World Without Racism: Theory and Reality
Written by Armenak Minasyants (Speaker of International Politics WG, President of AEGEE-Yerevan)
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“Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” |
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Abraham J. Heschel quotes (Jewish theologian and philosopher, 1907-1972) |
For a long time before starting this article I was thinking how to begin it and at last I have not found anything better than just to take a quote of Abraham Heschel, who was a Polish-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. Why he, as in his quote dated 1950s, he maximally right described the modern concept of the racism. The racism is not something new or unknown to the mankind; it has been developing alongside with the humankind. According to Wikipedia the racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination
Personally I do not like speaking on some theoretical issues and problems of the international politics, as in my opinion such issues are result of uncertain and different approach of the individuals to some existing issues, but during the last few months I guess many of us have witnessed many unknown and unheard things for example in sports.
Liverpool and Chelsea football teams’ star players Luis Suarez and John Terry and the professional boxing superstar Floyd Money Mayweather Jr. have two things which unify them and the first one is their recent involvement in the racial scandals.
The first two during the respective football matches racially abused their opponents and were banned for several months by England Professional Footballers’ Association.
In his turn, Floyd Mayweather Jr., who in my opinion is really one of the best pound for pound boxer in the history, in his Twitter page which has 2.5 million followers, after basketball match of 
New York Knicks just decided and wrote down the following tweet about one of the Asian basketball players: “Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise.”
Why I have taken these examples? The thing is that my mentioned sport figures have another common thing, which unifies them; they are super popular and today the interpretation and concept of the racism could have really awful impact on everyday activities of many modern civil societies, which integral parts they are. You may immediately argue with me, that today there are no such states around the globe, where the racism is officially promoted on the state level as a state ideology and it is very common that individuals are getting involved in such scandals. Yes, God bless all of us, we have managed successfully pass the times, when it was not possible to imagine that black and white children would be sitting in the same classroom or black citizens would not get problems while getting citizenship of the respective states.
But the thing is that in today’s reality even a little racism abuse may bury anybody’s career and everything. In this simple and from the first sight very obvious truth is laid in the whole concept of the modern racism.
Of course, these racial scandals in my opinion shall not have much impact on the mentioned people popularity or career; by the way I guess it may even get bigger. But surely after such accidents they would be under much more pressure from the society and it may have impact on their working/playing abilities. Simultaneously, it is really interesting to know their motivation or ideas by which they were being headed while making such harassing comments or offenses. The answer is again very simple; as the practice shows, they are really doing it intentionally, as none of them is denying their fault after and some of them are even making excuses, but they also do not think to what consequences it may lead.
Nobody shall exclude the possibility that the victims of the mentioned scandals (Patrice Evra, Anton Ferdinand, Jeremy Lin) may have done something which in its turn made our “heroes” to make such abuses, but in my opinion a strong minded and cold hearted person, especially when he/she is also very famous, shall not allow himself/herself to do such things.
Simultaneously, I could not mention another thing on this topic; such racial scandals, taking place on the football pitch, were really unknown thing for the British society, as well as to the international football community and the replies to them were too critical and radical, but racial acquisitions in the USA are very common thing and I even may agree with Mayweather Jr. on the part that if some black player played as Jeremy Lin maybe he would not get such fame in the USA because of just being black.
With no debate, we just shall state that today the interpretation of racism is much more different than it was some decades ago. The equality of the individuals and social justice in the civil societies shall not recognize any racial arguments or grounds. Only in the case when the rights and freedoms of an individual will be respected by the others, the humankind will be able to make real the dreams of Dr. Luther King and Mr. Mandela and as far we do not have that respect, we shall continue living bearing in our minds the simple truth which is expressed in the starting quote of this article…
I really hope that once we would live in the international friendly community and in harmony, which would look like the photo below….
The AEGEE International Politics journal has been conceived as a means for all those in AEGEE who are interested in International Politics and willing to write articles, opinions or analysis on the subject. It is a valid instrument for improving our understanding of world issues and offers all the benefits of a mutual exchange of knowledge.