Tahir Abbas
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780190083410
- eISBN:
- 9780190099657
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190083410.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Security Studies
This chapter explores the nature of racism in the Global North, exploring its antecedents in imperialism and colonialism. It surveys the growth of European cultural and political power, and how ...
More
This chapter explores the nature of racism in the Global North, exploring its antecedents in imperialism and colonialism. It surveys the growth of European cultural and political power, and how racism characterized its economic relations with the rest of the world. Europe imagined ‘the other’ in polarized terms, largely because of the power monopoly it possessed. How this racism entered popular culture is also explored, as well as its lingering impact in the context of post-colonialism, migration and diaspora of minorities often coming to the ‘mother country’ in search of better opportunities or having been invited to work in declining industrial sections as part of the post-war reconstruction process. The rise of ethnic nationalism reflects on the prominence of cultural and structural binary racism that has seen a gradual shift away from a strictly black-white dualism. The reductionism and essentialism of the racism are shifting more and more towards a Muslim-non-Muslim dualism.Less
This chapter explores the nature of racism in the Global North, exploring its antecedents in imperialism and colonialism. It surveys the growth of European cultural and political power, and how racism characterized its economic relations with the rest of the world. Europe imagined ‘the other’ in polarized terms, largely because of the power monopoly it possessed. How this racism entered popular culture is also explored, as well as its lingering impact in the context of post-colonialism, migration and diaspora of minorities often coming to the ‘mother country’ in search of better opportunities or having been invited to work in declining industrial sections as part of the post-war reconstruction process. The rise of ethnic nationalism reflects on the prominence of cultural and structural binary racism that has seen a gradual shift away from a strictly black-white dualism. The reductionism and essentialism of the racism are shifting more and more towards a Muslim-non-Muslim dualism.
