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Article: Us and them: human beings share a vast array of things in common, yet it is the small differences among us that seem to dominate interaction.(Minorities--Background)
- Article from:
- Canada and the World Backgrounder
- Article date:
- October 1, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Canada & the World. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Every person is a minority of one. We are all different from each other. Even the world's largest ethnic group, the Han Chinese, of whom there are about 1.1 billion, are a minority in the world. Males outnumber females by a ratio of 101 to 100 globally. However, in Canada males are a minority (98:100); that's true of most developed countries. The world's largest religion, Christianity, is a minority on a global scale, gathering a following of less than one third of total population.
For most of human history, the notion of minorities only applied to religious followers. For Europeans, Christianity became the faith of the majority. Those who preferred other gods ...