Education is the key against discrimination

“Education is the key against discrimination” by Diego Escobar C

Since I read the topic of the slavery in the south of the U.S.A, I started thinking about all the events based on racist ideas. These events have brought discrimination and segregation to many different societies and in most of the cases they have ended with many deaths as a result.

In the sixteenth century, in the U.S.A. black people were farmers’ slaves and even after the war in 1865, black people and white people did not share the same rights. Joseph Stalin was responsible for killing more than 40 million of Russians, Ukrainians and Czech people during the Soviet Union in Russia (www.historyplace.com). Something similar happened during the Second World War, when millions of Jew people were persecuted and exterminated during the Nazi Regime. Finally, Two months ago, one Chilean guy was murdered because of being homosexual. It seems that all along the history of  civilization in the world the fact of being different has brought pain to us, in spite of all the human, scientific and social advances it feels as it had never been solved.

Many countries and different kinds of associations have tried to end the problem of the segregation, discrimination and racism by creating new laws. On August 26, 1920, the 19^th Amendment to the constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. (www.history.com)

The RDA (The Racial Discrimination Act) has specific prohibitions which are Australia’s obligations. It is unlawful to discriminate in areas such as employment; land; housing and accommodation; provisions of food and services; access to places ; facilities for use by the public and also enhance the access of minority groups to justice, cultural expressions and other rights and freedoms. (Racial Discrimination Act, 1975)

In our country the famous law against discrimination or “Zamudio Law” has been approved by the parliament in order to end with the discrimination to the people of different sex. (www.bcn.cl)

Even though these advances have meant a big step in terms of giving end to discrimination to the minorities, I don’t think that by creating new laws we are going to end with segregation and discrimination. I believe they are helpful but they do not reach the core of the problem. According to Thoreau: “Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice” (Thoreau, 1848)

A study, carried out in Turkey, shows that Turks are prejudiced against the members of the minority communities but that prejudice is based on complete lack of knowledge. A total of 1,108 people around the country were questioned.

When asked who they would not like as a neighbor, 57% said an atheist family, 42% did not want Jews in the neighborhood and Christians followed at 35%. An interesting figure is that 76% admitted having no knowledge of Jews but they didn’t want them as neighbors. (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com)

It has made me think a lot and I believe that many of the minorities which have been discriminated  against nowadays such as the Mapuches in our country or even the Chilean’s discrimination against the Peruvians or Bolivians are results of the lack of knowledge and the lack of education that affects our world.

We don’t need a new law that dictates: “Mapuches cannot be discriminated against  anymore”. As a society and as future educators, we have to educate people and make them aware of who their neighbors are, what religion or sex they have and why we have to respect them and also to respect them as autonomous minorities that share the same rights as we do.