(MintPress) – Russia is taking a hardline approach to dissolving its growing issue of racism and inter-ethnic tensions within its borders by proposing Internet regulations and constant monitoring of mass media and social networks for extremist language. The bulk of the legislation would make Internet Services Providers (ISPs) responsible for hate posts on the Internet, as well as banning any mentions of ethnicity in political propaganda ads. It goes without saying that racial and ethnic tensions are not isolated to Russia, as a global melting pot has created issues in the United States and around the world.
Earlier in the year, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned that ethnic tensions could plunge the country toward civil war, comparing the risk to the initial collapse of the Soviet Union. Since assuming his leadership role in 2000, Putin has expressed a scenario where Russian language and culture would dominate the country while the rights of ethnic minorities would still be respected and recognized.
“The Russian people, the Russian culture is the glue holding together the unique fabric of this civilization,” Putin has said. “If a multiethnic society is infected by nationalism, it loses its strength and durability. We need to understand what far-reaching effects can be caused by attempts to inflame national enmity and hatred.”
In Australia, the introduction of immigrants during the most tumultuous times has reduced the prevalence of racism over the course of nearly two decades, the BBC has reported. In 1998, an Australian nationalist party won 25 percent of the vote with its main campaign tenant as fighting immigration by non-whites. The party, One Nation, denounced welfare benefits set aside for Australian Aborigines and spoke out against Asian immigration to the country.
But today, studies show the influx of ethnic and racial minorities have softened the tone against minorities without proposing surveillance legislation seen in Russia. Over the course of the years, a survey showed that while racism has been on the decline, a “serious” problem still exists, as 1 in 10 in Australia still hold outward racist attitudes. Studies have found that those prejudices have since changed and are harbored most commonly toward Muslims and people from the Middle East.
Kevin Dunn, a professor at the University of Western Sydney who conducted the survey, said the results were encouraging for a country that has fostered extreme racism throughout its history, but noted that 1 in 10 people still holding onto racist attitudes is alarming.
“That’s still quite high I suppose – there’s a lot of concern that comes out of that,” Dunn said. “It’s better than in many other parts of the world, certainly in parts of western Europe where 3 in 10 people would hold those views.”
Muslims and the American ‘melting pot’
In America, racism and discrimination manifest itself systemically and through the attitudes of its citizens. And while Russia is taking an aggressive approach to suppress those feelings and Australia saw hatred quell itself naturally, the U.S. still struggles with harboring discriminatory feelings.
Despite over a decade passing since the terrorist attack of 9/11, a Gallup poll taken in 2010 found that 43 percent of Americans still harbored hostilities toward Islam. That number is twice as high as other religious affiliations, where people expressed some form of discrimination toward Christians (18 percent), Jews (15 percent) and Buddhists (14 percent).
Robert Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, argued that the prolonged skepticism of Islam in America is due to politicians often vilifying the Middle East and its groundwork. Jones said Americans fear a Muslim infiltration, a similar fear that Australians had of Asian immigration in the past. He also pointed to states attempting to formally ban Sharia law, even though the Islamic moral code and religious law had no bearing in the U.S.
“Americans are wrestling with fear, but on the other hand they’re also wrestling with acceptance,” Jones told CNN. “2011 has been an enormously active year for this question. Forty-nine bills have been introduced in 29 states to ban Sharia law. We asked the same question back in February, and only 23 percent of Americans agreed Muslims want to establish Sharia as the law of the land. That number has gone up to 30 percent, so still a minority, but the minority has grown.”
What was once considered a thriving melting pot, America’s cultural landscape in anything but, according to the Fiscal Policy Studies Institute in Santa Fe, N.M. The organization argues that the vast array of cultures in America do not operate together, but simply as separate entities living in the same location. The group says that because all of the different cultural groups rarely share in experiences or live day-to-day with one another, their knowledge void of other cultures is filled in with stereotypes they see in passing.
“The bad part of the melting pot was its rationalization of racism and intolerance. The melting pot metaphor writes off racism as a temporary transition period for minorities,” the institute wrote. “As each culture is melted into the American culture, racism and prejudice fade away for that particular group. But history shows that immigrants and other cultural minorities have not been welcomed. And racism and intolerance are not temporary, but rather chronic, conditions of American society.”
Promoting the right message
With more than 1,000 recognized hate groups in the U.S. and an upward trend in their organizing, the growth of the minority population in America has been met with extremism and intolerance. Natalia Simanovsky, a research officer who has worked at various think tanks, said Muslims in Canada are less likely than Muslims in other countries around the world to believe that their fellow citizens are discriminatory against them. To demonstrate this, a poll taken in 2006 by Focus Canada found that 83 percent of Canadians agreed that Muslims make a positive contribution toward their country and culture.
And Canada has been accommodating to Muslims, allowing for Muslim prayer in its public schools and by carrying halal food in nearly every major supermarket. Simanovsky noted that those gestures go a long way in fostering a seamless coexistence.
“The institutionalization of multiculturalism has meant that there is, for the most part, genuine acceptance of all cultures in society on equal terms, without fear that accommodation of different cultures will weaken Canadian laws, institutions or the character of the state,” Simanovsky wrote.
In Ukraine, ethnic tensions between the country and its autonomous sub-national unit Crimea has created a media that is too partial to one group during the tension, a problem that only continues to stoke hostilities, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. The ministry said that local media training on how to cover ethnic and racial conflicts could go a long way in presenting the issue in a way that would educate and enlighten without increasing tensions.
“Political groups and the media have proven to be too partial to help resolve this conflict, creating one of the main obstacles to reducing ethnic tensions,” the ministry wrote.