The seeds of hate

UNESCO Courier, March, 1996 by Michel Wieviorka

Racism and anti-semitism faded into the background with the formation of national political frameworks which created the conditions, especially through education, for economic modernization and industrialization, expansion and cultural integration. Today these frameworks are disintegrating. Economic activity is taking place in an international context and more often than not seems at odds with the nation-state; institutions are collapsing; racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism are re-emerging in societies that find it increasingly difficult to connect the values of reason and economic progress with those of cultural and national individuality.

MICHEL WIEVIORKA, of France, is director of the centre of sociological analysis and intervention at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. His works published in English include The Making of Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 1993).