THE PROBLEM OF THE RACIAL MINORITIES
The racial problem is badly obscured by its historical
retrospect and presentation, much of which is unsound and untrue; it is
obscured also by ancient hatreds and national jealousies. These are inherent in
human nature but are fed and fostered by prejudice and those who are animated
by ulterior and selfish intentions. New and rapidly arising ambitions are also
fomenting the difficulty; these ambitions are right and sound, particularly in
the case of the Negro. These ambitions are often exploited and distorted by
selfish political interests and trouble-making agencies. Still other factors
conditioning the racial problem are the economic distress under which so many
labour today, the imperialistic control of certain nations, the lack of
educational attainments, or a civilization so ancient that it is showing signs
of degeneration. These and many other factors are everywhere present, conditioning
human thinking, deluding the many affected by the problem and greatly
handicapping the efforts of those who are seeking to bring about right action
and develop a more balanced and constructive attitude among these minorities.
Minorities, along with the rest of mankind, are subject to the unerring forces
of evolution and are struggling towards a higher and better existence, towards
more wholesome living conditions, towards more individual and racial freedom
and a much higher level of right human relations.
The sensitivity of these minorities, the inflammatory condition of their immediate and expressed ambition and the violence and prejudice of some of those who speak and fight for them prevent the majority from approaching [Page 86] their problem with the calmness, the cool calculation and the recognition of relation to the whole of humanity which their problem fundamentally requires. Racial faults are more widely recognized than racial virtues; racial qualities find themselves in conflict with national characteristics or world trends and these still further increase the difficulty. The efforts of well-meaning citizens (and they are many) and the plans of the convinced humanitarian to aid these minorities are too often based solely upon a good heart, Christian principles and a sense of justice; these fine qualities are, however, often implemented by a profound ignorance of the true facts, of the historical values and of the various relationships involved. They are also often impulsed by a fighting fanaticism which borders on a hatred for the majority who (as the fighting protagonist sees it) are responsible for the cruel injustices under which the racial minority labours. They fail to recognize that the minority itself is not free from faults but is in a measure also responsible for some of the difficulties. These racial faults and difficulties are usually frankly ignored by the minority itself and its friends.
Racial faults may be entirely the result of the point reached in evolution, of unfair environing conditions and of a certain type of temperament, as is the case with the Negro minority in the United States of America, which leaves them basically not responsible for the difficulty; or the responsibility of the struggling minority may be far greater than it is willing to admit, as is the case with the Jewish minority in the world who are an ancient and civilized people with a full culture of their own, plus certain inherent characteristics which may account for much of their trouble. The difficulty again may be largely a historical one and based upon certain essential incompatibilities such as those which can exist between a conquered and a conquering people, between a militant [Page 87] group and a negative, pacifist group. These can be found existing today between the Moslem and Hindu populations of India—an ancient problem which the British inherited. To all these contributing factors in the problem of the minorities must be added the separative tendencies which the differing religious systems have fostered and which today they deliberately continue to foster. The narrowness of religious creeds is a potent, contributing cause.
At the very outset of our discussion, it would be wise to remember that the entire problem we are considering can be traced back to the outstanding human weakness, the great sin or heresy of separateness. There is surely no greater sin than this; it is responsible for the entire range of human evil. It sets an individual against his brother; it makes him consider his selfish, personal interests as of paramount importance; it leads inevitably to crime and cruelty; it constitutes the greatest hindrance to happiness in the world, for it sets man against man, group against group, class against class and nation against nation. It engenders a destructive sense of superiority and leads to the pernicious doctrine of superior and inferior nations and races; it produces economic selfishness and leads to the economic exploitation of human beings, to trade barriers, to the condition of have and have not, to territorial possessiveness and to the extremes of poverty and riches; it sets an important emphasis upon material acquisitiveness, upon boundaries, and the dangerous doctrine of national sovereignty and its various selfish implications; it breeds distrust between peoples and hatred throughout the entire world and has led since time began to cruel and destructive wars. It has today brought the entire planetary population to its present dire and dreadful condition so that men everywhere are beginning to realize that unless something is fundamentally changed, mankind is practically [Page 88] already destroyed. But who will engineer the needed change and where is the leadership which will bring it about? It is a state of affairs which mankind itself must face as a whole; and by meeting and facing this basic expression of universal wrongdoing, humanity can bring about the needed change and is offered a new opportunity for right action, leading to right human relations.
From the angle of our subject, the problem of the minorities, this sense of separateness (with its many far-reaching effects) falls into two major categories; these are so closely related that it is well-nigh impossible to consider them apart.
First, there is the spirit of nationalism with its sense of sovereignty and its selfish desires and aspirations. This, in its worst aspect, sets one nation against another, fosters a sense of national superiority and leads the citizens of a nation to regard themselves and their institutions as superior to those of another nation; it cultivates pride of race, of history, of possessions and of cultural progress and breeds an arrogance, a boastfulness and a contempt of other civilizations and cultures which is evil and degenerating; it engenders also a willingness to sacrifice other people's interests to one's own and a basic failure to admit that "God hath made all men equal". This type of nationalism is universal and everywhere to be found and no nation is free from it; it indicates a blindness, a cruelty and a lack of proportion for which mankind is already paying a terrible price and which will bring humanity down in ruins if persisted in.
There is, needless to say, an ideal nationalism which is the reverse of all this; it exists as yet only in the minds of an enlightened few in every nation, but it is not yet an effective and constructive aspect of any nation anywhere; it remains still a dream, a hope and, let us [Page 89] believe, a fixed intention. This type of nationalism rightly fosters its individual civilization but as a national contribution to the general good of the comity of nations and not as a means of self-glorification; it defends its constitution, its lands and its people through the rectitude of its living expression, the beauty of its mode of life and the selflessness of its attitudes; it does not infringe, for any reason, the rights of other people or nations. It aims to improve and perfect its own mode of life so that all in the world may benefit. It is a living, vital, spiritual organism and not a selfish, material organization.
Secondly, there is the problem of the racial minorities. They present a problem because of their relation to the nations within which or among which they find themselves. It is largely the problem of the relation of the weaker to the stronger, of the few to the many, of the undeveloped to the developed, or of one religious faith to another more powerful and controlling; it is closely tied up with the problem of nationalism, of colour, of historical process and of future purpose. It is a major and most critical problem in every part of the world today.
As we consider this crucial problem (upon which so much of the future peace of the world depends), we must make an effort to keep our own mental and national attitude well in the background and to see the emerging problem in the light of the Biblical statement that there is "one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all". Let us regard that statement as a scientific one and not as a pious, religious hope. God has made us all of one blood and that God—under some name or aspect, whether transcendent or immanent, whether regarded as energy or intelligence, whether called God, Brahma, the Abstract or the Absolute—is universally recognized. Again, under the great [Page 90] Law of Evolution and the process of creation, men are subject to the same reactions to their environment, to the same pain, to the same joys, to the same anxieties, to the same appetites and the same urges towards betterment, to the same mystical aspiration, to the same sinful tendencies and desires, to the same selfishness, and to the same amazing aptitude for heroic divine expression, to the same love and beauty, to the same innate pride, to the same sense of divinity and to the same fundamental efforts. Under the great evolutionary process, men and races differ in mental development, in physical stamina, in creative possibilities, in understanding, in human perceptiveness and in their position upon the ladder of civilization; this, however, is temporary, for the same potentialities exist in all of us without exception, and will eventually display themselves. These distinctions, which have in the past set peoples and races so far apart, are rapidly dying out with the spread of education, with the uniting discoveries of science bringing us all so close together and with the power to think, to read and to plan.
All evolution is cyclic in nature; nations and races pass through the same cycles of childhood, growth, manhood, maturity, decline and disappearance, as does every human being. But behind these cycles, the triumphant spirit of man moves on from height to height, from attainment to attainment and towards an ultimate goal which as yet no man visions but which is summed up for us in the possibility of being in the world as Christ was; this is the hope held out to us in the New Testament and by all the Sons of God down the ages and in every land and by all religious faiths.
In considering our theme we need now to do two things: first
of all consider what makes a people, a race or a nation a minority, and then
consider along what lines a solution may lie. The world today is full of [Page 91] clamouring minorities who—rightly or
wrongly—are making claims upon the majority. Some of the majorities are
sincerely concerned in seeing justice done to the struggling and appealing
minorities; others are using them as "talking points" for their own
ends or are championing the cause of the small and weak nations, not from any
humanitarian reasons but for power politics.
(Alice Bailey, Problems of Humanity, pp. 85-91)
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