Racism(1) - discrimination against individuals, public groups or parts of the population or human groups, the policy of persecution, humiliation, infliction of disgrace, violence, incitement of hostility and hostility, dissemination of defamatory information, infliction of damage on the basis of skin color, ethnic, religious or national affiliation.

Racism uses external differences as the main reason for denying equal treatment to members of another group on the basis of so-called "scientific", "biological" or "moral" characteristics, considering them different from their own group and inherently inferior. Such racist arguments are often used to justify privileged treatment of one group. This group is usually preferred. Usually, the granting of a privileged position is accompanied by statements that the group is threatened (usually in its subjective view) - in comparison with another group in order to put the latter "in its place" (from a social and territorial point of view).

Racism is usually understood to mean the above actions sponsored by the authorities or the state religion, and not any manifestations.

AT modern world racism is the strictest public and in many countries not only racist practice, but also the preaching of racism is prosecuted by law.

Racism believes that interracial hybrids have less healthy, "unhealthy" heredity and therefore opposes miscegenation.

Currently, the definition of racism is not associated with the concept due to the biological uncertainty of the latter. The concept of racism is applied broadly, as a set of actions or parts of it, historically associated with the three-century practice of racism in relation to blacks in.

Despite numerous attempts to further expand the definition of racism, it is not customary to disseminate it, professional or age groups, on etc.

The definition of racism also does not apply to historical. For example, the definition of "Russian great power, national politics or how racism looks obvious, although there are signs of racism.

At the same time, the policy of discrimination, persecution and profiling of ethnic and religious minorities (for example, “persons of Caucasian nationality”) in modern times is qualified in the documents of international and Russian human rights organizations as racism, and such word use does not cause serious resistance.

Racism (obsolete)

Racism (2) obsolete- a doctrine and ideology that affirms the physical and mental inequality of human beings. As a consequence of this, the belonging of a person to one or another anthropological type is considered important in determining his social standing. It is considered obsolete, since the very concept of races is considered indefinite by modern biology. Inside the so-called. races and differences more than between the so-called. races and many differences that were considered racial, in fact turned out to be caused by historical, social or economic reasons.

Basic principles of racist ideology

1. Belief in the superiority of one, less often several races - over others. This belief is usually combined with a hierarchical classification of racial groups.

2. The idea that the superiority of some and the inferiority of others are of a biological or bioanthropological nature. This conclusion follows from the belief that superiority and inferiority are ineradicable and cannot be changed, for example, under the influence of the social environment or upbringing.

3. The idea that collective biological inequality is reflected in social order and culture, and that biological superiority is expressed in the creation of a "superior civilization", which in itself indicates biological superiority. This idea establishes a direct relationship between biology and social conditions.

4. Belief in the legitimacy of the domination of the "superior" races over the "inferior".

5. Belief that there are "pure" races, and mixing inevitably has an effect on them bad influence(decline, degeneration, etc.)

Etymology and history of the concept

The very word "racism" was first recorded French dictionary Larousse in the year and was interpreted as "a system that affirms the superiority of one racial group over others."

The founder of racist theory is considered to be the one who considered the historical process from the point of view of the struggle of races. Differences in cultures, languages, economic models, etc. Gobineau explained the mental characteristics of the races of their creators. De Gobineau considered the Nordic race to be the best, and he explained the greatness of civilizations by the assumption that at the time of the civilizational upsurge, the ruling elites in these countries were Nordics. The book "Racism" by the French philosopher Albert Memmi made a great contribution to the definition of the modern concept of racism.

Racism in the USA

Negroes: From Slavery to the Civil Rights Movement

Significant progress in overcoming racism in the United States began in the 1960s, when, as a result of the success of the struggle for civil rights, significant political and socio-economic measures have been taken to ensure equality and bridge the age-old chasm that has separated African Americans, American Indians and other minorities from the mainstream American life. At the same time, racism remains one of the hottest topics in American public life today.

Olga Nagornyuk

White and black racism. What's this?

The word "racist" is firmly established in our vocabulary. But does everyone know what racism is, and how did the idea come about to judge a person depending on skin color? If you are among those who cannot answer these questions, look for them in our article.

What is racism: definition of the term

At the heart of racism is the judgment of the inequality of people of different races. Racists are sure that there are races that are far superior to all others in their intellectual and physical development, and therefore their representatives are worthy of a dominant position in society. Thus, Americans throughout almost their entire history put the Indians and Negroes on the lowest stage of development, relegating them to the role of slaves and second-class people. And only in the second half of the last century, this attitude has undergone significant changes.

There are many classifications of races. The most common of them involves the division into three large groups:

• Caucasoids are people with white skin color, descendants of Europeans. These include the French, the British, the Spaniards, the Germans;

• Mongoloids are Asians with a yellowish skin tone and a narrow slit of the eyes. Representatives of this race are Mongols, Chinese, Buryats, Evenks;

• Negroids are dark-skinned Africans with coarse curly hair. The Negroid race includes the population of the Congo, Algeria, Libya, Zambia, Nigeria and other countries of the "black" continent.

The beginnings of racism appeared in the XVI-XVII centuries. To justify slavery, the ruling classes brought a religious underpinning to it, arguing that Negroes are the descendants of the biblical character Ham, who laid the foundation for such a concept as rudeness.

An attempt to substantiate racism from a scientific point of view was made by the French historian Joseph de Gobineau, who singled out the Nordic race as the dominant race - tall, pale-skinned blondes with an elongated face and blue eyes.

Later, this doctrine formed the basis of the official ideology of the Third Reich, when the Aryans, who were considered descendants of the Nords, were proclaimed the highest race. We know from history what this interpretation of Gobineau's theory led to: the mass extermination of Jews in the ghetto, the forced sterilization of the Gypsies, the genocide against the Slavs.

Racism: causes

Scientists studying the causes of racism put forward three theories of the origin of this phenomenon:

1. Biological. Based on the fact that man, according to the teachings of Darwin, descended from a monkey and is part of the animal world, scientists concluded that the human individual unconsciously follows the law of ecological isolation that reigns among animals, that is, the prohibition of the formation of interspecific pairs and mixing of species.
2. Social. The economic crisis and the influx of emigrants from the third world countries, which increase competition in the labor market, inevitably lead to the emergence of xenophobic sentiments (hatred towards representatives of another race). Now we are seeing a similar phenomenon in Germany, which is flooded with Arab refugees.
3. Psychological. Psychologists who are looking for an answer to the question of what racism is, argue that a person, having negative qualities, tries to look for them in others. Moreover, feeling guilty for this, he tries to shift it onto others, that is, he is looking for a "scapegoat". On the scale of society, such a "scapegoat" becomes a whole race or a certain group of people.

All three theories have the right to exist and in a complex explain where racism came from in the world.

Racism in the USA

In the entire history of mankind, perhaps the most striking manifestations of racist sentiment were observed in Germany during the time of Adolf Hitler and in the United States of America throughout the history of this country.

Protestants who emigrated to America in the 15th-16th centuries. because of the persecution of the Catholic Church or just in search of a better life, over time, they felt like the owners of new lands, driving the native inhabitants of America - the Indians - into reservations, and making black Africans slaves.

The division into "whites" and "blacks" in the United States existed until the second half of the 20th century. African Americans did not have voting rights for a long time, there were establishments “only for whites” in the country, people with dark color skin refused to receive higher education and were not hired for highly paid jobs. For almost a century, the Ku Klux Klan organization operated in the country, whose representatives preached the ideas of racism and did not hesitate to commit crimes for the sake of the superiority of the white race.

Despite the abolition of slavery in 1865, the real upheaval in the minds of Americans occurred in the 1960s, when the civil rights campaign unfolded in the United States. After that, black citizens of America appeared in the Senate, and one of them even became the head of the American nation and took the presidency.

The xenophobia of the white population of America in relation to immigrants from Africa gave rise to a response in the latter - black racism. The fighter for equality Marcus Garvey, who preached it, called on all African Americans to return to their historical homeland so as not to mix "black" blood with the blood of "white devils."

Racism in Russia

The ideas of racism have not bypassed Russia either. During the reign of Nicholas II, representatives of the Jewish nationality enjoyed special dislike among the inhabitants of the empire. In 1910, a ban was issued on the assignment of officer rank to baptized Jews, and two years later, their children and grandchildren were deprived of this right.

In the era of socialism in the Soviet Union, the ideas of interracial tolerance and universal equality were proclaimed. But it's in words. In fact, representatives of the Slavic peoples felt their superiority in relation to the Jews, Gypsies, Chukchi, although formally their rights were not infringed.

Today, racism in Russia continues to exist, it has only changed its focus: today, emigrants from countries Central Asia, Caucasus and Africa. Natives of these regions experienced first hand what racism is in the interpretation of skinheads.

Football racism

Racist ideas have crossed the borders of individual states, spreading almost everywhere the globe and permeating every area of ​​our lives. Football racism, when fans humiliate representatives of a different nationality playing in a team, has become commonplace these days. The slogan "Black goals don't count!", the beating of black players by fans, the humiliation of "black" legionnaires by football functionaries - all this is present today both on the football field and beyond.

Nigerian Oguchi Onyewu, who played for one of the Belgian teams, suffered because of the color of his skin: the football player was beaten by his own fans. Indian Vikash Doraso stopped playing for France when a banner addressed to him was unfurled during the match advising him to sell peanuts on the subway. Brazilian football player Julio Cesar almost left the Borussia Dortmund due to the fact that he was not allowed into the local night club, saying that he has the wrong skin color.

Racism is nothing but a manifestation human limitations and stupidity. Among other races and nationalities there are a lot of talented and highly intelligent people whose contribution to the development of science, culture and art is no less than their white counterparts. Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, Toni Morrison and May Carol Jemison, Derek Walcott and Granville Woods. Are you familiar with these names? If not, then it is worth knowing more about them, and then the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe superiority of the white race will disappear by itself.

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Mankind has come a long way and overcome many difficulties. Whether it's a war, an epidemic, natural disasters, man-made disasters, we've been through this. But in all these years, we seem to have missed the point that all the troubles we face are of our own making. It is we humans who so violently inflame the hatred within ourselves that is the cause of most of the destruction.

While the international community is working hard to spread the message of love, their message seems to go unheeded - violence, murder, racism, homophobia, war crimes occur daily in our time. And in all this confrontation with racism, not a single person deserves. Essentially, racism is prejudice and discrimination against people of a particular race. Although we have overcome radical racism, it still prevails in many parts of the world. Here are some of the most racist countries in the world -

Any country can do a lot to stop racism, and it is very sad and heartbreaking that racism in South Africa has outlasted Mandela, who fought so hard all his life. Thanks to the anti-apartheid movement, the legal system of the state was changed and now the manifestation of racism is considered illegal, but it still remains a reality of life.

As you know, people in South Africa are racist, and in some places the prices of food and goods are set depending on the race of the person. Recently, a group of people were detained in South Africa for inciting violence against whites. This only proves that racism is outside the legal framework.

Being rich country, Saudi Arabia has some obvious benefits to poor and developing countries. But Saudi Arabia is using these privileges to its advantage. As you know, Saudi Arabia attracted workers from developing countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, etc., who were mistreated and lived in inhuman conditions.

In addition, the citizens of Saudi Arabia are racist towards the poorer Arab countries. Some time after the Syrian revolution, many Syrians took refuge in Saudi Arabia, where they are treated very badly. The saddest thing is that these people cannot go anywhere with their complaints.

The country of freedom and courage also appeared on the list of the most racist countries in the world. Although we look at the current picture in the United States through rose-colored glasses, and it seems very rosy, the real state of affairs is very different. In the far south and midwest regions such as Arizona, Missouri, Mississippi, etc., racism is a daily occurrence.

Being against Asians, Africans, South Americans, and even regular US residents is the essence of Native Americans. Cases of hostility and hatred due to skin color are constantly increasing, and until we change people's thinking, no law will change anything.

They probably still suffer from a superiority complex, because at some point in history they happened to practically rule the whole world. And today the UK is one of the most racist countries in the world, especially towards the people they call "desi". These are people from the Indian subcontinent.

In addition, they show hostility towards the Americans, whom they contemptuously call "Yankees", the French, Romanians, Bulgarians, etc. It is amazing that even now any political party in the UK promotes the question of whether a person wants to live next to immigrants, which leads to racial hatred and racism.

Australia does not look like a country that can be racist, but no one knows the bitter truth better than the Indians. Most of the people who live in Australia have migrated here from other countries. And yet they believe that any new person who migrates or moves to Australia to earn a living must return to their home country.

In 2009, cases of harassment and attacks against natives of India increased in Australia. Almost 100 such cases were reported, and in 23 of them racial overtones were identified. Laws have become tougher and now the situation has become much better. But such incidents only show how selfish humanity can become, satisfying its own needs and hurting others.

The Rwanda genocide in 1994 is a stain of shame in the history of mankind. It was a terrible time when two ethnic race The Rwandans were in conflict with each other and this conflict resulted in the horrific death of over 800,000 people. The two Tutsi tribes and the Hutu were the only ones involved in the genocide, in which the Tutsi tribe was the victim and the Hutu were the perpetrators of the crime.

Tensions between the tribes remain today, and even a small spark can re-ignite the flames of hatred in the country.

Japan today is good developed country first world. But the fact that she still suffers from xenophobia sets her back many years. Although racism and discrimination are prohibited under Japanese laws and regulations, the government itself practices what is called "affirmative discrimination." This is a very low tolerance for refugees and people from other countries.

It is also a known fact that Japan goes out of their way to keep Muslims out of their country as they think that Islam does not fit their culture. Such obvious cases of discrimination are widespread in the country and nothing can be done about it.

If you sow hatred, you will only reap hatred. Germany is a living example of the effect hatred can have on people's minds. Today, many years after Hitler's rule, Germany remains one of the most racist countries in the world. The Germans have a feeling of hatred towards all foreigners and still believe in the superiority of the German nation.

Neo-Nazis still exist and openly declare anti-Semitic ideas. Neo-Nazism beliefs may lead to a sudden awakening of those who thought German racist ideas had died with Hitler. The German government and the UN are working hard to cover up this banned activity.

Israel has been the center of controversy for many years. The reason for this was the crimes committed against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. After the Second World War, a new state was created for the Jews and the natives had to become refugees in their own land. Thus began the current conflict between Israel and Palestine. But now we can see very clearly how Israel treated people cruelly and discriminated against them on any basis.

Xenophobia and "nationalist" feelings still prevail in Russia. Even today, Russians are racist towards those people whom they do not consider to be native Russians. In addition, they experience racial hostility towards Africans, Asians, Caucasians, Chinese, etc. This leads to hatred and further serious crimes against humanity.

The Russian government along with the UN have tried their best to prevent such incidents of racism, but they still continue to appear not only in remote areas, but even in large cities.

Pakistan is a country where the majority of the population professes Islam, but even there there are numerous conflicts between Sunni and Shia sects. For a long time, these groups have been at war with each other, but no measures are being taken to stop this. In addition, the whole world knows the long war with neighboring India.

There have been incidents of racism between Indians and Pakistanis. Along with this, other races, such as Africans and Hispanics, are discriminated against.

A country with such great diversity is also on the list of the most racist countries in the world. Indians are the most racist people in the world. Even in our time, a child born into an Indian family is taught to honor any white person and despise the dark-skinned one. This is how racism against Africans and other black nations was born.

A light-skinned foreigner is treated like a deity, while a dark-skinned one is treated in the opposite way. Among the Indians themselves, there are also conflicts between castes and people from different regions, such as the conflict between Marathas and Biharis. Yet Indians will not recognize this fact and take pride in the diversity of cultures and their acceptance. It's time for us to open our eyes to what the situation really is and take into account the constructive saying "Athithi DevoBhava" (accept the guest as God).

This list shows that no existing laws and regulations, no document can change us. We must ourselves change ourselves and our thinking for a better future and make every effort so that not a single human life in the future suffers because of someone's selfishness and sense of superiority.

Social video about how we are every day in ordinary life facing racism. All people are the same - it's time to think about it.

Among the various ideas about the subject of history, a special place is occupied by the views on this issue developed by Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov (1912-1992) and most fully expounded by him in the book Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere of the Earth (L., 1989; 1990; 1994, etc.). as subjects historical process formations appear in it, which he calls ethnoi and superethnoi. But he understands the word "ethnos" differently than it was stated above. In essence, he refuses to give any clear definition of this concept, which allows him to call whatever he pleases an ethnos. The same applies to the concept of superethnos.

But if you take a closer look, you will find that in most cases he calls superethnoi those formations that O. Spengler called cultures, and A.J. Toynbee - civilizations. However, unlike the latter, L. N. Gumilyov, no matter how he himself denies it, understands ethnic groups and superethnoi as special breeds of people, i.e., in essence, as races. In itself, the view of ethnic groups as special breeds of people is not yet racism. But only in this way the views of L.N. Gumilyov is far from being exhausted by ethnic groups. In his historiosophical, and not only historiosophical, works, there is undoubtedly an element of racism, which has already been noted in the literature.

But if L.N. Gumilyov did not directly declare races to be the subjects of the historical process, it was the people who did it. "Biological history human races, - wrote the German anthropologist and sociologist Ludwig Woltmann (1871 -1907) in Political Anthropology (Russian translation: St. Petersburg, 1905; M., 2000), - is the true and basic history of states. All this forces us to consider the question of the racial division of mankind and its influence on history.

1.9.2. Racial division of mankind

The division of mankind into races has always attracted no less, and perhaps even more attention than its division into ethnic groups. Before proceeding to the consideration of racist concepts, it is necessary to dwell at least very briefly on the nature of this division.

The very word "race" was used for a long time both in everyday communication and in literature, including scientific literature, to designate a wide variety of groups of people, not only the races themselves, but also ethnic groups, groups of ethnic groups, cultural-linguistic and linguistic communities, classes, etc. Only in the XX century. a more or less definite meaning was attached to it.

Races, as they are understood in anthropological science, are a collection of people, each of which has a special set of inherited bodily (morphological) features. This set makes all people belonging to one or another race related, and at the same time distinguishes them all from people belonging to other races.

It has long been a tradition to divide all of humanity into three large races: black, or Negroid, yellow, or Mongoloid, and white, or Caucasoid. AT recent times anthropologists increasingly as a race first order, along with the Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid races, they distinguish the Australoid, or Veddo-Australoid race.

Each of these great races, or races of the first order, is divided into several groups, which are usually called small races, or races of the second order, and these, in turn, are subdivided into even smaller units (groups of anthropological types and anthropological types). So, for example, among Caucasians, the Atlanto-Baltic, White Sea-Baltic, Central European, Balkan-Caucasian and Indo-Mediterranean small races are most often distinguished.

To date, there are several other biological classifications of people in anthropological science. So, for example, according to one of them, all of humanity is primarily divided into two trunks: the eastern - Amero-Asiatic and the western - Euro-African. In turn, the first of them is divided into Americanoid and Asian, and the second - into Caucasoid, Negroid and Australoid branches. The branches are subdivided into local races, of which there are 25 in total, and the latter into groups of populations.

In what follows, I will adhere to the traditional division. And not only because none of the new ones has received general recognition in science, but primarily due to the fact that it was the starting point of almost all, if not all, racist concepts.

Among the bodily hereditary traits that distinguish one large race from another are skin color, hair shape, degree of development of hair on the body, features of the facial skeleton, as well as the shape and structure soft parts face (nose, lips).

Negroids are characterized by dark skin, curly hair, medium development of body hair, prognathism (protrusion of the upper jaw forward), moderately protruding cheekbones, a wide nose and thick lips. Mongoloids are characterized by yellowish skin, straight coarse hair, weak body hair, strongly protruding cheekbones, moderately thick lips, and the presence of a “Mongolian” fold of the upper eyelid (epicanthus). Signs of Caucasians are light skin, wavy hair, strong body hair, orthognathism (lack of prognathism), weak cheekbones, narrow nose, thin lips.

Racial differences affect only external signs, completely without touching the important morphological and physiological features of a person. Therefore, as all genuine scientists unanimously believe, all modern people, without the slightest exception, regardless of racial differences, form one biological species - Homo sapiens, or a subspecies of this species - Homo sapiens sapiens.

1.9.3. The essence of racism and its main varieties

For a long time no one doubted the existence of races. But in the last decade, a significant number of American anthropologists have come out with the assertion that in reality there are no races and that the recognition of the real existence of races is nothing but racism. One can understand these people - this is a kind of reaction to the long domination of racist ideas in the United States, which found expression in the most diverse forms of discrimination, primarily against blacks.

But we cannot agree with them. Moreover, it is impossible not to condemn the methods used by them to fight for the approval of such views. Scientists who recognize the existence of races are declared "scientific racists", persecuted, expelled from universities, lose their jobs. In this there is something very similar to what was once asserted among us by the infamous teaching of T.D. Lysenko about heredity, when the existence of not only genes, but sometimes even chromosomes, was denied. But the existence of genes and chromosomes was and remains a fact.

The existence of races of man is also an undoubted fact. And there is absolutely nothing racist about admitting this. Racism begins only where and when one of the races is declared superior, and the rest - inferior. Since racist concepts were originally created exclusively by Europeans, the white was the highest race in them. Below it was placed yellow, and even lower - black. But the racists were not limited to the big races. Among the same Caucasian race, one or another minor race (or even its subdivision) could be declared by them to be first-rate, and the rest - second-rate and third-rate.

The supporters of this view draw a distinction between races according to the degree of their hereditary spiritual endowment, according to the degree of their inherited ability for spiritual and material creativity. Sometimes psychoracism is cited as an example of the latest, refined form of racism. At the same time, they lose sight of the fact that any racism was, first of all, psychoracism. It's just that some of the old racists rigidly associated the presence or absence of spiritual giftedness with the presence or absence of a certain set of external bodily hereditary traits. But not everyone did so.

Perception of the main difference between the races in the degree of their spiritual endowment made it possible to declare any set of people a special race. As a result, in racist constructions, such groups of people often appear as races, which in reality are not. If we try to give some classification of racist concepts, we can distinguish three main varieties.

The first kind of racism consists in the fact that real existing real races, whether large or small, are characterized as superior and inferior. it real-racial racism, or, in short, racism.

In the second variety of racism, either all or only some ethnic groups are declared races, and then some of them are called higher races, while others are called lower. This kind of racism can be called ethnic racism, or ethnoracism. Here the original premise itself is wrong, to say nothing of everything else.

The boundaries between ethnic groups never coincide with the boundaries between races, especially since racial differences are, due to the existence of a large number of transitional groups and constant mixing between races, extremely relative. Of course, one or another ethnic group may consist of people belonging to one large, less often - one small race. But no race all members of which would belong to the same ethnic group. All large ethnic groups are heterogeneous in their anthropological composition.

So, for example, among the Russians there are representatives of at least three small races: the Atlanto-Baltic, the White Sea-Baltic and the Central European. And none of these races is inherent only in Russians. The Atlanto-Baltic race is an important element of the anthropological composition of Norwegians, Swedes, Icelanders, Danes, Scots, Belarusians, Latvians, Estonians, and is found among Finns, Germans and French. A significant part of the Germans, Austrians, northern Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, and Ukrainians belong to the Central European race. There is no coincidence not only between races and ethnic groups, but also between races and language families.

Finally, races special breeds people could be announced and social classes were announced. At the same time, of course, representatives of the ruling class were ranked as the superior race, and the exploited majority of society - as the inferior. The class division of society itself was declared to be derived from the racial division.

It was argued that a certain group of people became the dominant stratum of society due to high hereditary spiritual talent. All the rest did not possess such qualities, which led to their humiliated position. This kind of racism might be called social class racism or, in short, socioracism. Some racist ideologues went even further, arguing that the social division of labor is also based on the division into races. Each profession is practiced by people belonging to a special breed.

All three varieties of racism mentioned above were not only closely related to each other, but most often mutually intertwined. In almost every racist concept, elements of real-racial, ethnic and social-class racism peacefully coexisted and coexisted.

Like any false concept, racism was based on inflating, absolutizing certain moments of reality, which allowed it to pass itself off as the truth. It is a fact, for example, that there are people who are more naturally gifted and less gifted. It is also a fact that in some cases such talent is inherited. There is no doubt that in a class society there are differences between people belonging to different social strata in the level of education, culture, and so on. Peasants, for example, in a feudal society were deprived of the opportunity to learn and therefore remained illiterate from generation to generation.

Above, we have already discussed the concept of cultural relativism, according to which the cultures of all human groups are absolutely equivalent, they, in principle, cannot be divided into lower and higher (1.6.4.). The anti-colonialist and anti-racist pathos of this concept is quite clear. But that doesn't make her richer.

The fact is that, for example, by the XIX century. different socio-historical organisms were at different stages of development. One part of humanity entered the era of capitalism, while other parts lagged behind in their development. Accordingly, the cultures of different human groups differed as more and less developed.

And in a number of cases, a certain correspondence was observed between the level of development of certain human groups and their racial composition. By the 19th century without exception, all Europeans have reached the level of civilization. As for the Negroids, most of them still lived at that time in a pre-class society. And when Europeans encountered a living class society among the Negroids, it always turned out that its emergence was associated with the influence of civilizations created by the Caucasians.

The existence of class societies among a significant part of the Mongoloids was undoubted. And there was no evidence that would indicate that their occurrence is associated with the influence of Caucasians. But the level of development of these class societies (as well as the few class societies of Negroids) was lower than that reached by the peoples Western Europe to early XIX in.

Using the concepts of one of the modern concepts of social development, we can say that by this time, without exception, all the class societies of Negroids and Mongoloids remained traditional, or agrarian, while the class societies of Western Europe were already industrial. Not a single sociohistorical organism of Negroids or Mongoloids has independently reached the level of an industrial society.

It is a mistake to assume that racist concepts arose on the basis of a generalization of all these facts. Their appearance was associated with the action of factors that are not related to knowledge in general, scientific in particular. The basic postulates of racism never followed from the facts. They were dictated by the interests of certain social groups. The ideologues of racism did not generalize the facts. They simply selected those that seemed suitable to them in order to substantiate pre-prepared provisions.

We find ethno-racist ideas in that part of the Bible that Christians call the "Old Testament." The Jews are presented there as God's chosen people. Ethnoracism is still an important element of the ideology of Orthodox Judaism. Adherents of the latter divide all mankind into Jews, who alone are considered real people, and goyim - not quite people or even not people at all.

Elements of ethnoracism are present in Aristotle's "Politics" and the works of some other ancient thinkers. The ideology of feudal society is permeated with socioracist ideas. Who does not know the characteristic opposition of the "blue" noble blood to the ordinary blood of commoners, "white bone" and "black bone", characteristic of this society.

But racist concepts in exact sense This word appeared only in the 19th century. The United States was their home. And they were created in order to justify the slavery of blacks. This American racism was basically real-racial. I will not dwell on it, because, as a rule, it had no direct relation to the problem of the subject of the historical process.

1.9.4. Racist historiosophy

The first historiosophical racist concept was created by the Frenchman Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816 - 1882) and expounded by him in the four-volume work "Experience on the inequality of human races" (1853-1855; Russian translation: M., 2001). He considered the entire history of mankind primarily as a struggle between races, which stems from their biological nature. In this struggle, the fittest, the most perfect, win.

The races most likely originated from different progenitors and are not equal in their abilities. The lowest is black. Somewhat more developed - yellow. The highest and only capable of progress is white, among which the Aryan race stands out, and the Germans constitute the elite of the Aryans.

It was the whites, and specifically the Aryans, who created all ten (according to J. A. Gobineau) civilizations known in the history of mankind, which are considered by him in the following order: Indian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Hellenic, Chinese, Italian, German, Allegan, Mexican, andean. Creating one or another civilization, the Aryans captured areas with a different racial composition. As a result, they mixed with representatives of the lower races, which led to the degeneration of the Aryans, their loss of their original energy and, as a result, to the collapse of the civilization they created. This is how the Middle Eastern civilizations, Ancient Greece, Rome died.

The lower strata of society were primarily subject to degeneration. Aristocrats, on the other hand, always tried to maintain racial purity, which allowed them to preserve their original energy. Raso-racism in J. A. Gobineau is combined with socio-racism, but with the predominance of the former. The lower races are unable not only to create a civilization, but even to assimilate the higher culture that has already been created. The peoples who are now savage are forever doomed to be in that state.

In the concept of J. Gobineau there are two subjects of history: race and civilization. But at the heart of the history of civilizations lies the history of races. It is the racial factor that determines the historical fate of civilizations: their emergence, flourishing and death. Races are not just subjects of history, the racial factor is the source of its development. So in J. Gobineau we are faced with the concept of racial determinism.

After J. Gobineau, racist ideas became quite widespread. They were developed and promoted by the French sociologist and psychologist Gustave Lebon (1841 - 1931) in his work “The Psychology of the Crowd” (1895; Russian translation: Psychology of Peoples and Masses. St. Petersburg, 1895; 1995; under the original title // Psychology of the Crowd. M., 1908).

"primitive races, - he wrote, “those who do not find the slightest trace of culture and who have settled on that era of primitive animality, which our ancestors experienced in the Stone Age: such are the present-day Fijians and Australians. In addition to the primitive races, there are lower races, the main representatives of which are blacks. They are only capable of the beginnings of civilization, but only the beginnings. They have never been able to rise above the completely barbaric forms of civilization. To middle races we include Chinese, Japanese, Mongols and Semitic peoples. Through the Assyrians, Mongols, Chinese, Arabs, they created high types of civilizations that could be surpassed by European nations. Among higher races only Indo-European peoples can take the place. As in antiquity, in the era of the Greeks and Romans, so at the present time they alone proved capable of great discoveries in the field of art, science and industry. We owe it only to them high level that civilization has reached today. between four large groups, which we have just listed, no merging is possible; the mental chasm separating them is obvious.”

The idea of ​​the inequality of human races was defended by the famous French anthropologist Armand de Catrfages (1810-1892). His book "The Unity of the Human Race" was translated into Russian (M., 1861) and found supporters in Russia, and, oddly enough, even among some representatives of the democratic camp. This position was taken by the rather well-known publicist Varfolomey Alexandrovich Zaitsev (1842-1882) in a review of this work by A. de Catrfage (see: Zaitsev V.A. Selected works in 2 vols. T. 1. M., 1934 ).

His views were immediately subjected to harshest criticism in the works of other representatives of the democratic camp, in particular, in an article by Maxim Alekseevich Antonovich (1835 - 1918) in the journal Sovremennik (1865. No. 2). And the poet Dmitry Dmitrievich Minaev (1835-1889), who adhered to democratic convictions, brought out in one of his satirical poems a hero who

Following the gloomy nihilist
Said that the Negro is cattle,
Hardly worth worrying about.

Racist concepts were developed by the English aristocrat Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855 - 1927) in the two-volume essay "Fundamentals of the Nineteenth Century" (1899), which glorified the "Teutonic" race that created the highest culture, the book "Aryan worldview" (Russian translation. M., 1913) and a number of other works. In Russia, his ideas were promoted by a writer, musical critic and the philosopher Emilij Karlovich Medtner (1872-1936), who wrote under the pseudonym Wolfing, in articles collected in the book Modernism and Music. Articles critical and polemical (1907-1910). Appendix (1911) "(M., 1912).

Already mentioned above, L. Voltman in his "Political Anthropology" and many other ideologues of racism tried to put the Darwinian theory of natural selection at the service of this concept. But no one succeeded in proving that races played the role of subjects of historical development, because they never were. In general, the racial composition of societies had practically no effect on the course of history. The backwardness of the Negroid and Mongoloid societies from the Western European one, which was quite clearly manifested by the 19th century, was in no way connected with the racial characteristics of their human composition.

Along with and together with real-racist and ethno-racist constructions, socio-racist concepts have become widespread. In France, they were developed by a prominent representative of the so-called. anthroposociology Georges Vache de Lapouge (1854 - 1936). Another ardent propagandist of social class racism was the German sociologist Otto Ammon (1842-1916). According to his views, the process of "estate" (class) stratification is entirely subordinate to the natural organic law of selection and survival of the fittest and the biological law of the struggle for existence.

An adherent of socioracism was the Russian religious philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948), who spoke enthusiastically about the work of J. Gobineau. “Culture,” he wrote in The Philosophy of Inequality: Letters to Enemies on Social Philosophy (1923), “is not the work of one person and one generation. Culture exists in our blood. Culture is a matter of race and racial selection. "Enlightenment" and "revolutionary" consciousness .. obscured for scientific knowledge race meaning. But objective, disinterested science must recognize that the nobility exists in the world not only as a social class with certain interests, but as a qualitative mental and physical type, as a thousand-year-old culture of soul and body. The existence of a "white bone" is not only a class prejudice, it is an irrefutable and indestructible anthropological fact.

All the ideas discussed above, and above all the views of J. A. de Gobineau, formed the basis of the ideology of German fascism, which can be clearly seen in the works of Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945) "My Struggle" (1925; Russian translations: Kaunas, b. Moscow, 1998) and Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946) “The Myth of the 20th Century” (1930; Russian translation: Tallinn, 1998). More recently, a collection of works by the famous German racist Hans Friedrich Karl Günther (1891 - 1968) “Selected Works on Racology” (M., 2002) appeared in Russian, which includes such pearls as “Nordic Idea”, “Raciology of the German People” , "Race and Style", "Choice married couple for happiness in marriage and improvement of heredity”, etc.

Racism, unfortunately, cannot be attributed to the number of phenomena of the past. He is alive even now. And the saddest thing is that the ideas of racism are actively promoted now in our country. We also have a racist historiosophy.

As an example, one can cite the extensive opus of the candidate of philosophical sciences Viktor Nikolayevich Bezverkhy, entitled "Philosophy of History". Here's where it starts:

“Like sparkling stars in the sky of history, civilizations, states, peoples arise and disappear, leaving behind historical legends, cultural monuments that inexorable time brings to us through the haze of centuries. The stars of the first magnitude include models of the cultures of the main trunk of white people: the Sumerians, the Hitto-Trojans, the Etruscans, the Scythians, the Sarmatians, the Russians and its offshoots: the Greeks, Romans, Germans, and the British. Material and spiritual culture is a system of artificially created (non-biological) means and mechanisms for adapting to the environment of thinking people in the struggle for survival both with the forces of nature and with their own kind. The culture created by white people is assimilated by yellow people, degraded by black people and destroyed by bastards. The collective soul of a consanguineous society (mono-ethnic concentrate) creates flourishing models of cultures, and if the mono-ethnic concentrate is in an isolate, it encourages members of the society to conquer. The conquest of other peoples and a quiet life in a well-organized state dilute the concentrate with other ethnic groups and bastards, which leads to the death of cultural models.

Racism is a psychology, ideology and social practice based on anti-scientific, misanthropic ideas and ideas about the physical and psychological inequality of human races, about the admissibility and necessity of the domination of “higher” races over “lower” ones. Racism and nationalism are intertwined. By absolutizing the secondary external hereditary characteristics of a particular race (skin color, hair, head structure, etc.), do the ideologists of racism ignore the main features of the biological and physiological structure of a person (functions of the brain, nervous system, psychological organization, etc.)? which are the same for all people.

Modern racism is a product of the capitalist era. It has its own background, going back to the past of mankind. The idea of ​​the inherent inferiority of individual human groups, which is the essence of modern racist ideas, arose already in the most ancient class societies, although it was expressed in a different form than in the 20th century. So, in ancient Egypt, the social inequality of slaves and their owners was explained by belonging to different breeds of people. in ancient Greece and Ancient Rome it was believed that slaves, as a rule, possess only brute physical strength, in contrast to masters endowed with a highly developed intellect. In the Middle Ages, the feudal lords cultivated the views of the "blood" superiority of the nobles over the mob, the concepts of "blue blood", "white" and "black bone" were widely used.

Already in the 16th century. Spanish conquerors America, to justify the barbaric cruelty towards the Indians, put forward a "theory" about the inferiority of the "redskins", who were declared an "inferior race". Racist theories justified aggression, the seizure of foreign territories, the ruthless extermination of the peoples of the colonies and dependent countries. Racism acted as the most important ideological weapon in the struggle against the conquered peoples. The military-technical and organizational-political advantage of the European countries and the United States led to the emergence of a sense of superiority among the colonialists over the enslaved peoples, representatives of the Negroid or Mongoloid race, most often it took the form of racial superiority. As for the Africans, it was only at the end of the 18th century that - the beginning of the 19th century, when there was a struggle to ban the slave trade, a theory was created about their inferiority in comparison with Europeans. It was needed by the supporters of slavery and the slave trade in order to justify the legality of the continued existence of the slave trade. Prior to this, Africans as a whole were not treated as an inferior race.

Theorists of racism put forward a position on the dependence of mental qualities, the character of a person on the shape of the skull, in particular on the size of the head indicator. According to their theory, it turned out that the lower the head indicator, that is, the longer-headed a person, the more gifted, energetic, and viable he is, as a rule.

In 1853, the French aristocrat Count Joseph Arthur Gobineau, a diplomat and publicist, published the book An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. He tried to establish a kind of hierarchy of peoples inhabiting our planet. Gobineau considered the “black” race to be the lowest race, the “yellow” race to be somewhat more developed, and the “white” race, especially its elite, the Aryan, fair-haired and blue-eyed, to be the highest and only capable of progress. Among the Aryans, Gobineau put the Germans in first place. They, in his opinion, created the real glory of Rome, a number of states in the new Europe, including Russia. Gobineau's theory, which identified races and language groups, became the basis of many racist theories.

In the era of imperialism, a theory of opposition between West and East was formed: about the superiority of the peoples of Europe and North America and backwardness of the countries of Asia and Africa, about the historical inevitability for the latter to be under the leadership of the "civilized West". After the First World War in Germany, the "Nordic myth" about the superiority over all other races of the Northern, or "Nordic", race, allegedly genetically related to peoples who speak Germanic languages, gained popularity. During the years of Hitler's dictatorship in Germany, racism became the official ideology of fascism. Fascist doctrine spread in Italy, Hungary, Spain, France, the Netherlands and other countries. Racism justified aggressive wars, mass destruction of people. During the Second World War, the Nazi racists planned and began the destruction (genocide) of certain nations, according to the racist theories of fascism, considered inferior, for example, Jews, Poles.

Dispersal of demonstrations in Cape Town.

The equality of peoples and races was proclaimed and enshrined in UN documents. This is primarily the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). After the defeat of fascism, racism received a crushing blow.

UNESCO has repeatedly adopted declarations on race and racial prejudice. There are two historical varieties of racism: pre-bourgeois and bourgeois. The main forms of the former were biological racism (different peoples were contrasted by their origin, appearance and structure) and feudal-clerical (the opposition was based on religious beliefs). Under capitalism, bourgeois racism arises. These include: Anglo-Saxon (Great Britain), anti-Saxonism, neo-Nazism, anti-white racism (“racism in reverse”, Negritude), communal racism, etc. Each of the above forms of racism can apply to representatives of all other races or have a strict focus on a particular race. According to the degree and form of expression, racism can be open and rude, covered and refined. Modern racism has many faces. Racists act under different signs and put forward various programs. Their views and beliefs have a wide range - from "liberal" to fascist.

Specific manifestations of racism are also diverse - from lynchings of American blacks to the creation by racist ideologists of sophisticated doctrines that "justify" the division of mankind into "higher" and "lower" races. Segregation is one of the extreme forms of racial discrimination in bourgeois states; it restricts a person's rights based on race or nationality. Segregation is the policy of forcibly separating blacks, Africans, and "colored" populations from whites. It persists in the United States, despite a formal ban, in the Commonwealth of Australia, where Aborigines are forced to live on reservations. Elements of segregation are now manifesting themselves in some countries of Western Europe in relation to immigrant workers - Arabs, Turks, Africans, etc.

One form of racism is apartheid (apartheid; in Afrikaans - apartheid - separate living). The policy of apartheid until recently was used in South Africa, was the official ideology, way of thinking, behavior and actions. The implementation of the apartheid policy began with the adoption of the population registration law (1950), which periodically formalized the belonging of every citizen of the country who has reached the age of 16 to one or another racial category. Each resident received a certificate, which contained a description of his signs and indicated the so-called "ethnic" (more precisely, racial) group. An attempt was made to compile a register of the entire population of the country under the auspices of the social board for racial classification. By 1950, an act was adopted on resettlement in groups. In accordance with it, the government had the right to declare any territory the area of ​​​​settlement of any one racial group. In 1959, an act was adopted to grant independence to the Bantu (the Bantustan Bill). which was the final legalization of apartheid. Bantu stans, or "national fatherlands", are created for each of the ethnic groups of the indigenous population. Some of the Bantu Stans were declared "independent states" by Pretoria, although no country officially recognized such independence.

The apartheid system deprived the black population of South Africa of all basic political rights and freedoms, including freedom of movement in their own country and the right to skilled labor, subjected them to all known types and forms of racial discrimination, and practically deprived them of access to education, culture, and medical care.

In the second half of the 80s - early 90s. The South African government carried out a series of reforms aimed at weakening the apartheid regime. Laws that restricted freedom of movement around the country (passes, migration control) were abolished, a single South African passport was introduced, the activities of black trade unions, interracial marriages were allowed, moreover, the so-called small apartheid disappeared, that is, the manifestation of racism in everyday life and everyday life.

South Africa has been subjected to boycotts and sanctions recommended by the UN, both by third world countries and Western democracies. However, in 1989-1991. the situation has changed radically. In accordance with the reformist course of Frederick de Klerk, the dismantling of the apartheid system began. Over a hundred legislative acts that discriminated against people because of skin color have been repealed. The African National Congress (ANC), the oldest organization in the world, played a huge role in condemning apartheid by the international community South Africa(exists since 1912). The ANC acts as a partner of the government in the preparation of negotiations and new constitution countries. However, the ideology of racism does not give up its positions and is now showing a tendency to become more active.