Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Segregation can involve the spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. Specifically, it may be applied to activities such as eating in restaurants, drinking from water fountains, using public toilets, attending schools, going to movie theaters, riding buses, renting or purchasing homes, renting hotel rooms, going to supermarkets, or attending places of worship. In addition, segregation often allows close contact between members of different racial or ethnic groups in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Racial segregation has generally been outlawed worldwide.
Segregation is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as "the act by which a person separates other persons on the basis of one of the enumerated grounds without an objective and reasonable justification, in conformity with the proposed definition of discrimination. As a result, the voluntary act of separating oneself from other people on the basis of one of the enumerated grounds does not constitute segregation". According to the UN Forum on Minority Issues, "The creation and development of classes and schools providing education in minority languages should not be considered impermissible segregation if the assignment to such classes and schools is of a voluntary nature." Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the 2002 Rome Declaration of Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Historic cases from ancient times to the 1960s
Racial segregation was often used to secure the advantages enjoyed by a certain dominant group, e.g. "various conquerors—among them Asian Mongols, African Bantu, and American Aztecs". In recent times, it was mostly imposed by white groups.Imperial China
Tang dynasty
Several laws which enforced racial segregation of foreigners from Chinese were passed by the Han Chinese during the Tang dynasty. In 779, the Tang dynasty issued an edict which forced Uyghurs to wear their ethnic dress, stopped them from marrying Han Chinese females, and banned them from pretending to be Han Chinese. In 836, when Lu Chun was appointed as governor of Canton, he was disgusted to find Chinese living with foreigners and intermarriage between Chinese and foreigners. Lu enforced separation, banning interracial marriages, and made it illegal for foreigners to own property. Lu Chun believed his principles were just and upright. The 836 law specifically banned Chinese from forming relationships with "Dark peoples" or "People of colour", which was used to describe foreigners, such as "Iranians, Sogdians, Arabs, Indians, Malays, Sumatrans", among others.Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty was founded not by Han Chinese, who form the majority of the Chinese population, but by Manchus, who are today an ethnic minority of China. The Manchus were keenly aware of their minority status, however, it was only later in the dynasty that they banned intermarriage.Han defectors played a massive role in the Qing conquest of China. Han Chinese Generals of the Ming Dynasty who defected to the Manchu were often given women from the Imperial Aisin Gioro family in marriage while the ordinary soldiers who defected were given non-royal Manchu women as wives. The Manchu leader Nurhaci married one of his granddaughters to the Ming General Li Yongfang after he surrendered Fushun in Liaoning to the Manchu in 1618. Jurchen women married most of the Han Chinese defectors in Liaodong. Aisin Gioro women were married to the sons of the Han Chinese Generals Sun Sike, Geng Jimao, Shang Kexi, and Wu Sangui.
A mass marriage of Han Chinese officers and officials to Manchu women numbering 1,000 couples was arranged by Prince Yoto and Hongtaiji in 1632 to promote harmony between the two ethnic groups.
Geng Zhongming, a Han bannerman, was awarded the title of Prince Jingnan, and his son Geng Jingmao managed to have both his sons Geng Jingzhong and Geng Zhaozhong become court attendants under Shunzhi and marry Aisin Gioro women, with Haoge's daughter marrying Geng Jingzhong and Prince Abatai's granddaughter marrying Geng Zhaozhong.
The Qing differentiated between Han Bannermen and ordinary Han civilians. Han Bannermen were made out of Han Chinese who defected to the Qing up to 1644 and joined the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges in addition to being acculturated to Manchu culture. So many Han defected to the Qing and swelled the ranks of the Eight Banners that ethnic Manchus became a minority within the Banners, making up only 16% in 1648, with Han Bannermen dominating at 75%. It was this multi-ethnic force in which Manchus were only a minority, which conquered China for the Qing.
It was Han Chinese Bannermen who were responsible for the successful Qing conquest of China, they made up the majority of governors in the early Qing and were the ones who governed and administered China after the conquest, stabilizing Qing rule. Han Bannermen dominated the post of governor-general in the time of the Shunzhi and Kangxi Emperors, and also the post of governors, largely excluding ordinary Han civilians from the posts.
To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from the Manchu Shunzhi Emperor allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners, it was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with.
The Qing implemented a policy of segregation between the Bannermen of the Eight Banners and Han Chinese civilians. This ethnic segregation had cultural and economic reasons: intermarriage was forbidden to keep up the Manchu heritage and minimize sinicization. Han Chinese civilians and Mongol civilians were banned from settling in Manchuria. Han civilians and Mongol civilians were banned from crossing into each other's lands. Ordinary Mongol civilians in Inner Mongolia were banned from even crossing into other Mongol Banners.
These restrictions did not apply to Han Bannermen, who were settled in Manchuria by the Qing. Han bannermen were differentiated from Han civilians by the Qing and treated differently.
The Qing Dynasty started colonizing Manchuria with Han Chinese later on in the dynasty's rule, but the Manchu area was still separated from modern-day Inner Mongolia by the Outer Willow Palisade, which kept the Manchu and the Mongols in the area separate.
The policy of segregation applied directly to the banner garrisons, most of which occupied a separate walled zone within the cities in which they were stationed. Manchu Bannermen, Han Bannermen, and Mongol Bannermen were separated from the Han civilian population. While the Manchus followed the governmental structure of the preceding Ming dynasty, their ethnic policy dictated that appointments were split between Manchu noblemen and Han Chinese civilian officials who had passed the highest levels of the state examinations, and because of the small number of Manchus, this insured that a large fraction of them would be government officials.
Colonial societies
Belgian Congo
From 1952, and even more so after the triumphant visit of King Baudouin to the colony in 1955, Governor-General Léon Pétillon worked to create a "Belgian-Congolese community", in which Black and White people were to be treated as equals. Regardless, anti-miscegenation laws remained in place, and between 1959 and 1962 thousands of mixed-race Congolese children were forcibly deported from the Congo by the Belgian government and the Catholic Church and taken to Belgium.French Algeria
Following its conquest of Ottoman controlled Algeria in 1830, for well over a century, France maintained colonial rule in the territory which has been described as "quasi-apartheid". The colonial law of 1865 allowed Arab and Berber Algerians to apply for French citizenship only if they abandoned their Muslim identity; Azzedine Haddour argues that this established "the formal structures of a political apartheid". Camille Bonora-Waisman writes that "in contrast with the Moroccan and Tunisian protectorates", this "colonial apartheid society" was unique to Algeria.This "internal system of apartheid" met with considerable resistance from the Muslims affected by it, and is cited as one of the causes of the 1954 insurrection and ensuing independence war.
Rhodesia
The Land Apportionment Act of 1930 passed in Southern Rhodesia was a segregationist measure that governed land allocation and acquisition in rural areas, making distinctions between Blacks and Whites.One highly publicised legal battle occurred in 1960 involving the opening of a new theatre that was to be open to all races; the proposed unsegregated public toilets at the newly built Reps Theatre in 1959 caused an argument called "The Battle of the Toilets".
Uganda
After the end of British rule in 1962, Indian people living in Uganda existed in segregated ethnic communities with their own schools and healthcare. Indians constituted 1% of the population but earned a fifth of the national income and controlled 90% of the country's businesses.In 1972, the President of Uganda Idi Amin ordered the expulsion of the country's Indian minority with disastrous consequences for the local economy. The government confiscated some 5,655 firms, ranches, farms, and agricultural estates, along with cars, homes and other household goods.
Religious and racial antisemitism
were generally forced, by decree or by informal pressure, to live in highly segregated ghettos and shtetls. In 1204, the papacy required Jews to segregate themselves from Christians and it also required them to wear distinctive clothing. Forced segregation of Jews spread throughout Europe during the 14th and 15th centuries. In the Russian Empire, Jews were restricted to the so-called Pale of Settlement, the Western frontier of the Russian Empire which roughly corresponds to the modern-day countries of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. By the early 20th century, the majority of Europe's Jews lived in the Pale of Settlement.From the beginning of the 15th century, Jewish populations in Morocco were confined to mellahs. In cities, a mellah was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway. In contrast, rural mellahs were separate villages whose sole inhabitants were Jews.
In the middle of the 19th century, J. J. Benjamin wrote about the lives of Persian Jews:
On 16 May 1940 in Norway, the Administrasjonsrådet asked the Rikskommisariatet why radio receivers had been confiscated from Jews in Norway. That Administrasjonsrådet thereafter "quietly" accepted racial segregation between Norwegian citizens, has been claimed by Tor Bomann-Larsen. Furthermore, he claimed that this segregation "created a precedent. 2 years later Norwegian police arrested citizens at the addresses where radios had previously been confiscated from Jews.