The history of discrimination or WHO IS IMPACTED BY IT AND WHY?

• Selected examples from the history of Europe

The history of Europe is full of examples of religious intolerance, discrimination on grounds of belief, and violence and bloodshed in the name of faith.

The truth however, is that in most cases religion has represented only a façade covering the actual (economic or political) reasons for depriving “other-believers” of their rights, and often lives as well. States and their governors exploited religion as a pretense to rob or murder inconvenient or wealthy groups of society.

To mention a few, there were massacres in the middle ages unleashed against the Jews by impoverished kings and aristocrats, and crusades to the “Holy Land” used as an excuse for plunder and self-aggrandizement of knights, monarchs and clergy. The Bartholomeus Night massacre in 1572 has become legendary after 3000 Huguenots (French protestants) were butchered in one night alone in Paris. The persecutions against Catholics in England during the rule of Henry VIII are notorious. Henry VIII had settled an uneasy situation inside his own family by parting from the whole catholic church while his cottars had to follow and convert as well. Later Henry’s Catholic daughter Mary harshly discriminated protestants while another daughter of his, Elisabeth, who was protestant discriminated against Catholics. We could continue finding numerous similar examples.

It is impossible not to mention the Holocaust in the modern age of European history. It was initiated with the depreciation of human and civil rights for Jewish people (ergo discrimination), first on the basis of religion then on the basis of ethnicity. According to Nazi rules, Jews were first defined as a religious group. However, later in the framework of the so called “race code,” they were redefined as an ethnic group. Also, bloodshed and terrorism in Northern Ireland are connected to discrimination on the grounds of religious affiliation.

• Religious discrimination in the history of Slovakia

Discrimination on the basis of religion has occurred in Slovak history as well, either inside the notorious publication, the Jewish codex (1941), legalizing discriminatory behavior towards Jewish population within the Slovak State, or in form of political discrimination of Protestants by the populist regime during the same period of time. Many people still recall the communist regime in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic discriminating all believers who bravely claimed their religious affiliation in public.

Political persecutions, humiliation in employment, impeding families' access to more attractive education, imprisonment, blackmailing and mental coercion were the methods the communist regime used to deal with people who did not want to “convert” to atheism. However, much less known is the history of smaller groups of people who were specifically affected by the rule of the same regime. The discrimination of Greek-Catholics in favor of Orthodox Catholics in eastern Slovakia during the post World War II period is relatively lesser known by the general public.

• Problems after the year 1989

After the fall of the communist regime, new movements have begun streaming across the Slovak border. Of these unfamiliar religions and philosophies, some are more of a mockery, while others are already well-established concepts in foreign countries. Fear of the unknown, common unpleasant personal experience with some of these groups, as well as bad diversity management lead towards the frequent political and social condemnation of all new and underrepresented religions in our country. Without exception, they are labeled “a sect”, and it becomes apparent that their members experience discrimination in various areas of social life.

• Discrimination and the War on Terrorism

After the attacks on the WTC on 11 September 2001, the issue of Muslim discrimination justified by the War on Terror has become topical in the western world. Often impacted are loyal citizens of European countries who have nothing to do with actual fundamentalism.