The History of Discrimination or WHO IS IMPACTED BY IT AND WHY?

• Selected examples from the history of Europe and “the rest of the world”

In historical Europe, distinguishing people according to their race was related to the imperial ambitions of the states in power successively discovering and conquering the lands of the uncharted world (outside the European continent). Since the renaissance, the common philosophy held the “European man” superior to all other cultures and races. This European feeling of superiority was maintained and was fully demonstrated in the politics of the colonial powers.

The conquering of foreign lands was labeled the “civilizing” of aboriginals, and consisted of the violent spread of Christianity and the European lifestyle. Local communities were labeled primitive. Thus black African people, Native Americans, Asian Indians and people of the nations of the Far East were perceived as inferior, which is to say, people meant to serve the white European male. Based on these ethnic roots, modern colonial slavery grew and was perpetuated, most especially in North America. Enduring until the 1960’s, it legitimized racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.

In studying the thinkers of “the oldest continent” (!) to the 19th century, the discussion of European superiority is encountered only regarding its role as culture bearer. At the turn of the 20th century, new “scientific” theories evolved attaching European racial superiority to physical attributes, such as suggesting the European brain to be more evolved. Drawing from these theories, German Nazism reached its peak by acknowledging only one legitimate dominant “Nordic” race, precisely indicated by physical features including hair color, nose length, and skull shape. Ultimately, this racial philosophy triggered the slaughter of millions of “substandard” people in Nazi death camps, predominantly Jews, but also Roma and Slavs.

As far as European nationalism is concerned, its beginnings are anchored in the 18th century. German philosophers had been struggling then to find an ideological base for unifying Germany and during that time, made attempts to incorporate a common history with elements of bloodlines, language and shared land (Considering that before in historic Europe, the majority of events took place at the borders of multinational states). Later in the 19th century, a more modern concept of the nation-state was formed. Where before kings and aristocrats competed with each other, the nation-state concept moved the battle amongst individual citizens fighting for their country. The national revival (cultural-political unification and awareness) of single ethnic groups in Europe did not occur simultaneously. It was dependent upon many historical, geopolitical and social factors. Ethnic groups created nations and battled for land and political rights. World War II disrupted this evolution, engulfing Europe in a struggle with extreme racism and nationalism.

The tragedy of the holocaust and the mass murdering of nations acted as a stimulus for founding various international documents on human rights, as racism and racial discrimination became expressly prohibited under the UN (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948), and later the Council of Europe as well (the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950). At the time, many people believed that the tragedy of the Second World War would forever discourage Europeans from racism and extreme nationalism. However, this has not been so. Unfortunately, in the last few decades, genocide (the ordained mass-murdering of nations) has been witnessed in Europe (Serbia and Kosovo), in Asia (Chechnya in Russia and Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan), and in Africa (Rwanda).

• Discrimination based on race and nationality in the history of Slovakia

Slovakia lies in the region presently referred to as Middle Europe, which has traditionally been very geographically and culturally diverse. There were many nations and ethnic groups present in Slovak history cohabitating in a close proximity with Slovaks. Throughout the 19th century, Slovaks and other smaller national and ethnic groups inside the Habsburg monarchy were not extremely successful in asserting their political and cultural rights and were dominated by the Hungarian nation. This process was connected to what was then called “national oppression”, that we could nowadays call “nation-based discrimination” against all non-Hungarian nations in Hungary.

The first Czechoslovak Republic, regarding its multinational character and the international politics of its era, denied many rights to Slovaks and numerous minority groups in the country, holding Czechs above all. These politics, in a certain sense, led to the demise of the Republic when Nazi Germany took advantage of discontent Sudet Germans and used it as motive in the diplomatic game towards the dismissal of Czechoslovakia, sealed by the Munich agreement in 1938.

During the short period of the Slovak State, the regime became woefully famous for the slogan „Česi peši do Prahy“ (“Czechs, run back to Prague”), not to mention the planned-for physical liquidation of Jewish inhabitants. In the period after the Second World War, Czechoslovakia, as well as other countries, oversaw much injustice enacted upon nationals of other-than-Slovak origins (specifically Germans and Hungarians), who were involuntarily repatriated and deprived of their rights on the basis of collective guilt.

Centralized in Prague, communist Czechoslovakia regulated its own “unique” politics towards national minorities (and Slovaks as well). Communist attitudes towards individual minorities differed, and in some cases (for example, the Rutheanian minority) there were policies promoting strict assimilation.

Nevertheless, fewer ethnic groups have experienced as much discrimination and oppression as the Roma population. During the first Czechoslovak Republic many Roma families were forced to settle and dismantle their nomadic lifestyle. During the Slovak State they were mercilessly sent to concentration camps. In Communist Czechoslovakia, Slovak Roma were involuntarily assimilated, relocated in the state to work in mines, resettled and denied cultural and national rights. All this resulted in the severe cultural and social decay of Roma communities, apparent to this day.

• Problems after the year 1989

Ethnic problems and conflicts in the modern history of Slovakia have been attributed to political reasons often “swept under rug”. As a consequence, they were successively uncovered when the rule of democracy and civil freedoms strengthened. An inability of citizens and political leaders to face the onset of such problems (among other things) led to the split of Czechoslovakia. Prejudice and xenophobia (fear of what is foreign, unknown) are other side effects of unsolved ethnic conflicts. Avoiding the issues concerning the lives of the vast Roma minority after the year 1989 has only maintained and deepened the misunderstandings held by the majority of Slovaks. This lack of understanding may very well be the cause of the formation of racial intolerance and discrimination. One can also find the roots of racism in Slovakia in the unresolved historical relationship between the first Slovak state and its [Nazi sympathizing] regime, and the prevailing sympathies it has still today in some portion of the population, including significant political leaders.