Minorities

I

Introduction

Minorities, term commonly defined as smaller groups of people who live in the midst of larger groups. However, social scientists, international lawyers, consciousness-raising organizations, and human rights observers tend to use the term to refer to cohesive groups of disadvantaged people.

Minorities are enduring groups that may be differentiated from others in the same society by race, ethnicity, language, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. They are groups that are usually weaker in society. They may regard themselves (or be regarded) as stigmatized, and there are numerous instances where they have been regarded as inferior by majority communities. They may also be groups that control power in society, especially in those countries based on colonial rule, such as South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

II

Grievance and Aspiration

Since the early 1950s, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has assembled evidence concerning groups that do not participate fully in the life of a national community. Since then, organizations such as Amnesty International have reported many cases of unequal access to power, exclusions of minorities, social prejudice, negative attitudes based on stereotypes, and social and economic discrimination.

Tensions persist in many parts of the world where groups are outsiders in society. Long-running disparities have existed along socio-economic as well as religious lines in relatively small provinces such as Northern Ireland. Here, a growing Roman Catholic minority has experienced group-degrading treatment, blocked access to local government services and jobs, and gerrymandering (strategic manipulation of electoral boundaries). Unionist groups, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom, have proclaimed themselves at risk as a minority in a possible future united Ireland sought by Catholic nationalists.

In extensive and uncohesive units of administration, such as territories of the former Soviet Union, multilingual Asian populations have been ruled by unpopular Russian appointees who, as Soviet officials, imposed authoritarian control over religious and linguistic groups. In advanced, multi-ethnic, large-scale societies such as the United States, a host of minorities have had to fight against discrimination. These have included impoverished indigenous Native Americans, descendants of black African slaves, and descendants of linguistically-handicapped turn-of-the-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. Other efforts, such as women’s rights campaigns, tend to be associated with minority issues although women are not usually a numerical minority. Women of most races in many countries constitute around half of the population; as organized groups (see Women’s Movement; Feminism) they have in recent decades succeeded in improving their limited economic and political status that was long taken for granted and little challenged. The result is that many women in Western societies are not prepared to occupy or revert to subjugated positions, but subjugation persists in many other countries with incipient movements for reform beginning to find their voice.

Discrimination in housing and employment opportunities, and ghettoization, with their causes—violent racism, institutionalized sexism, and homophobia (fear and hatred of homosexuality)—have variously been suffered by earlier generations of minorities and are now officially condemned in the United States and countries in Europe, such as Denmark. Despite uncertainties and setbacks, pluralistic assimilation has been attainable in the United States, although extreme right-wing groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and other, newer factions, seek to reverse progress.

Severe problems concerning minorities have arisen in 20th-century states of eastern Europe. These have emerged from Habsburg rule (in 1919) and Soviet control (in 1989) to face latent problems that can be traced back to the Treaty of Versailles, of 1918, when the Great Powers enabled certain populations that had been unwillingly subordinate to the Austro-Hungarian Empire to form self-governing entities, which incorporated populations more closely associated with the defeated monarchy; such groups became encapsulated minorities and were often regarded with suspicion by governments of newer states. Deep antagonisms remain to be settled after 50 years of Soviet-style government, which in certain regions exacerbated inter-group mistrust. Such governments have often denied evidence of internal nation-state complexities and minority aspirations. Recent oppression of ethnic Albanians in the Serb-occupied province of Kosovo is but one extreme, tragic example.

The drawing up of borders by the old imperial powers has been a prime example of the isolation, not necessarily intentional, of religious and linguistic minorities, who then found themselves trapped inside new, alien states. There are many examples: the Kurds are a minority in more than four countries; the partition of Ireland created a six-county province (rather than the original nine counties of Ulster), thus creating a smaller Catholic nationalist minority; the Palestinians, formerly a majority population in Palestine, became a large minority following the setting up of the state of Israel.

Minorities are often immigrant communities, such as those settling in the United Kingdom and France from former colonies after the break-up of the British Empire and French Empire. In post-war West Germany skilled immigrants arrived, who were refugees from East Germany and former German areas of Europe, as well as migrant workers (Gastarbeiter, pl. Gastarbeitern) from Italy, Spain, and Turkey. All have encountered varying degrees of prejudice, exclusion, and problems of integration. In Germany, Gastarbeitern cannot become German nationals.

III

Analysis of Minority Issues

Minority issues are often analysed by people representing pressure groups who argue for cessation of degrading treatment and for reform for groups whose civil aspirations or access to legal redress are blocked. Other writers are more committed to sociological analysis of minority-majority tensions. Far from assuming a value-free position, their task is not so much to ascertain which side is “right” and which “wrong”, but rather to illuminate the structural characteristics and developing relationships in a troubled setting, so that people can better understand what is going on and see how conflict has arisen; this is intended to help others take steps towards a more harmonious future.

Each of the social sciences— psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, economics —is able to contribute to studies that help to explain how the subordination of a minority to a majority affects the behaviour and attitudes of both. Comprehensive investigations combine analysis of the distinctive temper of minority-majority relations together with assessments of goals sought or resisted by protagonists. Most investigators are not concerned just with the basic facts of the numbers of people suffering social prejudice. Observers are more likely to focus on the qualitative position occupied by groups that have drawn attention to disadvantage or persecution.

IV

How Minorities Adapt

Adaptive minorities have attempted to “pass”, that is to “exit” from tainted roles by merging into the lifestyles and career-structure of majority society. Examples have been the settled Roma (Gypsies) from south-eastern Europe, who worked towards this goal during the Communist period; before Hitler came to power in Germany, many German Jews thought they had succeeded in assimilating by pursuing high-status professions in approved arenas of competition. In this case, a minority tried to reduce the impact of stigmatization on their children by placing a high value on intellectual achievement, thereby adding a vital element to their self-image and survival chances, at least as they saw things.