Wikipedia

Supremacism

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Supremacism is the belief that self-determination and freedom of association are principles less important than the virtues obtained by one's race, religion, belief system, or culture ruling over others. This is generally justified by some notion of superiority, sometimes described in scientific terms, but it can also be by divine covenant such as the divine right of kings (royal families or "chosen people").

Beliefs and ideas

It is important, of course, to distinguish genuine supremacism from the general holding of beliefs. If you believe that x is true and that y is false, then you must hold that someone who believes the reverse is wrong, and that your beliefs are in that sense superior. A Christian who believes that salvation is only possible through belief in Jesus must, by definition, hold that Hindus are wrong, for they believe neither in the Christian notion of salvation nor the divinity of Jesus; a committed democrat must hold that the believer in one-party communism or theocracy is wrong; a Big Bang theorist must hold that the steady state theory is false; and so on. Part of what is important about a belief is what it rules out.

Supremacism, however, goes much further than this. It doesn't hold merely that a belief or set of beliefs is true, and thus superior to the (false) alternatives, but that a particular group is superior to other groups.

The three Abrahamic religions have been referred to as supremacist, a characteristic not usually shared by Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, or Taoism. This is largely because each of them has been associated with more than a religious set of ideas, but with a race or a culture (such as Christendom). Of course, Western society no longer openly promotes religious supremacism, the current war in Iraq being a good example. A great deal of care was made in order not to allow anti-Saddam propaganda to include an anti-Islamic focus. On the other hand, the Crusades, Islamism, and Jewish ethnocentrism all involve supremacist elements.

Recent justifications

After the work of Charles Darwin, proponents of supremacy sought scientific justification via concepts such as "social Darwinism". The most notorious example of this is during the early 20th century and the rise of German National Socialism, which posited a "master race", superior to others and therefore entitled to rule over others. This social self-identity led to Hitler's popular rise to power, and later to state policy ending in the holocaust. The Nazis are seen by many as an archetype of modern supremacism.

Minority views consider more recent belief systems to be supremacist, such as:

  1. The neoconservative belief that Western political and economic structures should be introduced throughout the world and that doing so by force is justified.
  2. The United Nations' The Universal Declaration of Human Rights wherein self-determination is not a right extended to "all peoples" if the identity of those "peoples" can be described as "racial".

Supremacist groups

The following groups do qualify as supremacist organisations.

Racial supremacist groups

Religious supremacist groups

See also

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