

Germany

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, Gypsies, disabled people and others "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 is a lot of tension between the Indians and the blacks. This is evident during elections where major riots by the blacks occur when an Indian is president.

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India

It is claimed by some activists 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".

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, emprical 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.

Indonesia

See Jakarta Riots of May 1998.

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Ireland

Traditionally there has been 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. 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.

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 (overwhelmingly from Nigeria) from Africa, having discarded their identification documentation were travelling directly 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. The issue highlighted the growing numbers of failed asylum seekers been 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.

Italy

See Northern League (Italy)

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Israel

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Avraham Neguise, executive director of the Ethiopian Israeli advocacy group South Wing to Zion, has claimed racism is behind a proposed Israeli government plan to "halve the rate of Ethiopian immigration to pay for the recent Lebanon war". Neguise has argued that "The government wants to bring over Jews from Russia, France, England or any other communities that are strong from an economic or educational perspective. But it sees Ethiopians as an economic burden." In February 2005 former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had actually promised to double the monthly quota of Ethiopian Jews coming to Israel, and in response the United Jewish Communities (UJC) had launched a $160 million fundraising project called "Operation Promise", $100 million of which was aimed at covering the costs of Ethiopian immigration. UJC representatives argued that this proposed policy change could damage Israel's relations with diaspora Jewish groups.

Israel and Israelis have regularly been accused of racism toward Arabs, especially in the Arab press, but also elsewhere. It is suggested that this racism is endemic and established in Israeli Jewish society..

There have also been incidences of antisemitism in Israel.

Japan

See Ethnic issues in Japan

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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.

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Netherlands

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.

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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.

Russia and other post-Soviet states

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. Racism against the peoples of the Caucasus, Africans and Central Asians is an ever increasing problem.

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. This was the highest percentage outside the Muslim world. Further a previous poll showed that 25% of Russians had an unfavorable view of Jews. Racism towards central Asians is said to be even more widespread.

Spain

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 .

Spanish football fans have been known to make monkey noises at black players laeding to FA fines. Samuel Etoo has spoken out against this and so have the English national team who played there for a friendly.

Turkey

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" and followers of Turkish racist Nihal Atsiz 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.

United Kingdom

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, Notting Hill in the 1950s, and Brixton, and Blackbird Leys, Oxford in the 1980s. 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.

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 the Irish 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 has shown that ethnic segregation has reduced within England and Wales between the 1991 Census and 2001 Census.

In England today there is in general an attitude of tolerance, but perhaps some resentment towards the perceived flood of immigrants (both legal and illegal), especially the 'Polish plumbers' that have seemingly flooded the country since the EU expanded in 2004 to incorporate 12 countries, many of them former Eastern-bloc.

Racist remarks made by contestants on the Big Brother TV series against Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty have caused widespread outrage. 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 . 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. 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. .

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."

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". 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.

United States of America

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; white 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.

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 1950's and 1960's 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 Asians, Latinos, Arab Americans, Native Hawaiians and ethnic Europeans other than Anglo-Saxon, 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 in America will comprise less than 50% of the total population (Latinos, for example will acount for 25% of the US population). Thinking about race relations in the United States is therefore broadening to include Latin-Americans (the fastest growing ethnic group) and Asian-Americans. At this writing, at least 4 states, California, Texas, Hawaii, and New Mexico (and the District of Columbia) are deemed "majority minority" states, where whites are not the majority 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.

South Africa

See History of South Africa in the apartheid era.

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Switzerland

The Swiss Confederation or Confederatio Helvetica is a nation composed of four subcultural groups: German-speaking (63.7%), French-speaking (20.4%), Italian-speaking (6.5%) and Romansch-speaking (0.5%) (Source: Federal Population Census 2000). With this diversity and its history of neutrality, Switzerland has been seen as a safe refuge for those genuinely fleeing from persecution, and this is backed up by statistics. Switzerland has seen an increase in refugees in recent years, (particularly from Africa), who have claimed asylum directly in Switzerland. In 1992, the federal refugee office registered some 7,000 black Africans requesting asylum. In the first nine months of 2002 the number was 17,000.

The vast majority of asylum seekers are believed by many Swiss politicians to be economic immigrants rather than genuine asylum seekers. Furthermore, the SVP or Swiss People's Party has significantly increased its share of the vote in recent years on a perceived "anti-immigrant" platform. It is best known for opposing Swiss membership in international organisations such as the EU and United Nations and for its campaigning against perceived flaws in the immigration, asylum and penal laws.

Swiss "Confederation Commission Against Racism" which is part of the Swiss "Federal Department of Home Affairs"published a 2004 report, Black People in Switzerland: A Life between Integration and Discrimination (published in German, French, and Italian only). According to this report, discrimination based on skin colour in Switzerland is not exceptional, and affects immigrants decades after their immigration.

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, had 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)

References

1. Discrimination that must be cast away,The Hindu
2. James Silverberg (Nov 1969). "Social Mobility in the Caste System in India: An Interdisciplinary Symposium". The American Journal of Sociology. 75 (3): 443–444. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
3. Srinivas, M.N, Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India by MN Srinivas, Page 32 (Oxford, 1952)
4. Caste in Modern India; And other essays: Page 48. (Media Promoters & Publishers Pvt. Ltd, Bombay; First Published: 1962, 11th Reprint: 1994)
5. "Ethiopian Immigration Cut To Pay For Conflict"
6. ""Channel 4 should have licence withdrawn, says Ken "". "BLINK". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

• Articles lacking sources from December 2006
• Racism