1.5.12.6 Harmless Difference Crimes

Version 1.0 October 2022                             (Previous Version)

A special variety of victimless crimes are those which apply simply because of who the person is, rather than their behaviour causing suffering or harm.  We call these harmless difference crimes, because the actual differences between the groups are not only minimal but not actually harmful. 

Perhaps they should be called crimes of identity because a person is treated like a criminal, or even a subhuman, simply because of who they are, equating their identity with something bad or even evil.  (But this could be confused with identity theft, which is maliciously misusing identifying information such as name and contact numbers or details for personal gain.) 

Archetypal cases are legalized racism and sexism, and institutionalized (if not legalized) discrimination bases on caste, and various kinds of nationalism.

●   We do not need to look only to America, or the Nazis, for examples of racism.

●   In Malaysia gambling is allowed at Genting, one of the largest casinos in the world, at various turf (horse racing) clubs and off track facilities.  Chinese, Indians and Westerners are welcome.  It is illegal for Malays, who by law are deemed to be Muslims, to enter Genting or gamble.  Identity checks are conducted at the doors of the casino.  This is legalized racism.

●   In many places, people of the same sex are not allowed to marry.  This is legalized sexism. 

In Afghanistan under the (Muslim) Taliban girls and women are deprived of education, and the right to work, to travel as they please, and even to choose the clothes they wear.  This is brutal.

●   In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bhutan a substantial proportion of people are discriminated against according to their caste, not only among Hindus but also in Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist communities in the region.  So called lower caste people, Dalits (also called ‘Untouchables’) can be excluded from, or segregated, in places of worship, and discriminated against in employment, accommodation and leisure activities.  Intercaste marriages are legal in India, but relatively rare; the couples risk violence, severe beatings and frequently death, often instigated by close relatives, in so called ‘honour killings’.  Frequently the known murderers are not pursued by police, given bail by judges, and acquitted at trial.  Despite laws to protect Dalits, more than 40,000 crimes against lower castes were reported in 2016 alone, and that’s according to official statistics.  (see eg https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43972841 )

Ethnic nationalists, sectarians and tribalists are self-selected groups: they choose to favour people from their own ethnic, religious or tribal background, despite their being no real grounds for this in the context of long term global history.  They tend to be parochialist – focused on recent or local events – rather than globalist.  They select a few facts from history that suit their parochial narratives.  They are often prejudiced against any trends originating outside their ethnic group, treating support for a ‘foreign’ idea as a treasonous betrayal.  They usually oppose (what is often called Western) liberalism and pluralism, and tend to be absolutist, moralistic, and brutal, even vitriolic, in their antagonism to the perceived contamination from others that they hate.

The point of this discussion of nationalism, religious and ethnic sectarianism, and tribalism is that the exclusion of outgroups leads to unequal treatment, and irrational responses to social issues, that are not aimed to promote a safe and secure society for all.

There has been a growth in fundamentalism and sectarianism over the past few decades:

*    in Christianity (especially in the USA, Africa and the ex-USSR countries),

*    in Hinduism (India’s Hindutva movement, apparently almost fascist Hindu nationalism),

*    in Buddhism (Myanmar’s persecution of Muslims and Sri Lanka’s persecution of Tamils), and

*    in Islam (promoted by huge Saudi support for fundamentalist Wahhabism around the world). 

Muslims’ sense of oppression has been inspired by Western colonial abuses in the Middle East in the mid-1900s (forgetting the Ottoman Turkish colonialism which ended about 1920), the Western-supported Israeli oppression of the Palestinians (since the 1940s and 1950s), and suppression by dictators (in the late 1900s and early 2000s) of Islamic sects in Muslim countries such as Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.  These are all valid and legitimate concerns.

Incidentally, some Muslims cite the Crusades, a series of bloody religious wars initiated by the Catholic Church between 1095 and 1291 CE to the so called ‘Holy Land’ (then Palestine), intended to ‘free’ Jerusalem from Islamic rule – all of which eventually failed. 

●   These critics overlook the Muslim empire’s conquest of all of the Middle East, across to Pakistan, all of Northern Africa, and into Spain, which they ruled for about 800 years. 

●   In 732 CE, the Muslims in Spain (the Moors) attempted to conquer France, but were defeated by Charles Martel and the Franks at the Battle of Tours. 

●   In Eastern Europe, in 717, the Arab Muslim Empire tried to conquer Constantinople, the capital city of the Christian Byzantine Empire, after 20 years of attacks and conquests of Byzantine borderlands.  They used land and sea forces to lay a siege, but the Byzantine navy neutralized the Arab fleet, so Constantinople could be supplied by sea.  Eventually the Arab army withdrew.  Regular smaller attacks on Byzantine territories continued. 

●   Constantinople was finally besieged and conquered by the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire in 1453, and remains under the Empire's successor state, Turkey, over 700 years later.

By comparison a few failed attempts to seize and hold Jerusalem are almost insignificant.

There has also been a growth in what is called nationalism, all around the world over the past few decades.  In this context nationalism doesn’t mean support for a pluralist, inclusive nation state with laudable values, but instead is an appeal to ethnic or cultural nationalism, a form of racism. 

●   The Nazis (National Socialists) in Germany in the 1920s to 1940s CE appealed, not to all Germans, but to supposed ‘Aryans’, an invented ‘race’ of white, blond, Christian, healthy, able-bodied, able minded, heterosexuals.  The Holocaust or Shoah was the organized killing by Nazis of about 6 million Jews plus about 2 million homosexuals, disabled, mentally ill, and political dissidents.   More millions of Poles, Slavs, Romani and others were killed in other massacres.

Since then other appeals to nationalism seem to follow similar patterns.

●   White supremacists, sometimes called Neo-Nazis, in Europe, Britain, America, Australia, etc, continue to believe in an invented white race (despite the mixed heritage of most whites) who are also typically Christian (by heritage if not actual faith), assertively heterosexual, xenophobic, socially conservative, courageous, defensive, not well educated, insecure and feeling threatened. 

*    In Australia white supremacists wave and wear the Australian flag as though they are the only ‘true’ Australians, forgetting that Australian Aboriginals have a prior claim, justified by about 60,000 years of occupation rather than less than 300 years!  This abuse of the Australian flag annoys decent, tolerant, pluralist Australians (wherever they come from), who cringe at the sight and are reluctant to wave the flag that has been so tainted with racist white supremacy.

*    Similar right wing extremists can be found in other ‘Western’ nations, with similar effects.

      We need to reach out to these people, understand their concerns, and allay their fears as best we can.  To the extent that we can’t, we need to enforce criminal law as appropriate, when required.

●   After World War II, in the late 1940s, the small European countries of Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia were unified to form the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprised of a number of ethnic groups, including: Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics), Bosniaks (Muslims) and ethnic Albanians (Muslims). 

*    The Communist ruler Josip Broz Tito made Yugoslavia independent of the Russian led Soviet Union in 1948 and for forty years effectively suppressed inter-ethic conflict, so much so that people from different ethnic groups lived side by side and there were many intermarriages.  After Tito died in 1980 unrest grew in Yugoslavia, largely because the politician Slobodan Milosevic appealed to parochial Serbian Orthodox nationalism, not Tito’s Yugoslavian nationalism. 

*    This lead to wars between the ethnic groups, ethnic cleansing (expelling ethnic minorities), forced religious conversions, massacres, mass rape and genocide, that was eventually suppressed only after NATO intervention.  The wars cost about 130,000 to 140,000 lives; about half were Muslim Bosniaks, and about 10% died during the 4 year siege ending early 1992, of the Bosnian city of Sarajevo by Serbian Orthodox Christians.

Tribalism in Africa is similar to ethnic nationalism.  Civil wars in Africa have mostly been associated with tribal differences, overlaid with religious, cultural and economic differences.

●   For instance, in the Nigerian-Biafran Civil War up to three million people (out of 60 million) may have died due to the conflict, most from hunger and disease. 

*    Nigeria, set up by the British colonialists in 1960, had many different groups. Three were predominant: the Yoruba in the southwest, ruled by local monarchs, influenced by Christian missionaries; the Hausa-Fulani in the north, ruled by conservative Islamic Emirs; and the Igbo in the southeast, largely Christian, better educated, wealthier, with democratically organised villages.  These groups competed with each other prior to independence from the British Empire. 

*    The North’s population was slightly more than that of the other two regions combined, and so had a majority of seats in parliament.  Political parties were largely based in one region and one tribe.  Two coups occurred after disputed elections.  In 1966 there were massacres of Christian Igbos living in the Muslim North.  In 1967 the southwest region declared its independence as the Republic of Biafra.  A major complication is that oil was discovered in the southwest and the other regions, the north and southeast, wanted to have a share of the benefits that would follow.

*    The ‘Nigerian’ army, dominated by the North, invaded Biafra, but the Biafrans resisted.  The ‘Nigerians’ imposed a siege, a naval, land and air blockade of Biafra and gradually closed in around Biafra.  The Nigerian air force frequently bombed civilian rather than military targets.

*    The blockade resulted in many Biafrans starving, especially since food was directed  to the military.  Various foreigners began to fly in supplies.  Médecins Sans Frontières, now a major humanitarian agency, was created in 1971 by French doctors who had worked in besieged Biafra. 

*    Eventually the ‘Nigerian’ army won, in early 1970.  Profits from the exploitation of oil in the southwest helped to fund the recovery, but the Igbo believe they are not getting their fair share even now.  (see https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Nigerian_Civil_War) 

There are numerous other examples over the last eight decades: Pol Pot, Rwanda, the Rohingya, etc.