We are living in an intercultural society where migration and immigration is a part of everyone’s life. You may think that racism is abolished and nowhere to be find. I also wish that was true, but I can´t look away from it and pretend it isn´t there when I know it is.
Racism includes discrimination based upon fear. This can mean culture as well as appearance and heritage. Racism is intolerance based on lack of knowledge and creates stereotypes or enemy images of “the otherâ€.
The feeling of being different and being discriminated by the society makes this a problem, how ever the media shows racism more as a topic then an actual problem. The discriminated are often instead viewed as the base of the problem. This leads to segregation and a problem of integration in Europe.
This topic is important since it is an actual topic where there is a lack of knowledge. The situation through out Europe is different with different examples but it still has the same base. We see a lack of a European coverage comparing the different situations as well as a youth view that wish to cover the whole topic. Not just the negative effects but also the positive initiatives taken to work against discrimination.
Our aim for this issue is to show global racism with local examples to be able to illustrate the big scale of racism trough out Europe and to show the differences but still the common ground. We wish to inform Europeans positive examples of how to deal with this issue as well as how easy it is to do something. Stereotypes are something common but we can work against it.
Racism, especially cultural racism and discrimination against minorities are very rarely dealt with on a youth level. We find this a very important topic since the European Youth Press, as an international youth organisation, is related with the differences and common approaches of the countries, situated in the geographic area of Europe, on nearly every meeting. Especially the field “racism” and the handling of “minority issues” in the different countries are touched very often. No matter if there is a right wing party in a local parliament in Germany or the situation of Sinti and Romanies in Hungary – all this is handled by the young journalists in media. We want to pick up this issue and create a Europe wide publication about “Racism in Europeâ€.
We hope you enjoy our issue, and feel free to contribute with your thoughts and ideas!
This project was funded from the European Youth Foundation of the Council of Europe in the framework of their campaign “All different – all equal”
