The Role of Racism And Prejudice in Exclusion, Marginalisation , Inequality, and the Implications of this for a Cohesive Society

Abstract

In October 1999, I attended an international seminar on ethnicity and conflict in Salzburg. Delegates from thirty-nine countries included academics, writers, journalists, educators, artists, filmmakers and community activists. The week we were there, nearly 29 per cent of Austrians voted for an extreme right wing party which demanded that Austria should be re-made once more for Austrians. It was a call for purification, which sent shudders throughout Europe. In the same month the similarly inclined Swiss People’s Party collected 23 per cent of the votes by arguing for cultural protectionism and against the European Union and the entry of ‘aliens’ pretending to be asylum seekers.