~---UBORDINATING PEOPLE BECAUSE OF RACE) NATIONALITY)

or religion is not a phenomenon unique to the United States; itoccurs throughout the world. In Mexico, women and the descen-

dants of the Mayans are given second-class status. Despite its being viewed asa homogeneous nation by some, Canada faces racial, linguistic, and tribalissues. Brazil is a large South American nation recognizing a long history ofracial inequality. In Israel, Jews and Palestinians struggle over territory and thedefinition of each other's autonomy. In the Republic of South Africa, the lega-cy of apartheid dominates the present and the future.

Ironically, by bringing more and more diverse groups of people into con-tact, modernization has increased the opportunities for confrontation, bothpeaceful and violent, between culturally and physically different people. Thedecline in colonialism by European powers inthe 1960s and the end of communistdomination in Eastern Europe in the1990s have also allowed interethnicrivalries to resume. Confrontationsalong racial or ethnic or religiouslines, as Chapter 1 showed, can leadto extermination, expulsion, seces-sion, segregation, fusion, assimila-tion, or pluralism. At the conclusionof this chapter, we will review howthese processes have been illustratedin this chapter as we look beyond theUnited States.

world systems theoryAviewof the global econom-ic systemas divided betweennations that control wealthand those that provide natur-al resources and labor.

ethnonational conflictsConflictsbetween ethnic,racial, religious, and linguis-tic groups within nations re-placing conflicts betweennations.

onfrontations between racial and ethnic groups have escalated in frequencyand intensity in the twentieth century. In surveying these conflicts, we can seetwo themes emerge: the previously considered world systems theory and eth-nonational conflict. World systems theory considers the global economic sys-

tem as divided between nations that control wealth and those that provide naturalresources and labor. Historically, the nations we will be considering reflect this competi-tion between "haves" and "have-nots." Whether the laborers are poor Catholics in Irelandor Black Mricans, their conuibution to the prosperity of the dominant group created thesocial inequality that people are trying to address today (Wallerstein 1974; 2004).

Ethnonational conflict refers to conflicts among ethnic, racial, religious, and lin-guistic groups within nations. In some areas of the world, ethnonational conflicts aremore significant than tension between nations as the source of refugees and evendeath. As you can see in Figure 16.1), countries in all parts of the world, including themost populous nations, have significant diversity within their borders. These conflictsremind us that the processes operating in the United States to deny racial and ethnicgroups rights and opportunities are at work throughout the world (Connor 1994;Olzak 1998).

The sociological perspective on relations between dominant and subordinategroups treats race and ethnicity as social categories. As social concepts, they can be un-derstood only in the context of the shared meanings attached to them by societies andtheir members. Although relationships between dominant and subordinate groupsvary greatly, there are similarities across societies. Racial and ethnic hostilities arise outof economic needs and demands. These needs and demands may not always be realis-tic; that is, a group may seek out enemies where none exist or where victory will yieldno rewards. Racial and ethnic conflicts are both the results and the precipitators ofchange in the economic and political sectors (Barclay et al. 1976; Coser 1956).

Relations between dominant and subordinate groups differ from society to society,as this chapter will show. Intergroup relations in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Israel, andSouth Mrica are striking in their similarities and contrasts. As shown in Figure 16.2,each society, in its own way, illustrates the processes of intergroup relations first intro-duced in Chapter 1. The examples range from the Holocaust, which precipitated theemergence of Israel, to the efforts to create a multiracial government in South Mrica.A study of these five societies, coupled with knowledge of subordinate groups in theUnited States, will provide the background from which to draw some conclusionsabout patterns of race and ethnic relations in the world today.

Usually in the discussions of racial and ethnic relations, Mexico is considered only as asource of immigrants to the United States. In questions of economic development, Mexi-co again typically enters the discussion only as it affects our own economy. However, Mex-ico, a nation of 108 million people (in the Western Hemisphere, only Brazil and theUnited States are larger) is an exceedingly complex nation (see Table 16.1). It is there-fore appropriate that we understand Mexico and its issues of inequality better. This un-derstanding will also shed light on the relationship of its people to the United States.

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DiversityProportion of ethnic, racialor national minorities in thepopulation 2000 or latestavailable data

50% and over

30% - 50%

.10%-29%

Under 10%

NEW ZEAlAND ,.

./L. _ No data-----------------------~FIGURE 16.1 Ethnic Diversity WorldwideSource: "Diversity;' from The Penguin State of the World Atlas by Dan Smith, copyright © 2003 by Dan Smith.Illustration © 2003 by Myriad Editions Ltd. Used by permission of Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

EXPULSION

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SEGREGATION

I

EXTERMINATIONor genocide

IIIII

SECESSIONor partitioning

IIII

I

FUSIONor amalgamationor melting pot

PLURALISMor multiculturalism

InitialExile of

Jews fromPalestine

Zionism

Goal ofParti

Quebecois

Quilombosin Brazil

Moreno inBrazil

Immigrantsto Canada

StatusIndians

in Canada

Holocaust inEurope Precipitated

Israeli StateFormation Apartheid

IndianReservesin Canada

MexicanIndians andSpaniards

Meti's ofCanada

MultiracialGovernment

of South Africa

Coloured ofSouth Africa

Population GNI/per capita Groups CurrentCountry (in millions) (USA ~ $41,950) Represented Nation's Formation

Mexico 108.3 $10,030 Mexican Indians, 9% 1823: Republic ofMexico declared inde-pendent from Spain

Canada 32.6 $32,220 French speaking, 24% 1857: Colony of CanadaAboriginal Peoples, 3-6% furmed independent of"Visible" minorities, 13% England

Brazil 186.8 $8,230 White, 53% Became independent ofBrown (moreno, Portugal in 1889mulatto), 39%Afro-Brazilians, 6%Asian and IndigenousIndians, 1%

Israel 7.2 $25,280 Jews, 80% 1948: Independence

Israel Occupied 3.8 $4,247 Others (citizens), 1% from British mandate

Territories Muslims, Christians, under United Nations

Palestinians(noncitizens), 19%

South Africa 47.3 $12,120 Black Africans, 76% 1948: IndependenceWhites, 13% from Great BritainColoureds, 9%Asians, 3%

Sources: Author estimates based on Canak and Swanson 1998; Dahlburg 1998; Haub 2006; Statistics Canada 2001, 2003a.

In the 1520s, Spain overthrew the Aztec Indian tribe that ruled Mexico. Mexico re-mained a Spanish colony until the 1820s. In 1836, Texas declared its independencefrom Mexico, and by 1846 Mexico was at war with the United States. As we describedin Chapter 9, the Mexican-American War forced Mexico to surrender more than halfof its territory. In the 1860s, France sought to turn Mexico into an empire under Aus-trian prince Maximilian but ultimately withdrew after bitter resistance led by a Mexi-can Indian, Benito JU<lrez,who later served as the nation's president.

The Mexican Indian People and the Color GradientIn contemporary Mexico, a major need has been to reassess the relations between theindigenous peoples-the Mexican Indians, many descended from the Mayas, and thegovernment of Mexico. In 1900, the majority of the Mexican population still spoke In-dian languages and lived in closed, semi-isolated villages or tribal communities ac-cording to ancestral customs. Many of these people were not a part of the growingindustrialization in Mexico and were not truly represented in the national legislature.Perhaps the major change for them in this century was that many intermarried withthe descendan ts of the Europeans, forming a mestizo class of people of mixed ancestry.These mestizos have become increasingly identified with Mexico's growing middleclass. Initially the subject of derision, the mestizos have developed their own distinct cul-ture and, as the descendants of the European settlers are reduced in number and in-fluence, have become the true bearers of the national Mexican sentiment.

Meanwhile, however, these social changes have left the Mexican Indian people evenfurther behind the rest of the population economically. Indian cultures have beenstereotyped as backward, resistant to progress and modern ways of living. Indeed, theexistence of the many (at least fifty-six) Indian cultures has been seen in this centuryas an impediment to the development of a national culture in Mexico. In an effort tobring the indigenous people into the mainstream economy, in the late 1930s the Mex-ican government embarked on a government policy known as indigenismo or nationalintegration. The Mexican Indians were given land rights to make them economicallyself-sufficient. This program was not unlike the U.S. policy in the 1880s with respect tothe Native Americans (American Indians). However, indigenismo did not take place;the native people did not fade away culturally.

As noted in Chapter 9, a color gradient is the placement of people on a continuumfrom light to dark skin color rather than in distinct racial groupings by skin color. Thisis another example of the social construction of race in which social class is linked tothe social reality (or at least the appearance) of racial purity. At the top of this gradientor hierarchy are the criollos, the 10 percent of the population who are typically White,well-educated members of the business and intellectual elites with familial roots inSpain. In the middle is the large impoverished mestizo majority, most of whom havebrown skin and a mixed racial lineage as a result of intermarriage. At the bottom ofthe color gradient are the destitute Mexican Indians and a small number of Blacks,some the descendants of 200,000 Mrican slaves brought to Mexico. The relatively smallBlack Mexican community received national attention in 2005 and 2006 following a se-ries of racist events that received media attention. Ironically, although this color gradientis an important part of day-to-day life-enough so that some Mexicans use hair dyes, skinlighteners, and blue or green contact lenses to appear more European-nearly all Mex-icans are considered part Mexican Indian because of centuries of intermarriage (Cas-taneda 1995; DePalma 1995; Thompson 2005).

On January 1, 1994, rebels from an armed insurgent group called the Zapatista Na-tional Liberation Army seized four towns in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico.The rebels-who named their organization after Emiliano Zapata, a farmer andleader of the 1910 revolution against a corrupt dictatorship-were backed by 2,000

color gradientThe placement of people ona continuum from light todark skin color rather than indistinct racial groupings byskin color.

The poverty of Mexican Indiansis well documented and insome instances has led toviolent protests for socialchange.

lightly armed Mayan Indians and peasants. Zapatista leaders declared that they hadturned to armed insurrection to protest economic injustices and discrimination againstthe region's Indian population. The Mexican government mobilized the army to crushthe revolt but was forced to retreat as news organizations broadcast pictures of the con-frontation around the world. A cease-fire was declared after only twelve days of fighting,but 196 people had already died. Negotiations collapsed between the Mexican govern-ment and the Zapatista National Liberation Army, with sporadic violence ever since.

In response to the crisis, the Mexican legislature enacted the Law on Indian Rightsand Culture, which went into effect in 2001. The act allows sixty-two recognized Indiangroups to apply their own customs in resolving conflicts and electing leaders. Unfortu-nately, state legislatures must give final approval to these arrangements, a requirementthat severely limits the rights of large Indian groups whose territories span several states.Tired of waiting for state approval, many indigenous communities in Chiapas have de-clared self-rule without obtaining official recognition (Bourdreaux 2002;]. Smith 2001).

Although many factors contributed to the Zapatista revolt, the subordinate status ofMexico's Indian citizens, who account for an estimated 14 percent of the nation's popu-lation, was surely important. More than 90 percent of the indigenous population live inhouses without access to sewers, compared with 21 percent of the population as a whole.And whereas just 10 percent of Mexican adults are illiterate, the proportion for MexicanIndians is 44 percent (Bourdreaux 2002; The Economist 2004c; Thompson 2001).

Often in the United States we consider our own problems to be so significant that wefail to recognize that many of these social issues exist elsewhere. Gender stratificationis an example of an issue we share with almost all other countries, and Mexico is no ex-ception. In 1975, Mexico City was the site of the first United Nations conference onthe status of women. Much of the focus was on the situation of women in developingcountries; in that regard, Mexico remains typical.

Women in Mexico did not receive the right to vote until 1953. They have made sig-nificant progress in that short period in being elected into office, but they have a longway to go. As of2006, women accounted for 26 percent of Mexico's national assembly(Inter-Parliamentary Union 2006).

Even when Mexican women work outside the home, they are often denied recognitionas active and productive household members, and men are typicallyviewed as heads of thehousehold in every respect. As one consequence, women find it difficult to obtain creditand technical assistance in many parts of Mexico and to inherit land in rural areas.

In the larger economy in Mexico, women often are viewed as the "ideal workers."This appears to be particularly true of the foreign-owned factories or maquiladoras ofthe borderlands (discussed in Chapter 9) that rely heavily on women. For example, ina Tijuana electronics plant, women receive elementary training and work in the least-skilled and least-automated jobs because there is little expectation of advancement, or-ganizing for better working conditions, or developing unions.

Men are preferred over women in the more skilledjobs, and women lose out entirely asfactories, even in developing nations such as Mexico, require more complex skills.In 2003,only 42 percent of women were in the paid labor force, compared with about 73 percent inCanada and 70 percent in the United States (Bureau of the Census 2005a, 881).

In recent decades, Mexican women have begun to address an array of economic, polit-ical, and health issues. Often this organizing occurs at the grassroots level, outside tradi-tional government forums. Because women continue to serve as household managers fortheir families, even when they work outside the home, they have been aware of the conse-quences of the inadequate public services in low-income urban neighborhoods. As farback as 1973, women in Monterrey, the nation's third-largest city, began protesting thecontinuing disruptions of the city's water supply. At first, individual women made com-plaints to city officials and the water authority, but subsequently, groups of female activistsemerged. They sent delegations to confront politicians, organized protest rallies, andblocked traffic as a means of getting media attention. As a result of their efforts, there havebeen improvements in Monterrey's water service, although the issue of reliable and safewater remains a concern in Mexico and many developing countries (Y.Bennett 1995).

Mexico is beginning to recognize that the issue of social inequality extends beyondpoverty. A 2005 survey found that eight out of ten Mexicans felt it was as important toeliminate discrimination as poverty, yet 40 percent said that they did not want to livenext to an Indian community and one-third considered it "normal" for women not toearn as much as men (Thompson 2005).

Multiculturalism is a fairly recent term in the United States; it is used to refer to diversi-ty. In Canada, it has been adopted as a state policy for more than two decades. Still,many people in the United States, when they think of Canada, see it as a homoge-neous nation ,"lith a smattering of Arctic-type people-merely a cross between thenorthern mainland United States and Alaska. This is not the social reality.

A railway bridge burns inCaledonia, Ontario, in April2006 as First Nation peopleprotest a housing developmentin town.

One of the continuing discussions among Canadians is the need for a cohesive nation-al identity or a sense of common peoplehood. The immense size of the country, much ofwhich is sparsely populated, and the diversity of its people have complicated this need.

In 1971, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau presented to the House of Com-mons a policy of multiculturalism that sought to permit cultural groups to retain andfoster their identity. Specifically, he declared that there should continue to be two offi-cial languages, French and English, but "no official culture" and no "ethnic group[taking] precedence over any other" (Labelle 1989, 2). Yet it is not always possible tolegislate a pluralistic society, as the case of Canada demonstrates.

Canada, like the United States, has had an adversarial relationship with its native peo-ples. However, the Canadian experience has not been as violent. During all threestages of Canadian history-French colonialism, British colonialism, and Canadiannationhood-there has been, compared with the United States, little warfare betweenCanadian Whites and Canadian Native Americans. Yet the legacy today is similar. Prod-ded by settlers, colonial governments (and later Canadian governments) drove theNative Americans from their lands. Already by the 1830s, Indian reserves were beingestablished that were similar to the reservations in the United States. Tribal memberswere encouraged to renounce their status and become Canadian citizens. Assimilationwas the explicit policy until recently (Champagne 1994; Waldman 1985).

The 1.4 million native peoples of Canada are collectively referred to by the govern-ment as the First Nation or Aboriginal Peoples and represent about 3 to 6 percent ofthe population, depending on the definition used. This population is classified intothe following groups:

Status Indians: The more than 600 tribes or bands officially recognized by the gov-ernment, numbering about 690,000 in 2000, of whom the majority live on Indianreserves (or reservations).

Inuit: The 62,300 people living in the northern part of the country, who typicallyhave been called the Eskimos.

Metis: Canadians of mixed ancestry, officially numbering 218,000; depending on de-finitions, they range in number from 100,000 to 850,000.

Non-Status Indians: Canadians of native ancestry who, because of voluntary deci-sions or government rulings, have been denied registration status. The group num-bers about 425,000.

The Metis and Non-Status Indians have historically enjoyed no separate legalrecognition, but efforts continue to secure them special rights under the law, such asdesignated health, education, and welfare programs. The general public does not un-derstand these legal distinctions, so if a Metis or Non-Status Indian "looks like an In-dian," she or he is subjected to the same treatment, discriminatory or otherwise(Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and Canadian Polar Commission 2000, 4).

The new Canadian Federal Constitution of 1982 included a Charter of Rights that"recognized and affirmed ... the existing aboriginal and treaty rights" of the CanadianNative American, Inuit, and Metis peoples. This recognition received the most visibilitythrough the efforts of the Mohawk, one of the tribes of Status Indians. At issue were landrights involving some property areas in Quebec that had spiritual significance for theMohawk. Their protests and militant confrontations reawakened the Canadian peopleto the concerns of their diverse native peoples (Amnesty International 1993).

Some of the contemporary issues facing the First Nation of Canada are very similarto those faced by Native Americans in the United States. Contemporary Canadians are

shocked to learn of past mistreatment leading to belated remedies. Exposure of past sex-ual and physical abuse of tens of thousands in boarding schools led to compensation toformer students. Tribal people document that environmental justice must be addressedbecause of the disproportionate pollution they experience. Seeking better opportuni-ties, First Nation people move to urban areas in Canada where social services are slowlymeeting the needs (Birchard 2006; Crenson 2005; Rosero 2006; Silver 2006).

A setback, occurred in 1992 when a national referendum, the Charlottetown Agree-ment, was defeated. This constitutional reform package embraced a number of issues,including greater recognition of the Aboriginal Peoples. Canadian Native Americanand Inuit leaders expressed anger over the defeat, and Ron George, leader of the Na-tive Council of Canada, accused those who rejected the agreement of "perpetuatingapartheid in this country." However, the federal government has declared its willing-ness to accept the right of the Inuit and the other aboriginal people of northern Cana-da to self-government ("Keesing's 1992 Canada" 39126; also see Champagne 1994).

The social and economic fate of contemporary Aboriginal Peoples reflects manychallenges. Only 40 percent even graduate from high school compared to more than70 percent for the country as a whole. The native peoples of Canada have unemploy-ment rates twice as high and an average income one-third lower (Birchard 2006; Sta-tistics Canada 2001).

In a positive step, in 1999 Canada created a new territory in response to a nativeland claim in which the resident Inuit (formerly called Eskimos) dominated. unavut("NOO-nah-voot"), meaning "our land," as the territory was called, recognizes the ter-ritorial rights of the Inuit. Admirable as this event is, observers noted it was easier togrant such economic rights and autonomy to 27,000 people in the isolated expanse ofnorthern Canada than to the Aboriginal Peoples of the more populated southernprovinces of Canada (Krauss 2006b).

Assimilation and domination have been the plight of most minority groups. TheFrench-speaking people of the province of Quebec-the Quebecois, as they areknown-represent a contrasting case. Since the mid-1960s, they have reasserted theiridentity and captured the attention of the entire nation.

Quebec accounts for about one-fourth of the nation's population and wealth. Re-flecting its early settlement by the French, fully 80 percent of the province's population

Supportersof a Quebecseparatist movementparticipateina rally.In1995,a referendumcallingforseparationfromthe rest ofCanadawas narrowlydefeated;todaysupport for such adrastic step appears to havedeclined.

How can assimilation be applied tolanguage use in Canada?

What does the Parti Quebecoisstand for?

claims French as its first language, compared with only 24 percent in the nation as awhole (Statistics Canada 2002).

The Quebecois have sought to put French Canadian culture on an equal footingwith English Canadian culture in the country as a whole and to dominate in theprovince. At the very least, this effort has been seen as an irritant outside Quebec andhas been viewed with great concern by the English-speaking minority in Quebec.

In the 1960s, the Quebecois expressed the feeling that bilingual status was notenough. Even to have French recognized as one of two official languages in a na-tion dominated by the English-speaking population gave the Quebecois second-class status in their view. With some leaders threatening to break completely withCanada and make Quebec an independent nation, Canada made French the offi-cial language of the province and the only acceptable language for commercialsigns and public transactions. New residents are now required to send their chil-dren to French schools. The English-speaking residents felt as if they had beenmade aliens, even though many of them had roots extending back to the 1700s.These changes spurred residents to migrate from Quebec and some corporateheadquarters to relocate to the neighboring English-speaking province of Ontario(Salee 1994).

The long debate over how much independence Quebec should be permittedreached a stalemate with the Meech Lake Accords. In 1987, at Meech Lake, a group ofconstitutional amendments was developed that would recognize Quebec as a distinctsociety, but the effort to pass the accords failed.

Throughout the past four decades of debate, the force both unifying and divid-ing the French-speaking people of Quebec has been the Parti Quebecois. Since itsestablishment in 1968, the Parti Quebecois has been a force in the politics of theprovinces. It gained majority control of the province's assembly in 1994. The na-tional version, Bloc Quebecois, holding in 2004 about 18 percent of seats in Parlia-ment, plays a role in the opposition coalition. The Bloc Quebecois has advocatedseparatism: the creation of an independent nation of Quebec. Separatists contendthat Quebec has the confidence, natural resources, and economic structure tostand on its own. However, not all Quebecois who vote for the party favor this ex-treme position, although they are certainly sympathetic to preserving their lan-guage and culture.

In 1995, the people of Quebec were given a different referendum question thatthey would vote on alone: whether they wanted to separate from Canada and form anew nation. In a very close vote, 50.5 percent of the voters indicated a preference to re-main united with Canada. The vote was particularly striking, given the confusion overhow separation would be accomplished and its significance economically. Separatistsvowed to keep working for secession and called for another referendum in the future,although surveys show the support for independence had dropped to 40 percent ofthe province by 2002. Independence for Quebec would not be easy because theSupreme Court of Canada ruled in 1998 that Quebec cannot secede without seekingthe consent of the central government. Canadians opposed to separation spoke of rec-onciliation after the bitter election debate, but it was unclear what further concessionsthey were prepared to make to the separatists. Many French-speaking residents nowseem to accept the steps that have been taken, but a minority still seeks full control offinancial and political policies (C. Krauss 2003).

Canada is characterized by the presence of two linguistic communities: the Anglo-phone and the Francophone with the latter occurring largely in the one province ofQuebec. Outside Quebec, Canadians are opposed to separatism, and within thisprovince, they are divided. Language and cultural issues, therefore, both unifY and di-vide a nation of 33 million people.

Immigration has also been a significant social force contributing to Canadian multi-culturalism. Canada, proportionately to its population, receives consistently the mostimmigrants of any nation. Over 18 percent of its population is foreign born, with an in-creasing proportion being of Asian background rather than European. New arrivalsparticularly gravitate to urban areas. In recent years, 53 percent of immigrants havegone to Toronto, 15 percent to Vancouver, and 13 percent to Montreal.

Canada also speaks of its visible minorities-persons other than Aboriginal or FirstNation people who are non-White in racial background. This would include much ofthe immigrant population as well as the Black population. In the 2001 census, the visi-ble minority population accounted for 13.4 percent of the population compared toless than 5 percent twenty years earlier (Bauder 2003; Statistics Canada 2003a).

People in the United States tend to view Canada's race relations in favorable terms. Inpart, this view reflects Canada's role as the "promised land" to slaves escaping the U.S.South and crossing the free North to Canada, where they were unlikely to be recaptured.The view of Canada as a land of positive intergroup relations is also fostered by Canadi-ans' comparing themselves with the United States. They have long been willing to com-pare their best social institutions to the worst examples of racism in the United Statesand to pride themselves on being more virtuous and high-minded (McClain 1979).

The social reality, past and present, is quite different. Africans came in 1689 as in-voluntary immigrants to be enslaved by French colonists. Slavery officially continueduntil 1833. It never flourished because the Canadian economy did not need a largelabor force, so most slavesworked as domestic servants. Blacks from the United States didflee to Canada before slavery ended, but some fugitive slaves returned after Lincoln'sissuance of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The early Black arrivals in Cana-da were greeted in a variety of ways. Often they were warmly received as fugitives fromslavery, but as their numbers grew in some areas, Canadians became concerned thatthey would overwhelm the White population (Winks 1971).

The contemporary Black Canadian population, about 3 percent of the nation'spopulation, consists of indigenous Afro-Canadians with several generations of roots inCanada, West Indian immigrants and their descendants, and a number of post-WorldWar II immigrants from the United States. Immigration has become significant, espe-cially in cities where immigrants tend to settle (Statistics Canada 2003a).

Before 1966, Canada's immigration policy alternated between restrictive and moreopen, as necessary to assist the economy. As in the United States, there were some veryexclusionary phases based on race. From 1884 to 1923, Canada levied a Chinese "headtax" that virtually brought Chinese immigration to a halt, although earlier it had beenencouraged. Subsequent policies through 1947 were not much better. Current immi-gration policy favors those with specific skills that make an economic contribution tothe country (Economist 2006a).

Public agitation to restrict immigration has been particularly intense in response toincreased pressure from Latin Americans and Asians to gain entry. A national survey ofCanadians in 2002 found that 54 percent felt immigration should be reduced, and only26 percent favored an increase. Yet three-quarters or more agreed that immigrants makean economic and cultural contribution to their country (Migration News 2002a).

It is difficult to escape the parallels with the United States. For example, since the1980s there has been a degree of resurgence in open racism. Its targets were Blacks,Asian immigrants, and Jewish Canadians. A government-commissioned national sur-vey released in 2003 found that 20 percent of the visible minorities often feel discrim-inated against, compared to 5 percent of the rest of the population. The governmentand the courts have been far from silent on issues relevant to "the visible minorities"

visible minoritiesIn Canada, persons otherthan Aboriginal or FirstNation people who are non-white in racial background.

Increasingly people of Brazilare coming to terms with thesignificant social inequalityevident along color lines.

and the Aboriginal Peoples. Canadian courts have liberally interpreted their Charterof Rights and Freedoms to prevent systematic discrimination, and equal rights legisla-tion has been passed. Many Asian immigrants, including those from India, complaintheir skills and degrees are devalued. Yet institutional racism and continuing debatesabout immigration policy will remain a part of the Canadian scene for some time tocome (Farnsworth 1996; Krauss 2006a; McKenna 1994; Statistics Canada 2003b).

In 1541, Frenchman Jacques Cartier established the first European settlementalong the St. Lawrence River, but within a year he withdrew because of confrontationswith the Iroquois. Almost 500 years later, the descendants of the Europeans and Abo-riginal Peoples are still trying to resolve Canada's identity as it is shaped by issues ofethnicity, race, and language.

To someone knowledgeable about race and ethnic relations in the United States,Brazil seems familiar in a number of respects. Like the United States, Brazil was colo-nized by Europeans who overwhelmed the native people. Like the United States,Brazil imported Black Mricans as slaves to meet the demand for laborers. Even today,Brazil is second only to the United States in the number of people of Mrican descent,excluding nations on the Mrican continent. Another similarity is treatment of indige-nous people. Although the focus here is on Black and White people in Brazil, anothercontinuing concern is the treatment of Brazil's native peoples, as this developing na-tion continues to industrialize.

The present nature of Brazilian race relations is influenced by the legacy of slavery, as istrue of Black-White relations in the United States. It is not necessary to repeat here a dis-cussion of the brutality of the slave trade and slavery itself or of the influence of slaveryon the survival of Mrican cultures and family life. Scholars agree that slavery was not the

same in Brazil as it was in the United States, but they disagree on how different it was andhow significant these differences are (Elkins 1959; Tannenbaum 1946).

Brazil depended much more than the United States on the slave trade. Estimatesplace the total number of slaves imported to Brazil at 4 million, eight times the num-ber brought to the United States. At the height of slavery, however, both nations hadapproximately the same slave population: 4 to 4.5 million. Brazil's reliance on African-born slaves meant that typical Brazilian slaves had closer ties to Africa than did theirU.S. counterparts. Revolts and escapes were more common among slaves in Brazil.The most dramatic example was the slave quilombo(or hideaway) of Palmores, whose20,000 inhabitants repeatedly fought off Portuguese assaults until 1698. Interestinglythese quilombos have reappeared in the news, as Black Brazilians still have sought torecognize their claims related to these settlements.

It is easier to recognize the continuity of African cultures among Brazil's Blacksthan among Black Americans. The contributions of the African people to Brazil's his-tory have been kept alive by the attention given them in the schools. Whereas U.S.schools have just recently begun to teach about the Black role in history, the Brazilianschoolchild has typically become acquainted with the historical role of the Africansand their descendants. As in the United States, however, the surviving African cultureis overwhelmed by dominant European traditions (Andrews 1991; Degler 1971; Fra-zier 1942, 1943; Stouffer 2005; Telles 2004).

The most significant difference between slavery in the southern United States andin Brazil was the amount of manumission, the freeing of slaves. For every 1,000 slaves,100 were freed annually in Brazil, compared to four per year in the U.S. South. Itwould be hasty to assume, however, as some have, that Brazilian masters were morebenevolent. Quite the contrary. Brazil's slave economy was poorer than that of the U.S.South, and so slave owners in Brazil freed slaves into poverty whenever they becamecrippled, sick, or old. But this custom does not completely explain the presence of themany freed slaves in Brazil. Again unlike in the United States, the majority of Brazil'spopulation was composed of Africans and their descendants throughout the nine-teenth century. Africans were needed as craft workers, shopkeepers, and boatmen, notjust as agricultural workers. Freed slaves filled these needs.

In Brazil, race was not seen as a measure of innate inferiority, as it was in the UnitedStates. Rather, even during the period of slavery, Brazilians saw free Blacks as con-tributing to society, which was not the view of White U.S. Southerners. In Brazil, youwere inferior if you were a slave. In the United States, you were inferior if you wereBlack. Not that Brazilians were more enlightened than Americans. Quite the contrary,Brazil belonged to the European tradition of a hierarchical society that did not con-ceive of all people as equal. Unlike the English, who emphasized individual freedom,however, the Brazilian slave owner had no need to develop a racist defense of slavery.These distinctions help explain why Whites in the United States felt compelled todominate and simultaneously fear both the slave and the Black man and woman.Brazilians did not have these fears of free Blacks and, thus, felt it unnecessary to re-strict manumission (Davis 1966; Degler 1971; Harris 1964; Patterson 1982; Skidmore1972; Sundiata 1987).

For some time in the twentieth century, Brazil was seen by some as a "racial democra-cy" and even a "racial paradise." Indeed, historically the term race is rare in Brazil butrather the term cOr or color is common. Historian Carl Degler (1971) identified themulatto escape hatch as the key to the differences in Brazilian and American race rela-tions. In Brazil, the mulatto or moreno (brown) is recognized as a group separate fromeither brancos (Whites) or pretos (Blacks), whereas in the United States, mulattos are

? iASr Y~ms'(~l[What does it mean to describeBrazil as a "racial democracy"?

quilomboSlave hideaways n Brazil.

mulatto escape hatchNotion that Brazilians ofmixed ancestry can moveinto high status positions.

classed with Blacks. Yet this escape hatch is an illusion because economically, mulat-toes fare only marginally better than Black Brazilians or A/ro-Brazilians, the term usedhere to refer to the dark end of the Brazilian color gradient and increasingly used bycollege-educated persons and activists in Brazil. In addition, mulattoes do not escapein the sense of mobility into the income and status enjoyed by White Brazilians. Labormarket analyses demonstrate that Blacks with the highest levels of education and oc-cupation experience the most discrimination in terms of jobs, mobility, and income(Fiola 1989; Freyre 1986; Motta 2000; Triner 1999; Winant 1989).

Today, the use of dozens of terms to describe oneself along the color gradient (seeChapter 12) is obvious in Brazil because, unlike in the United States, people of mixed an-cestry are viewed as an identifiable social group. The 2000 census in Brazil classified53 percent White, 39 percent brown or mulatto, 6 percent Mro-Brazilians, and 1 percentAsian and indigenous Brazilian Indians. Over the past fifty years, the mulatto group hasgrown, and the proportions of both Whites and Blacks declined (Brazil 1981).

The presence of mulattoes does not mean that color is irrelevant in society or thatmiscegenation occurs randomly. The incidence of mixed marriages is greatest amongthe poor and among those similar in color. About one-fourth of all marriages are be-tween people of different color groupings. Marriages between partners from oppositeends of the color gradient are relatively uncommon-perhaps 1 percent. The absenceof direct racial confrontation and the presence of mixed marriages lead some writersto conclude that Brazil is a "racial paradise." The lack of racial tension does not, how-ever, mean that prejudice does not exist or that Blacks are fully accepted. For example,residential segregation is present in Brazil's urban areas, which extends beyond socialclass divisions. Furthermore, there is even greater regional segregation with about75 percent of Whites living in the southern and southeastern regions where contactwith Mro-Brazilians is limited (Telles 2004).

In Brazil, today as in the past, light skin color enhances status, but the impact isoften exaggerated. When Degler advanced the idea of the "mulatto escape hatch," heimplied that it was a means to success. The most recent income data controlling forgender, education, and age indicate that people of mixed ancestry earn 12 percentmore than Blacks. YetWhites earn another 26 percent more than the moreno. Clearly,the major distinction is between Whites and all "people of color" rather than betweenpeople of mixed ancestry and Mro-Brazilians (Dzidzienyo 1987; Silva 1985; Telles,1992, 2004).

Gradually in Brazil there has been the recognition that racial prejudice and discrimi-nation do exist. A 2000 survey in Rio de Janeiro found that 93 percent believe racismexists in Brazil and 74 percent said there was a lot of bias. Yet 87 percent of the re-spondents said they themselves were not racist (Buckley 2000).

During the twentieth century, Brazil changed from a nation that prided itself on itsfreedom from racial intolerance to a country legally attacking discrimination againstpeople of color. One of the first measures was in 1951 when the Monso Arinos law wasunanimously adopted, prohibiting racial discrimination in public places. Opinion isdivided over the effectiveness of the law,which has been of no use in overturning sub-tle forms of discrimination. Even from the start, certain civilian careers, such as thediplomatic and military officer ranks, were virtually closed to Blacks. Curiously, thepush for the law came from the United States, after a Black American dancer, Kather-ine Dunham, was denied a room at a Sao Paulo luxury hotel.

Today the income disparity is signficant in Brazil. As shown in Figure 16.3, peopleof color disproportionately clustered in the lowest income levels of society. Althoughnot as disadvantaged as Blacks in South Mrica, which we will take up later in this chapter,

the degree of inequality between Whites and people of color is much greater in Brazilthan in the United States.

As in other multiracial societies, women of color fare particularly poorly in Brazil.White men, of course, have the highest income, whereas Black men have earning lev-els comparable to those of White women, and Mro-Brazilian women are the furthestbehind (Fiola 1989; Telles 2004).

DiasporaThe exileofJewsfrom Palestine.

ZionismTraditionalJewish religiousyearning to return to the bib-lical homeland, now used torefer to support for the stateof Israel.

Groups working on behalf of people of color in Brazil are gradually becoming morevisible. Geledes/SOS Racism, a Black rights group, filed a protest with a television net-work for depicting a Black gardener cowering before a White man falsely accusing himof theft. Today such groups exist in a number of states, although actual convictions ofdiscrimination are rare (Goering 1994).

The challenge to Mro-Brazilians becoming more organized is not that they fail torecognize the discrimination but that the society tends to think the distinctions arebased on social class. Mter all, if problems are based on poverty, they are easier to over-come than if problems are based on color. However, this is also understandable be-cause societal wealth is so unequal-the concentration of income and assets in thehands of a few is much greater than even in the United States. For Mro-Brazilians, evenprofessional status can achieve only so much in one's social standing. An individual'sblackness does not suddenly become invisible simply because he or she has acquiredsome social standing. The fame achieved by the Black Brazilian soccer player Pele is atoken exception and does not mean that Blacks have it easy or even have a readilyavailable "escape hatch" through professional sports (Dzidzienyo 1979).

Is Brazilian society becoming more polarized, or are Brazilians as tolerant as theyseem always to have been? There is no easy answer because Brazil has not been the sub-ject of the intensive research and opinion polling found in the United States. Severalscholars of Brazilian society believe that race has become more important. This does notmean that a belief in racial inferiority and the practice of de facto segregation will be-come common in Brazil. But also Brazil does not have, nor is it likely to have soon, alarge Mro-Brazilian middle-class society separate from White middle-class society. Bysug-gesting that Brazil is becoming more conscious of race, these scholars mean that cominggenerations will have a heightened awareness of race in Brazil and must try to addressthe racial divisions that are being increasingly documented (Economist 2006b).

Israel and the PalestiniansIn 1991, when the Gulf War ended, hopes were high in many parts of the world that acomprehensive Middle East peace plan could be hammered out. Just a decade later,after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the expectations for a lasting peacewere much dimmer. The key elements in any peace plan were to resolve the conflictbetween Israel and its Arab neighbors and to resolve the challenge of the Palestinianrefugees. Although the issues are debated in the political arena, the origins of the con-flict can be found in race, ethnicity, and religion.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Jews were exiled from Palestine in the Diaspora. The ex-iledJews settled throughout Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East where they oftenencountered hostility and the anti-Semitism described in Chapter 14. With the conver-sion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, Palestine became the site of many Christianpilgrimages. Beginning in the seventh century, Palestine gradually fell under the Musliminfluence of the Arabs. By the beginning of the twentieth century, tourism had becomeestablished. In addition, some Jews had migrated from Russia and established settle-ments that were tolerated by the Ottoman Empire, which then controlled Palestine.

Great Britain expanded its colonial control from Egypt into Palestine during WorldWar I, driving out the Turks. Britain ruled the land but endorsed the eventual establish-ment of aJewish national homeland in Palestine. The spirit of Zionism, the yearning toestablish aJewish state in the biblical homeland, was well under way.From the Arab per-spective, Zionism meant the subjugation, if not the elimination, of the Palestinians.

Thousands ofJews came to settle from throughout the world; even so, in the 1920s,Palestine was only about 15 percent Jewish. Ethnic tension grew as the Arabs of Pales-tine were threatened by the Zionist fervor. Rioting grew to such a point that, in 1939,

Britain yielded to Palestinian demands that Jewish immigration be stopped. This oc-curred at the same time as large numbers of Jews were fleeing Nazism in Europe. MterWorld War II, Jews resumed their demand for a homeland, despite Arab objections.Britain turned to the newly formed United Nations to settle the dispute. In May 1948, theBritish mandate over Palestine ended, and the State ofIsrael was founded (Masci 2001).

The Palestinian people define themselves as the people who live in this formerBritish mandate, along with their descendants on their fathers' side. They are viewedas an ethnic group within the larger group of Arabs. They generally speak Arabic, andmost of them (97 percent) are Muslim (mostly Sunni). With a rapid rate of natural in-crease, the Palestinians have grown in number from 1.4 million at the end of WorldWar II to about 7 million worldwide: 700,000 in Israel, 1.5 million in the West Bank,and 800,000 in the Gaza Strip (Third World Institute 2005, 434).

No sooner had Israel been recognized than the Arab nations, particularly Egypt, Jor-dan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, announced their intention to restore control to thePalestinian Arabs, by force if necessary. As hostilities broke out, the Israeli militarystepped in to preserve the borders, which no Arab nation agreed to recognize. Some 60percent of the 1.3 million Arabs fled or were expelled from Israeli territory, becomingrefugees in neighboring countries. An uneasy peace followed as Israel attempted to en-courage newJewish immigration. Israel also extended the same services that were avail-able to the Jews, such as education and health care, to the non:Jewish Israelis. The newJewish population continued to grow under the country's Law of Return, which gaveevery Jew in the world the right to settle permanently as a citizen. The question ofJerusalem remained unsettled, and the city was divided into two separate sections-IsraeliJewish and Jordanian Arab-a division both sides refused to regard as permanent.

In 1967, Egypt, followed by Syria, responded to Israel's military actions to take sur-rounding territory in what has come to be called the Six-DayWar. In the course of de-feating the Arab states' military, Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank(Figure 16.4 on p. 442). The defeat was all the more bitter for the Arabs as Israeli-heldterritory expanded.

The October 1973 war (called the Yom Kippur War byJews and the Ramadan Warby Arabs), launched against Israel by Egypt and Syria, did not change any boundaries,but it did lead to huge oil price increases as Arab and other oil-rich nations retaliatedfor the European and U.S. backing ofIsrael. In 1979, Egypt, through the mediation ofU.S. President Carter, recognized Israel's right to exist, for which Israel returned theSinai, but there was no suggestion that the other occupied territories would be re-turned to neighboring Arab states. This recognition by Egypt, following several unsuc-cessful Arab military attacks, signaled to the Palestinians that they were alone in theirstruggle against Israel (Masci 2001).

Although our primary attention here is on the Palestinians and theJews, another sig-nificant ethnic issue is present in Israel. The Law of Return has brought to IsraelJews ofvarying cultural backgrounds. EuropeanJews have been the dominant force, but a sig-nificant migration of the more religiously observant Jews from North Mrica and otherparts of the Middle East has created what sociologist Ernest Krausz (1973) called "thetwo nations." Not only are the various Jewish groups culturally diverse, but there are alsosignificant socioeconomic differences: The Europeans generally are more prosperous,better represented in the Knesset (Israel's parliament), and better educated. The secu-larJews feel pressure from the more traditional and ultra-OrthodoxJews, who push for anation more reflective of Jewish customs and law. Indeed, in a 1998 survey, more IsraeliJews see the lack of unity within the state as a major shortcoming than as a failure to endthe Israeli-Arab conflict (Los Angeles Times Poll 1998; Miller 1998; Sela-Sheffy2004).

IntifadaThe Palestinian uprisingagainst Israeli authorities inthe occupied territories.

r----------------------------IThe Occupied TerritoriesSince 1993 Israel has given thePalestinians autonomy overportions of the West Bank, whileretaining control over scatteredJewish settlements in those areas.Arab residents of the GolanHeights, on the other hand, are stillunder complete Israeli control.

Mediterranean

Sea

~ Major Jewishsettlements

• Smaller Jewish

Gaza Strip- The Gaza Strip wascontrolled by Egypt until Israeloccupied it during the 1967 "SixDay War." Israel ceded authority to /the Palestinian Authority (PA) in2005 after expelling 1,500 Jewishfamilies.Golan HeightS-Israel seizedthe Golan from Syria during the1967 war and has occupied it eversince.West Bank and East Jerusalem-Israel took the West Bank andEast Jerusalem from Jordan duringthe 1967 war. Just over 2 millionPalestinians live in the area,almost all of them under thecontrol of the PA. Palestinian areasof self-rule cover about 42 percentof the territory and include suchcities and towns as Nablus,Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron.In addition, about 250,000 Jewslive throughout the West Bank.

L ~

The occupied territories were regarded initially by Israel as a security zone between itand its belligerent neighbors. By the 1980s, however, it was clear that they were alsoserving as the location of new settlements for Jews migrating to Israel, especially fromRussia. Palestinians, though enjoying some political and monetary support of Arab na-tions, saw little likelihood of a successful military effort to eliminate Israel. Therefore,in December 1987, they began the Intifada, the uprising against Israel by the Pales-tinians in the occupied territories through attacks against soldiers, the boycott of Is-raeli goods, general strikes, resistance, and noncooperation with Israeli authorities.The target of this first Intifada, lasting five years, was the Israelis.

The Intifada has been a grassroots, popular movement whose growth in supportwas as much a surprise to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Arab

nations as it was to Israel and its supporters. The broad range of participants in theIntifada-students, workers, union members, professionals, and business leaders-showed the unambiguous Palestinian opposition to occupation.

Despite condemnation by both the United Nations and the United States, Israelcontinued to expel suspected activists from the occupied territories into neighboringArab states. The Intifada began out of the frustration of the Palestinians within Israel,but the confrontations were later encouraged by the PLO, an umbrella organizationfor several Palestinian factions of varying militancy.

With television news footage of Israeli soldiers appearing to attack defenselessyouths, the Intifada transformed world opinion, especially in the United States. Pales-tinians came to be viewed as people struggling for self-determination rather than asterrorists out to destroy Israel. Instead of Israel being viewed as the "David" and itsArab neighbors "Goliath," Israel came to take on the bully role and the Palestiniansthe sympathetic underdog role (Hubbard 1993).

Nearly half of the world's Palestinian people live under Israeli control. Of the IsraeliPalestinians, about one-third are regarded as residents, and the rest live in the occupiedterritories. The Diaspora ofJews that the creation ofIsrael was to remedy has led to thedisplacement of the Palestinian Arabs. The Intifada and international reaction pro-pelled Israel and the PLO to reach an agreement in 1993 known as the Oslo Accords.

The Oslo Accords between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO ChairmanYasser Arafat and subsequent agreements ended the state of war and appeared to setin motion the creation of the first-ever self-governing Palestinian territory in the GazaStrip and the West Bank. Hard-liners on both sides grew resistant to the move towardseparate recognized Palestinian and Israel states. Prime Minister Rabin was assassinat-ed at a peace rally by an Israeli who felt the government had given up too much. Suc-ceeding governments in Israel took stronger stands against relinquishing control ofthe occupied territories. Meanwhile the anti-Israel Hamas party was elected to powerfollowing the death of Arafat in 2004.

Beginning in 2005, Israelstarted constructing a 30-foot-high barrier for securitypurposes, but the wall alsoserved to keep Palestiniansfrom schools and jobs.

Despite the assurances at Oslo, Israel did not end its occupation of the Palestinianterritories by 1999, justifying its actions as necessary to stop anti-Israel violence origi-nating in Palestinian settlements. Complicating the picture was the continued growthof 125 officially recognized Israeli settlements in the West Bank of 250,000 by 2006.Palestinians, assisted by Arabs in other countries, mounted a second Intifada begin-ning in September 2000, precipitated by the Israeli killing of several Palestinians at aJerusalem mosque. This time militant Palestinians went outside the occupied territo-ries and bombed civilian sites in Israel through a series of suicide bombings. This sec-ond Intifada, continuing through the present, has taken more Israeli lives. In the1990s, about one Israeli died for every twenty-five Palestinians, but the recent violencehas seen about one Israeli death for every three Palestinian deaths. Each violentepisode brings a call for retaliation by the other side and desperate calls for a cease-firefrom outside the region. Israel, despite worldwide denunciation, created a "securitybarrier" of 30-foot-high concrete walls, ditches, and barbed wire to try to protect itsJewish settlers, which served to limit the mobility of peaceful Palestinians trying to ac-cess crops, schools, hospitals, and jobs (The Economist 2006c; Segev 2006; Wilson 2006) .

The immediate problem is to end the violence, but any lasting peace must face a se-ries of difficult issues, including the following:

• The status of Jerusalem. It is Israel's capital but is also viewed by Muslims as thethird most holy city in the world.

• The future of the Jewish settlements in the Palestinian Authority territories.• The future of Palestinians and other Arabs with Israeli citizenship.• The creation of a truly independent Palestinian national state with strong leadership.

Israel-Palestinian Authority relations with the latter's government under controlof the Hamas who are sworn to Israel's destruction.

• The future of Palestinian refugees elsewhere.

Added worries are the uneasy peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors and thesometimes interrelated events in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran (Rouhana and Bar-Tal 1998).

The last sixty years have witnessed significant changes: Israel has gone from a landunder siege to a nation whose borders are recognized by almost everyone. Israel hascome to terms with the various factions of religious and secular Jews trying to coex-ist. The Palestinian people have gone from disfranchisement to having territory andwelcoming back others from exile. The current solution is fragile and very tempo-rary, as is any form of secession with a foundation for accommodation amid contin-uing violence.

Republic of South AfricaIn every nation in the world, some racial, ethnic, or religious groups enjoy advantagesdenied to other groups. Nations differ in the extent of this denial and in whether it issupported by law or by custom. In no other industrial society has the denial been soentrenched in recent law as in the Republic of South Mrica.

The Republic of South Mrica is different from the rest of Mrica because the origi-nal Mrican peoples of the area are no longer present. Today, the country is multira-cial, as shown in Table 16.2.

The largest group is the Black Mricans who migrated from the north in the eigh-teenth century as well as more recent migrations from neighboring Mrican countriesover the last twenty years. The Coloured (or Cape Coloureds), the product of mixedrace, and Asians (or Indians) make up the remaining non-Whites. The small Whitecommunity consists of the English and the Mrikaners, the latter descended fromDutch and other European settlers. As in all other multicultural nations we have con-sidered, colonialism and immigration have left their mark.

The permanent settlement of South Mrica by Europeans began in 1652, when theDutch East India Company established a colony in Cape Town as a port of call for ship-ping vessels bound for India. The area was sparsely populated, and the original inhab-itants of the Cape of Good Hope, the Hottentots and Bushmen, were pushed inlandlike the indigenous peoples of the New World. To fill the need for laborers, the Dutchimported slaves from areas of Mrica farther north. Slavery was confined mostly toareas near towns and involved more limited numbers than in the United States. TheBoers, seminomads descended from the Dutch, did not remain on the coast but

Whites All Non-Whites Black Africans Coloureds Asians

1904 22% 78% 67% 9% 2%1936 21 79 69 8 21951 21 79 68 9 32005 9.4 90.6 79.4 8.8 2.52010 (proj.) 10 90 80 8 2

Note: "Non-White" totals subject to rounding error.

Sources: Author's estimates based on Statistics South Africa and Bureau of Market Research in MacFarlane 2006a, 8-9; van denBerghe 1978, 102.

A South African citizen displaysthe "passbook" that all non-Whites had to carry with themunder apartheid. Theseinternal passports requiredobedience to a complex seriesof laws and regulations.

pass lawsLawsthat controlled internalmovement by non-Whites inSouth Africa.

apartheidThe policyof the SouthAfrican government intendedto maintain separation ofBlacks,Coloureds, and Asiansfrom the dominant Whites.

trekked inland to establish vast sheep and cattle ranches. The trekkers, as they wereknown, regularly fought off the Black inhabitants of the interior regions. Sexual rela-tions between Dutch men and slave and Hottentot women were quite common, givingrise to a mulatto group referred to today as Cape Coloureds.

The British entered the scene by acquiring part of South Africa in 1814, at theend of the Napoleonic Wars. The British introduced workers from India as inden-tured servants on sugar plantations. They had also freed the slaves by 1834, with lit-tle compensation to the Dutch slave owners, and had given Blacks almost all politicaland civil rights. The Boers were not happy with these developments and spent mostof the nineteenth century in a violent struggle with the growing number of Englishcolonists. In 1902, the British finally overwhelmed the Boers, leaving bitter memo-ries on both sides. Once in control, however, they recognized that the superior num-bers of the non-Whites were a potential threat to their power, as they had been to thepower of the Afrikaners.

The growing non-White population consisted of the Coloureds, or mixed popula-tion, and the Black tribal groups, collectively called Bantus. The British gave bothgroups the vote but restricted the franchise to people who met certain property qual-ifications. Pass laws were introduced, placing curfews on the Bantus and limitingtheir geographic movement. These laws, enforced through "reference books" until1986, were intended to prevent urban areas from becoming overcrowded with job-seeking Black Africans, a familiar occurrence in colonial Africa (van den Berghe1965; W. Wilson 1973).

ApartheidIn 1948, South Africa was granted its independence from the United Kingdom, andthe National Party, dominated by the Afrikaners, assumed control of the govern-ment. Under the leadership of this party, the rule of White supremacy, already wellunder way in the colonial period as custom, became more and more formalized intolaw. To deal with the multiracial population, the Whites devised a policy calledapartheid to ensure their dominance. Apartheid (in Afrikaans, the language of theAfrikaners, it means "separation" or "apartness") came to mean a policy of separatedevelopment, euphemistically called multinational development by the govern-ment. At the time, these changes were regarded as cosmetic outside South Africaand by most Black South Africans.

The White ruling class was not homogeneous. The English and Afrikaners be-longed to different political parties, lived apart, spoke different languages, and wor-shipped separately, but they shared the belief that some form of apartheid wasnecessary. Apartheid can perhaps be best understood as a twentieth-century effort toreestablish the master-slave relationship. Blacks could not vote. They could not movethroughout the country freely. They were unable to hold jobs unless the governmentapproved. To work at approved jobs, they were forced to live in temporary quarters atgreat distances from their real homes. Their access to education, health care, and so-cial services was severely limited (W. Wilson 1973).

Events took a significant turn in 1990, when South African Prime Minister F. W. DeKlerk legalized sixty banned Black organizations and freed Nelson Mandela, leaderof the African National Congress (ANC), after twenty-seven years of imprisonment.Mandela's triumphant remarks after his release appear in "Listen to Our Voices."

The next year, De Klerk and Black leaders signed a National Peace Accord, pledg-ing themselves to the establishment of a multiparty democracy and an end to vio-lence. After a series of political defeats, De Klerk called for a referendum in 1992 toallow Whites to vote on ending apartheid. If he failed to receive popular support, hevowed to resign. A record high turnout gave a solid 68.6 percent vote favoring the

,f 'T,{~Voices Listen to Our Voices Listen to

The following excerptsare from 71-year-oldBlack nationalist leader

Nelson Mandela's speech,delivered in front of the CapeTown City Hall after his releasefrom a 27-year imprisonmenton February 12, 1990.

too long for our freedom. We canno longer wait. Now is the time tointensify the struggle on aUfronts.

To relax our efforts now wouldbe a mistake which generations tocome wiU not be able to forgive.The sight of freedom looming onthe horizon should encourage us toredouble our efforts. It is onlythrough disciplined mass actionthat our victory can be assured.

We caU on our white compatriots to joinus in the shaping of a new South Africa. Thefreedom movement is the political home foryou, too. We caU on the international com-munity to continue the campaign to isolatethe apartheid regime.

Ta lift sanctions now would be to run therisk of aborting the process toward tke com-plete eradication of apartheid. Our march tofreedom is irreversible. We must not allowfear to stand in our way.

Universal suffrage on a common voters'roU in a united democratic and nonracialSouth Africa is the only way to peace andracial harmony.

In conclusion, I wish to go to my ownwords during my trial in 1964. They are astrue today as they were then. I wrote: I havefought against white domination, and Ihave fought against black domination. Ihave cherished the idea of a democratic andfree society in which aUpersons live togetherin harmony and with equal opportunities.

It is an ideal which I hope to livefor andto achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal forwhich I am prepared to die. •

Amandla! Amandla! i-Afrika,mayibuye! [Power!Power!Africa,it is ours!]

My.friends, comrades and fellow SouthAfricans, I greetyou all in the name of peace,democracy and freedom for all. I stand herebeforeyou not as a prophet but as a humbleservant of you, the people.

Your tireless and heroic sacrifices havemade it possible for me to be here today. Ithereforeplace the remaining years of my lifein your hands.

On this day of my release,I extend my sin-cereand warmest gratitude to the millions ofmy compatriots and those in everycornerof theglobe who have campaigned tirelesslyfor myrelease.

Negotiations on the dismantling ofapartheid will have to address the over-whelming demand of our peoplefor a democ-ratic nonracial and unitary South Africa.There must be an end to white monopoly onpolitical power:

And [there must be] a fundamentalrestructuring of our political and economicsystems to insure that the inequalities ofapartheid are addressed and our society thor-oughly democratized. . . .

Our struggle has reached a decisivemoment. We call on our people to seize thismoment so that the process toward democracyis rapid and uninterrupted. We have waited

Source: Madella 1996 in New York Times, February 12, 1996.Copyright © 1990 by the New York Times Company. Reprinted bypermission of the New York Times.

continued dismantling of legal apartheid and the creation of a new constitutionthrough negotiation. The process toward power-sharing ended symbolically whenDe Klerk and Mandela were jointly awarded the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize (Ottawayand Taylor 1992; Winant 2001).

What are the major social issuesfacing the people of South Africa?

The Era of Reconciliation and Moving OnIn April 1994, South Africa held its first universal election. Apartheid had ended.Nelson Mandela's ANC received 62 percent of the vote, giving him a five-year termas president. The National Party's F. W. De Klerk is serving as one of two executivedeputy presidents. Mandela enjoyed the advantage of wide personal supportthroughout the nation. He retired in 1999 when his second term ended and was suc-ceeded by fellow ANC leader Thabo Mbeki, who is facing a daunting agenda be-cause of the legacy of apartheid.

A significant step to help South Africa move past apartheid was the creation of theTruth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). People were allowed to come forwardand confess to horrors they had committed under apartheid from 1961 through 1993.If they were judged by the TRC to be truly remorseful, and most were, they were notsubject to prosecution. If they failed to confess to all crimes they had committed, theywere prosecuted. The stories gripped the country as people learned that actions takenin the name of the Afrikaner government were often worse than anyone had antici-pated (Gobodo-Madikizela 2003).

The immediate relief that came with the end of apartheid has given way to greaterconcerns about the future of all South Africans. In "Research Focus" we consider theviews expressed by contemporary South Africans.

With the emergence of the new multiracial government in South Africa, we see acountry with enormous promise but many challenges that are similar to those of ourown multiracial society. Some of the controversial issues facing the ANC-led govern-ment are very familiar to citizens in the United States:

Desperate poverty. Despite the growth of a small but conspicuous middle class amongBlack South Africans, poverty rates stand at 60.6 percent, compared to 4.0 percentof White South Africans.

Affirmative action. Race-based employment goals and other preference programshave been proposed, yet critics insist that such efforts constitute reverse apartheid.

Medical care. The nation is trying to confront the duality of private care for the af-fluent (usually Whites) and government-subsidized care (usually for people ofcolor). AIDS has reached devastating levels, with 10 percent of the population hav-ing HIV/ AIDS as of the beginning of 2005 but less than 3 percent are receiving an-tiretroviral medication as of 2006.

Crime. Although the government-initiated violence under apartheid has ended, thegenerations of conflict and years of intertribal attacks have created a climate forcrime, illegal gun ownership, and disrespect for law enforcement.

School integration. Multiracial schools are replacing the apartheid system, but forsome, the change is occurring too fast or not fast enough. Although 17 percentof Whites hold a college degree, only 1.9 percent of Black South Africans are soadvantaged.

These issues must be addressed with minimal increases in government spending asthe government seeks to reverse deficit spending without an increase in taxes thatwould frighten away needed foreign investment. As difficult as all these challenges are,perhaps the most difficult is land reform (Cronje 2006; Dimant 2006; Lebone 2006;MacFarlane 2006b).

The government has pledged to address the issue ofland ownership. Between 1960and 1990, the government forced Black South Africans from their land and often al-lowed Whites to settle on it. Beginning in 1994, the government took steps to transfer 30percent of agricultural land to Black South Africans. Where feasible, the governmentplans to restore the original inhabitants to their land; where this is not feasible, the gov-

Inthe United States, we take for grantedthe regular release of opinion or surveydata about what people think about the

sensitive issues In their country. However,public opinion surveying does not typicallyoccur in totalitarian countries such as SouthAfrica under apartheid. Today, surveying isnow a regular part of South African life and,not too surprisingly, the subject sometimesturns to race relations.

We can examine national surveys of opin-ions conducted in 2001, 2003, and 2005 tofind out what adults from all racial groupsthought about racism in everyday life. Re-viewing these studies, the data reveal a racialdivide on many issues.

Nearly two-thirds of Black Africans (65percent) indicated in 2003 that they felt thecountry was headed in the right direction,whereas only about one-third (36 percent)of Whites felt the same way. Blacks over-whelmingly see unemployment as the majorproblem facing the nation, whereas Whitesplace crime and security as the top problem,••.vith government corruption as number two.Blacks, meanwhile, do not see the govern-ment as a problem but give priority to bothhousing and water supply-two issues notranked highly by their fellow White citizens.

On a more personal level, acceptance ofintermarriage is limited, especially amongWhite South Africans. When asked if onewould approve of a close relative marrying

someone of another color, only 14 percentof Whites endorsed such an idea comparedto 53 percent of Blacks and Asians and 67percent of Coloureds.

All South Africans-whether Black,Coloured, Indian, or White-agree thatdemocracy is preferable to any other kind ofgovernment and that South Africa will re-main democratic. Blacks are much morelikely to see the gap between the rich andpoor as a threat to democracy. Blacks aremore likely to see education and health careas improving over the ten years ofpostapartheid South Africa, whereas Whitessee it as actually getting worse. Just 19 per-cent of White respondents said they wouldconsider a return to apartheid.

In summary, the survey revealed deepconcerns among all South Africans about anumber of social and economic issues, butthe specific factor of race is not viewed as thedominant problem. Yet the consciousness ofracism has not vanished. The majority stillsee racism as a serious concern. Yet whenasked, they generally see their own group asthe victim of racism with little recognition ofthe problems of prejudice and discrimina-tion facing the other groups.

There seemed little doubt from this sur-vey that, as during the apartheid era, SouthAfrica still has a racial problem to solve .•

Sources: The Economist 2005a; Kaiser Family Foundation 2004.Schlemmer 2001a, 2001b.

ernment is to make 'Just and equitable compensation." By 2006, less than 7 percent ofthe farmland had been transferred. The magnitude of this land reform issue cannot beminimized. Originally the goal was to achieve the land transfer by 2004, but this has nowbeen deferred to 2015. Certain critics say at the current rate it will take until 2060 toreach the 2004 objective. With its other economic problems and now the decision to in-vest hundreds of millions of dollars in hosting the 2010 Football (soccer) World Cup,more new land is likely to be occupied by Black South Africans through squatterarrangements than through government-approved transfer (Lebone 2006).

y looking beyond our borders, we gather newinsights into the social processes that frame anddefine intergroup relationships. The colonial

experience has played a role in all cases under consid-eration in this chapter but particularly in South Africa.In Mexico and South Africa, which have long historiesof multiethnic societies, intergroup sexual relationshave been Widespread but with different results.Mestizos in Mexico occupy a middle racial group andexperience less tension, whereas in South Africa, theCape Coloureds had freedoms under apartheid almostas limited as those of the Black Africans. South Africaenforced de jure segregation, whereas Israeli communi-ties seem to have de facto segregation. Israel's andSouth Africa's intergroup conflicts have involved theworld community. Indigenous people figure in thesocial landscape of Canada, Brazil, and Mexico. Policiesgiving preference to previously devalued racial groupsare in place in both Brazil and South Africa. Completeassimilation is absent in all five societies considered inthis chapter and is unlikely to occur in the near future;the legal and informal barriers to assimilation and plu-ralism vary for subordinate people choosing eitheroption. Looking at the status of women in Mexicoreminds us of the worldwide nature of gender stratifi-

Key Termsapartheid 446color gradient 429Diaspora 440ethnonational conflict 426

cation and also offers insight into the patterns presentin developing nations.

If we add the United States to these societies, thesimilarities become even more striking. The problemsof racial and ethnic adjustment in the United Stateshave dominated our attention, but they parallel pastand present experiences in other societies with racial,ethnic, or religious heterogeneity. The U.S. govern-ment has been involved in providing educational, fi-nancial, and legal support for programs intended tohelp particular racial or ethnic groups, and it contin-ues to avoid interfering with religious freedom. Bilin-gual, bicultural programs in schools, autonomy forNative Americans on reservations, and increased par-ticipation in decision making by residents of ghettoesand barrios are all viewed as acceptable goals, althoughthey are not pursued to the extent that many subordi-nate-group people would like.

The analysis of this chapter has reminded us of theglobal nature of dominant-subordinate relations alongdimensions of race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. Inthe next chapter, we will take an overview of racial andethnic relations but also explore social inequality alongthe dimensions of age, disability status, and sexualorientation.

In tifada 442mulatto escape hatch 437pass laws 446quilombo 437

visible minorities 435world systems theory 426Zionism 440

Review Questions1. Identify who the native peoples are and what their role has been in each of the

societies discussed in this chapter.2. On what levels can one speak of an identity issue facing Canada as a nation?3. What role has secession played in Canada and Israel?4. How have civil uprisings affected intergroup tensions in Mexico and Israel?5. To what extent are the problems facing South Africa today a part of apartheid's

legacy?

Critical Thinking1. Social construction of race emphasizes how we create arbitrary definitions of skin

color that then have social consequences. Drawing on the societies discussed, se-lect one nation and identify how social definitions work in other ways to definegroup boundaries.

2. Apply the functionalist and conflict approaches of sociology first introduced inChapter 1 to each of the societies under study in this chapter.

3. The conflicts summarized are examples of ethnonational conflicts, but how havethe actions or inactions of the United States contributed to these problems?

Internet Connections-Research Navigator™Follow the instructions found on page 35 of this text to access the features of ResearchNavigator™. Once at the Web site, enter your Login Name and Password. Then, to usethe ContentSelect database, enter keywords such as "apartheid," "Palestine,""Mandela," and "Inuit," and the search engine will supply relevant and recent schol-arly and popular press publications. Use the New York Times Search-by-Subject Archiveto find recent news articles related to sociology and the Link Library feature to locaterelevant Web links organized by the key terms associated with this chapter.