By: Tony Jones

The extent to which Minority Rights are constantly denied, necessitates an immediate moral commitment to equality, and not the reluctant approach at implementing measures to eliminate exploitation of man by man. In recent years there has been a proliferation of disadvantaged minorities throughout the world, which maybe the most marked feature of our time.

• One in which Anti-discrimination laws were the focus of political activity regarding race relation;
• One in which an emphasis on social rights (social equality), not just on civil and political rights, began to emerge and cause conflict.

In Britain, the symbolic catalyst for the anti-discrimination legislation of 1968 was the publication of the Political and Economic Planning (PEP), a report on Racial Discrimination against colored immigrants and their children.

The civil rights legislation in America was precipitated by the August 1963 Great March, when some 200,000 demonstrators listened to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as he delivered his now famous I had a Dream speech at Lincoln Memorial in Washington.

Discrimination against minorities implies that they suffer from social inequalities as a group and this is plagues by an unequal distribution of political resources. Fighting discrimination is seeking to overcome an inadequacy or lack of political and economic power.

If the social system includes prejudice, (Institutionalized racism) and encourages discrimination, how will forces with a propensity for self-preservation defend minority rights? How much longer will the power elite (WASPs) continue to exploit, dominate and subjugate other races? It seems reasonable to deduce that relinquishing or sharing that power will not be voluntary or attained by peaceful abdication.

The issue of minority rights stem from, but is in no way limited to among other things . . .

• The forced migration of Africans to the New World during the Atlantic Slave Trade. It was during a servile status, endured through three centuries that mainly impeded the assimilation. More than a century after emancipation, many African descendants have become disadvantaged minorities in countries of North, Central and South America;
•   Minority groups
• created by colonial rule, as a result of the need for certain kinds of labor or technical skills not locally available. There were Indian plantation workers who migrated during the mid-nineteenth century to almost every colony where sugar had previously been cultivated by Black slaves-Fiji, Mauritius, Natal and the Caribbean region. The appearance of these Indian workers made British rule possible in Malaya and Burma, in East and Central Africa, and parts of the pacific;

• Chinese migrant workers settled in Dutch, French, British and American colonies in South East Asia. There were the Lebanese in West Africa, the Greeks and Cypriots in the Belgian Congo. In each instance these minorities were secured while colonial rule lasted. They enjoyed a level of economic and social privilege beyond that which the indigenous inhabitants attained. With decolonization the migrant workers were seen as an obstacle to the progress of indigenous rivals, and consequently targets for harassment and persecution.
• Minority situations arising from the period of rapid economic growth whichoccurred in the industrialized world during the 1950s and 1960s. During the intervening years an increase of immigrants from poor countries in search of greater opportunities and a better life, proved problematic to governments in developed countries. West Indians and Pakistanis to Britain, Mexicans to the United States, Algerians to France, Moluccans to Holland, Turks and Yugoslavs to Germany and Belgium, Greeks and Maltese to Australia.

  The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Turkish empires after the First World War was replaced by partisan treatment by majority population in the new states. This resulted in problems for Hungarians in Romania and Greeks in Turkey, of Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia, of Armenians split between Turkey and the USSR, and Kurds between Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

  In Africa the colonial period lasted less than eighty years and about fifty colonial states included more than a thousand different languages and perhaps ten times that number of localized ethnic communities. It was inevitable that ethnic antagonisms should persist within new states that gave rise to minority groups and their resentment of being excluded from sharing political power.

  Some of these large ethnic groups were the Ibo in Nigeria, the Ganda in Uganda, the Luo in Kenya, and the Chagga in Tanzania, all of which had enjoyed progress during the colonial era. In European countries ethnic groups were usually to be found on the peripheries of the Nation States – such as the Corsicans and the Bretons in France, the Basque in Spain, the Celts in Britain and the Lapps in Scandinavia.

  For the most part minorities everywhere have little or no rights. The complexity of minority situation is made more acute because economic disadvantages in reality represent both a cause and a consequence of discrimination against these target groups. Regrettably, the victims that are subjected to mal-treatment at the hands of majority communities are often times less capable of defending themselves.

  Intervention to help or protect minority groups has taken many forms-economic sanctions, inter governmental negotiations and military interventions from neighboring territories. Generally, the commitment to protect minorities at governmental level usually involves UN peacekeeping, and internal policing in open civil conflicts which does not involve active efforts at political settlement (peacemaking).

  Despite enormous progress in safeguarding the rights of minorities, there are still unresolved issues. Women are not in a minority, but in many ways they have been treated as such. They are under represented in political spheres and still virtually invisible in corporate circles.

  It seems normal in the West that unemployment among girls and women are substantially higher than it is among young boys and men. The degree of discrimination against women in training for skills is indeed very high. There is also prejudice against women in reaching equal pay for equal work.

  Another important situation was the religious minorities in the Soviet Union. In past years the minority problems of Ireland were in many ways exacerbated by differences of religion. There is little doubt that Jehovah’s Witnesses have suffered severe persecution in several African countries. Anti-Semitism has led to the persecution of Jewish minorities over many centuries, but it has seldom been targeted in any way to the Jewish faith.

  Further the emergence of homosexuals who find it necessary to advertise their difference, publicly and with conviction. But the most serious minority issues in developed countries evolve around race-cultural difference. The conditions of deprivation and despair, which confront minorities on a daily basis, are namely:

  Inadequate housing and limited government spending on improvements;A lack of social, cultural and welfare amenities; Inadequate provision of remedial education for deprived families;A high level of unemployment, particularly among youth.

  All levels of government in this country and those world-wide must pursue efforts to deal with the potential for racial conflict and discrimination on the basis of race, color or ethnic origin. Consideration should be given to affect change through legal sanctions and public regulatory agencies, charged with the task of promoting greater equality of opportunity. Every attempt should be made to educate the population as a whole about race relations, minimizing the risk of racialized conflicts.

  |Given the predicament of minorities, everything should be done to assure their successful integration in society. Affirmative Action programs must be introduced and preserved where applicable to create educational opportunities In addition, governments should introduce job incentives including obligations for employers similar to those for the disabled. Moreover, emphasis must be placed on providing services to dispossessed and disadvantaged groups including-legal, financial, technical and other professional disciplines less occupied by visible ethnic minorities.

  Again, where such corrective programs exists, the power elite should ensure that they are maintained and protected from pugnacious extremists. Too often programs put in place to rectify passed transgressions are condemned and ridiculed by bigots and zealots who would have us believe that 300 years of enslavement can be overturned in 30 years following the enactment of civil rights legislation.

  It is important to recognize the power of government and the public sector with regards to reducing prejudice against minorities in the field of employment. The children of disadvantaged people need to have role models. There are not enough minorities in the media, very few among senior positions in education, finance and other recognized professions.

  In political terms, individuals who suffer discrimination simply do not have the power to change their situation. Power eventually must be exercised through organized groups on the basis of democratic principles. Perhaps there has never been a more pellucid necessity for a new era of enlightenment and compassion in which humanity not power is ascendant. The immense disparity in human living conditions makes a mockery of man’s assertions to societal advancement, much less to morality.

  Indeed, never before in the history of civilized society, governments around the world are obligated to turn aside from injustice, poverty, and human degradation and away from racial violence, to the human rights of all peoples. Who will safeguard the liberty and justice of individuals everywhere, if not elected officials who are entrusted as the people’s representatives?

  The inevitable global village will require pluralistic societies to place greater emphasis on participatory democracy. An essential characteristic of which will be the inclusion not exclusion of all human kind in nation building or more apropos continental governments in a unipolar world.

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