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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Racism in our world is still present and well alive. We usually see it when our rights are disrespected because of what we are rather than because of what we do. When the others' rights are dashed we usually claim noble ignorance. Sometimes this racism is neutral toward our interests; sometimes it plays in our advantage. No matter how open or hidden it might be it costs the humanity incredible amount of money and missed opportunities for development. Here is an attempt to write a short list of examples showing how well the "modern" institutional racism, or the preference of people because of what they are and not of what they do, has made the life of all of us less prosperous although some of us could have benefited from this state of affairs at least from time to time:

• Any country that segregates people according to their nationality in doing business on its territory. This may be preventing the foreigners from performing particular tasks outside those that are classified as state security. This also may be preventing the foreigners from buying real estate, especially land. There are no strict international rules on these matters and everything that hasn't been regulated internationally goes automatically to the state sovereignty domain. We usually don't even consider such acts as racist per se believing that the governments better know what is and what isn't appropriate.
• Many international business and non-governmental organizations impose being native-English (native-French, native-Spanish, etc.) person as a prerequisite for their future workers. No matter what is the exact matter of the positions, almost all humanity is automatically excluded from bidding. The result is thousands of unfilled positions around the world, especially in war-torn areas where the help is needed most.
• The so-called affirmative actions by many western governments that are racism in its pure form intended to fix past problems created by another "traditional" form of racism. Again part of society and humanity is automatically excluded from bidding. People without any other quality outside their membership by birth in some target community get what the rest won't be able to reach because of the past wrongs done.
• Restricting the freedom of movement so proudly proclaimed in the Universal declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (art.13). In fact there is no such universal right to speak of, with almost no exceptions the sovereign states can decide who can leave and especially who can enter. Especially after 9/11 this right has become even less possible. Any government can cite the threat of terrorist infiltration in addition to the threat of foreign economic migrants as sufficient excuse for closing the state borders for nationals of particular country or group of countries.

The irony of this modern institutional racism is that like its traditional predecessor it produces less freedom of choice even for its beneficiaries. People that are promoted toward certain social and political positions are less inclined to follow other ways that seem less attractive in short run but that could bring more personal satisfaction in long run. Living in isolation from the real world thanks to state or business or non-governmental special treatment produces sense of false high self-esteem that usually crashes with the first contact with reality making its beholder unhappy and full of hate for the outside world. The only long-lasting solution will be gradually to erase all existing regimes of preferences based on birth, not to create new restrictions.

Another example of "modern" racism. Most of the United Nations General Assembly members skip the Remembrance Day for the victims of the Holocaust in January 2005.