“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other).“

Racially motivated crime in the UK has undoubtedly soared. However racism is not just isolated to physical attacks as many of us know. Here in the so-called land of civilisation, racism is experienced by many. Racism in the form of employment prospects and within the workplace, something that most of us students will no doubt experience in one form or another when we leave the cushioned life of university. Racism even occurs within our social relationships since many of us are restricted in whom we can marry due to the colour of our skin. Racism is not just a black thing or brown thing but something that affects us all regardless of our colour. Yes, even white people can be the victims of racism.

A World Wide Problem

Racism is a universal problem which many of the institutions in this country and across the world have failed to solve. Instead race relations organisations try and create a false sense of security amongst ethnic minorities by settling individual cases and not reaching the root of the problem. This is fruitless since it is like trying to bring back to life a dead tree by gluing fresh leaves to the dead branches. The only way to bring a dead tree back to life is to look at the roots and find out what the problem is and solve it from the basis of the problem.

The True Cause

When we go to the roots of the racism problem we see that racism emanates from the concept of a nation state (e.g. Britain). Each nation has a certain stereotype or definition of what the citizens of that state should look like. A good example of this is the US where the stereotype of an American citizen is a W.A.S.P. i.e a White Anglo Saxon Person. People may argue that if you are born there then you are American regardless of whether you are black, brown or white.However in reality, every nation state defines certain citizens as from that nation and others as not from that nation. This is the real cause of racism. For example, in this country people carry an ideal of what being British really is, whether it is publicly through groups such as the BNP or privately as many individuals do today.

Those who do not fit into this ideal of the true British citizen will always be treated differently and be seen as foreigners regardless of whether they were born here or not.

Positive Racism?

In nearly all application forms for jobs we now have to state our ethnic background even if we were born here. If there was no differentiation in citizenship there would be no need for this. Many employees state that the reason they ask for a persons' nationality on job applications is so that they can make sure that they employ people from all backgrounds in their company.

However, this too can be seen as a form of racism though many say that it is positive racism, yet to make race an issue at all can cause problems. If employees concentrated solely on peoples' qualifications then racism in jobs would not occur at all whether it is negative or positive.

A Solution

Islam solves the problem of racism from the basis since Islam has no concept of a nation state. Islam is not a religion but a way of life that is not specific to any one culture or race. In addition it allows people of all other faiths to live under its system and practice their beliefs, as history testifies. Islam sees all land as Gods' land and it does not allow any group of individuals from a certain region to see themselves as superior to any other group of individuals from other regions on the basis of race or nationality. As a result of this we see that when the Islamic State was ruling (Note there is no Islamic State today) it spread rapidly and included races ranging from Africans to Bosnians to Arabs.

As for those people that say that Islam was spread by the sword, we can see that in history that during the time of the crusades the Christian crusaders did not only have to fight the Muslims but also those Christians who lived under the Islamic State and chose to help defend it.

Conclusion

Finally, as for those religions that claim to offer the same solution to racism as Islam one only has to compare the races present in their places of worship to the various mosques in and around the UK to see where true equality, and brotherhood lies. Only Islam offers a complete way of life which can be proved to definitely come from the Creator. A way of life that has no concept of race or nationality.
It is the one system that all of mankind can live under without the racial tension we see today.