Section D: 2.3 Structural injustice



Past Exam Question


Trace the way in which moral failure is evident in one example of structural injustice that you have studied.


This question requires you to explain both moral failure and structural injustice, giving a specific example of the latter. Moral failure is a concept common to all religions and particularly evident in monotheistic traditions. It is commonly referred to as sin. Depending on your religious vision it may involve either ‘the breaking of God’s law’ or ‘rejection of God’s love’. In Christianity it represents the damaging of the relationship that exists between the individual and God. Moral failure is often personal sin – any wrong freely chosen by an individual – these have consequences for ourselves (in fracturing our relationship with God) and also for those around us (who the law of God protects). In this manner personal sin can have a social dimension.


Social sin can manifest itself as structural injustice. This means that something wrong is supported by official, organised structures of society. The adoption of an increasingly liberal culture in Western society has helped highlight many examples of structural injustice during the past century. Any form of institutional discrimination falls under the category of structural injustice, for example; campaigns of genocide during World War II, the racial discrimination that led to the emergence of the civil rights movement in 1960’s America, the criminalisation of homosexuality in various countries. All of these injustices were enabled by the official structures of society.


The apartheid system in South Africa is another example of structural injustice. Apartheid was a political and social system of institutional racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 until 1994. It was characterised by an authoritarian political culture which encouraged state repression of Black African, Coloured and Asian South Africans, for the benefit of the nation’s white minority population.


During apartheid people were divided into four racial groups and segregated by law. The first apartheid law was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1949, which made it illegal for most South Africans to pursue relationships across racial lines. The Population Registration Act, 1950 classified all South Africans into one of four racial groups based on appearance, known ancestry, socioeconomic status and cultural lifestyle – Black, White, Coloured and Indian. From 1960 – 1983, 3.5 million Non-White South Africans were removed from their homes and forced into segregated neighbourhoods. Many of these targeted removals were designed to restrict the Black population to ten designated ‘tribal homelands’ called bantustans.


The Apartheid system was seen as a gross injustice in its failure to respect the human rights of all. It represents the moral failure of a society in not treating all individuals as equals. A sin that became normalised and institutionalised, leading to the abuse of basic human rights and the corruption of societal values that bind us together. Apartheid was the subject of significant international opposition throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and it was finally ended in 1994.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Section A: 4.2 Secular sources of communal values

Image
In the medieval world communal values were shaped, almost exclusively, by institutional religion. In the case of mainland Europe Christianity cast a particularly long shadow – dictating cultural and behaviour norms, as well as codes of ethics and moral theories.  The Enlightenment heralded the emergence of a secular worldview – and in doing so, severed links between values and religious belief. Beginning in the 16th century we can identify a number of cultural changes that led to the development of non-religious communal values. Past Exam Question The development of non-religious communal values can be traced back to moments such as the rise of humanism, existentialism etc. Profile how any two such moments contributed to the development of non-religious communal values Renaissance The Renaissance is a time of innovation in the arts and human sciences. It represented a 'rebirth’ after the long slumber of the dark ages. The scientific discoveries of Co...
Read more

Section A: 2.2 Early religious behaviour

Image
Religious behaviour is founded upon belief in a power greater than ourselves and manifests itself in codes of moral conduct and rituals that offer praise or worship to this higher power. Archaeological studies of ancient civilisations have uncovered behaviours and practices which can be considered religious in nature. Examples of burial rites, sacrifices and rituals that mark times of transition point to a sense of spirituality in pre-historic societies. Past Exam Question Since ancient times people have used rites to mark key events in life - rite of burial, rite of sacrifice, rite of passage : Explain how evidence of religious belief can be seen in one of the above rites associated with people who lived in ancient times. Through archaeology and historical research we find much that suggest religious behaviour on the part of ancient people. ‘Religious’ means they attached meaning to key moments in their lives, both as individuals and as a community. Events marked thr...
Read more

Section C: 1.2 Influence of primal religions

The term primal religion refers to the practices of pre-historic, pre-literate groups, whose rituals and beliefs have been preserved through an oral tradition. These groups are disparate and can be identified in several different parts of the world, including; the Yoruba tribe in west Africa, the Maya in central America, the New Zealand Maori and the Australian aborigines. Though there was no connection between these groups there are striking similarities in their major beliefs and the expression of their religious faith. Primal religion was practiced by agricultural societies, who lived close to nature and sensed its power. They believed in a spiritual world of beings stronger than mankind. These groups shared similar traits, namely; recognition of the all-encompassing power of religion, with no boundaries between sacred and secular, the use of oral rather than written sources, rituals depicting myths or narratives centred on the human-divine relationship. The main chara...
Read more