Over the last weekend in a town called Alcorcón, in the outskirts of Madrid, violence erupted between hispanic immigrants and young spaniards. Apparently it was all organised through the use of mobile phones. It seems that another outburst is being planned for the upcoming weekend. there were cries of racism, xenophobia and the usual politically loaded terms were bandied about- integration,failure of social systems etc..What is curious is the way the incidents were reported...im not totally aware of all the details..so i cud be out of line here..but it seems that many residents, denying that they are racist, seem to justify the spanish violent reaction by saying that it was a response to delinquency problems. Well this brings me to the current article im reading and which id like to quote from:España no es solo un país racista, es la quintaesencia del racismo, todo lo que significa ser racista concentrado en la conciencia colectiva. Un país forjado en los mitos de la invasión islámica y de la reconquista, en la pureza de sangre y el confesionalismo obligatorio, un país que todavía no ha logrado arrancarse las cadenas, que no asume gran parte de su historia como propia.Well to be fair, i don´t think one can generalise especially when it comes to such dlicate issues, but i must admit that i´ve encountered quite racist comments since im here...some of the speakers not being aware of thier "peso"..but sometimes i have to remind myself that because of our histories, in one way or the other, we are all racist..
Just a quick quote from Tahar Ben Jelloun, a morocca author who defines racism as the following: "El racismo es un comportamiento bastante extendido, común a todas las sociedades, que desgraciadamente se ha vuelto banal en muchos países porque llega y nadie se da cuenta. Consiste en desconfiar de las personas que tienen características físicas y culturales diferentes de las nuestras, e incluso en menospreciarlas". In english more or less, it would be- Racism is a well extended behavior, common in all societies, which unfortunately has become banalised in many countries because it appears and no one takes note. it consists of distrusting or even despising persons based on their physical and cultural characteristics, whihc are different from ours. for starters, not a bad working definition
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