Name: Shuja Amin.

Department: DSS

Semester: 1st Evening

Race & Racism

There is no doubt that the matters of race and racism have existed since ancient times but only during
recent times, in the 16th century has it emerged as a geopolitical tool, The discipline of IR was found
because of races and The US was the pioneer in the discipline right after WW2 thus it had a bad
influence on the discipline of IR. Post colonial scholars have done a great deal to uncover structural
racism but influential policy makers like Henry Kissinger have mentioned racist policy makers in his book
“the world order” and it was the best seller in 2014, shows the empirical and colonial mindset is Alive
and well. The contribution in human rights made by post colonial and anti colonial nations are missing or
obscured from the universal declaration of human rights under the UN charter. A race is a group of
people belonging to a background of same skin color, traditions, region and ethics while racism is the
prejudice or discrimination against individuals of different races, which in modern times has spread into
the socio political system of the world. International order exists to protect the Sovereignty of the
states, to prevent wars and promote peace and to bring as much harmony as possible, currently in the
modern world the American and the European systems are overlapping each other as they are both
different in their features of organization and the perception of power. When we talk about racism it
could have been possible that some form of racism existed in the pre modern times, Al-Jahiz who was an
Arabic writer of the eighth and ninth centuries CE, born in “Basra” wrote about many black tribes among
the Arabs and considered both black and white as Arabs and considered blacks as civilized, contrary to
this the Europeans only considered whites as whites. Eric williams, a scholar and the first prime minister
of the state of Trinidad writes that “ Slavery was not born out of racism, rather racism was the
consequence of slavery”. An estimated 12 million African blacks were transported for the new world
during 1500 and 1840 CE. In the Arab slave trade, the slaves were treated badly but they had the chance
to rise to prominence and acquire positions while the European slave trade resulted in the total
dehumanization of slaves, also the Arabs possessed slaves of every skin color while in the west slavery
was specifically linked to black color. The first ever explicit declaration of negros as slaves was
constituted by john locke which is a pioneer of liberalism, in the fundamental constitutions of Carolina
which stated that” Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro
slaves ,of what opinion or religion whatsoever” it also defined that even being a Christian would not
exempt a black man from this law of slavery, many other thinkers and philosophers also founded
reasoning to justify the slavery of the Negros. Thinkers like carl marx and many others also found
reasons to class anyone other than European whites as someone from the lower race and it seemed like
all their theories and resentment of imperialism were just for the sake of their own brethren, which
were the whites. Kant was the most influential thinker of modern age and he talked about a Combined
world order and was known for his liberalist and idealistic approaches but even he thought that
humanity existed at its best in the whites and that the yellows, which are the Indians are less talented
than the whites and that Negros are the lowest of the human race just like the native Americans, Kant
argued that Negros don’t have any praise worthy quality like art or science and that is the evidence of
them being a lower race, the difference between the Negros and the whites were clear, as the
advancement and mental capacity of both was clear as day. The western imperial states projected that
in order to become supreme like them, suppression of lower races and modern standards like
advancement in industry and things like that are required, due to which Japan invaded and suppressed,
at that time the underdeveloped and poor Chinese. When we talk about the post world war 2 time, The
scholars think that the emergence of The united states as a hegemony, ruled out racism and began
laying the foundation of the modern world that we live in,but this cant be farther than the actual truth,
Theodore Roosevelt, the American president from 1901 to 1909, stated the natives as savages and
fighting them was declared a just cause for the sake of the civilized world. In 1910 the first American
magazine devoted to international affairs, suggestively titled “the journal of race development” or JRD.
THE JRD aimed to be a forum for the discussion of the problems which relates to the progress of races
and states generally considered backwards in their standards of civilization and how they may, best be
helped by the stronger. In 1919 the JRD assumed the new name of “ The journal of international
relations”, which three years later, was absorbed into the magazine “Foreign affairs”, taking over its
predecessors inheritance and good will and appealing to a wider public. Foreign affairs perhaps became
the most influential liberal outlet for policy debates in international affairs in the United States, if not
the world. Slavery was the reason that the United state rose to power, By 1860 Americas Four million
slaves were. Engaged in cotton, sugar, tobacco and rice cultivation, producing almost 60 % of the United
States GDP. When we talk about the Imperial Japan, it was demanded racial equality not because it
wanted to elevate the Asians or the blacks, but because it wanted to be an equal of the western powers.
In the documents of the 1945 San Francisco conference when the UN charter of human rights was
created, there is no use of the word racism and racialism, All mentions of race occur in the context of
human rights, fir example the fundamental freedom of all without the distinction of race, language, sex
or religion. “Imperialism” did got noticed but only in regard to the Nazi Germany, Italy and imperial
Japan and not relating to the colonies of the Great Britain or any of the other European nations. India
which was still under British rule, was represented by the British colonial government at the san
Francisco conference, The head of the Indian delegation Arcot Ramaswami Mudaliar did a creditable job
as chair of the committee on Economic and Social cooperation, that founded the UN Economic and
Social council (ECOSOC) but he lacked the authority that might have been exercised by someone like
Jawaharlal Nehru, a major voice of anti-colonial and anti racial demands, Who was still in British prison
when then San Francisco conference began on 25 April, 1945 and who as Indian prime minister from
1947 would convene the Asia-Africa conference in Bandung in 1955, to advance decolonization and
racial equality. In the opening of the Bandung conference, Indonesian president Sukarno described it as,
the first intercontinental conference of colored people in the history of mankind

This article has argued that, even tho imperialism and slavery have existed in the entire world from the
ancient times, but the modern cycle of hatred and racism against specific ethnicities is a seed that was
planted by the Europeans and now the American led world order is nourishing this seed and doing
whatever it can so that the white people can remain in power. Even tho the UN has strict laws under its
human rights charter but the vanishing of slavery and things like mercantilism is not because the
wealthy and powerful wanted it to disappear, they had no choice but to succumb themselves to the ever
changing socio political system and no matter what it takes, to never loose their supremacy, that was
their ultimate goal. Even tho after WW2 the entire world said the same thing “ Never Again” yet now the
world has all but forgotten the carnage that was the biggest of its kind in the entire human history, yet
now we see the people that were the victims, they themselves have now become the oppressors,
shortly after WW2 Jews fought a war against the native people of Palestine and today the entire world
watches in silence as the Apartheid state has consumed and started ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian
people. Even tho under the UN charter Israel is an apartheid state and is illegal but still The US is silent
most likely because they are the ones supplying advanced weapons to Israel And also because Jews are
the one controlling the world bank and the IMF. Many people who speak against this oppression are
labelled as Anti sematic even tho the terminology itself is used as a victim card by the Jews, those are
the ones pulling the strings.