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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
absolute. “Given fifty-odd national sovereign states, given fifty-odd armies, navies and air forces, given fifty-odd independent governments, each of which is the judge of its own quarrels and the punisher of its own wrongs; I repeat given these conditions, there can be only one result-war.'
Prejudice in favour of one's own nation and consequently against other nations, has created a very difficult situation for mankind. Nationalism, which has resulted in the parceling out of our living space has tended to enhance our group territorialism, which is an inherited weakness from our animal predecessors.
Ideological Prejudice: Frustrations can also arise from the knowledge of the existence of opposing belief systems. World history documents how opposing ideological systems have frequently come into open conflict.
Many a time, it is the authorities or the governments themselves who encourage the people to develop ideological prejudices against the opposing nation or system. It helps them to deflect the wrath of the population initially aimed at them, on to a foreign government. For this 'strategic' prejudice to lead to open aggressiveness, the people must (1) be angry, (2) see the given group as being responsible for their frustrations, (3) believe the attack upon the group as ethically justified, and (4) think that they will not be punished for the aggression.
Racial Prejudice: In the tenth century, history tells us, a Muslim philosopher, an Arab living in Spain, made the following comment about the barbarians of the North: “Their temper is slow and their humours raw; their hair is long and their complexion pale. The sharpness of their wit, the perspicacity of their intelligence is nil; ignorance and indolence are dominant among them as well as crudeness and lack of judgement." Centuries later, the events turned full circle. Prosperity, technology and the power of the West looked down upon the peoples of other lands, in the East.
In the nineteenth century when European imperial expansion called for some justification, concept of superior and inferior races was created. Poets (Kipling), racial theorists (Chamberlain), and statesmen proclaimed colonial peoples to
Davies (1945: The Seven Pillars of Peace, London.
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