Xenophobia, in general, is a generic distrust of foreigners, especially people from countries and cultures that are very different from one's own.
In the modern social justice vocabulary xenophobia is just yet another aspect of "racism", and they will happily call anybody who shows xenophobia as a "racist". However, they are not actually the same thing.
Racism is prejudice, distrust, hostility or discrimination based on race, on the ethnicity of people. It's when someone sees, for example, a black person as exactly that, a black person, and has strong prejudices against that person precisely because he's black. It doesn't matter if that person has been born in the same country, lived all of his life in the same country, and even has fully adopted the culture of the country, acting exactly as everybody else. The prejudice is not based on that person being of a foreign culture, but based on on that person's race.
Xenophobia, on the other hand, is prejudice against people who are from foreign lands and foreign cultures. It doesn't matter what their race might be. It often so happens that their race is distinctly different (and it may even happen that this is used as a visual sign that the person is probably from another country and culture), but that's just tangential, not the raison d'être.
Does xenophobia make any sense? Or is it an irredeemably bad thing, always and everywhere, in every possible situation, no matter what? It would be quite easy to think so.
But consider another perspective: Xenophobia is a form of a more general distrust of strangers.
Trust and respect is earned, not deserved. If a complete stranger came to you on the street and, let's say, asked to see your wallet for instance, out of the blue, I don't think you could be blamed for immediately having a strong sense of distrust. You don't know this person, you have never seen him before... Why is this stranger suddenly asking to see your wallet? For what purpose? Sounds highly, highly suspicious. You would certainly hesitate to comply, if not outright refuse out loud.
Would you blame anybody for reacting in such a distrusting manner to this event? I don't think anybody would.
But suppose that your spouse, who you have been married to for over a decade and who you love more than anything else, suddenly asked to see your wallet. It might sound rather peculiar, if this isn't something usual, but you would certainly be must more trusting. Your spouse has earned your trust and respect, so the situation is completely different.
One could argue that xenophobia can be even a somewhat healthy attitude towards strangers that could potentially disrupt the peace and harmony of a community. A community, such as a village or town, may have formed a culture that has helped it over the decades, even centuries, to become a peaceful place where people are amicable and help each other, and made it a really nice place to live, with very little problems.
Then a new person, from a completely different culture, perhaps even a distant foreign country, moves into the community. He probably doesn't know the local culture, and might have all kinds of customs and traditions, perhaps even demands, that may clash with the local harmonious peaceful culture. He may cause trouble. Who knows, perhaps he even is some kind of criminal? How can anybody trust this person? What if he's a burglar, or a rapist, or a murderer?
Should we blame the people in this town for being wary and prejudiced against this foreigner, especially at first? If we don't blame someone who is approached by a stranger and made an unusual request, why should we blame the members of this kind of community for similar behavior?
Once this foreigner has lived in that community for long enough, and proven that he's willing to learn the local customs and behavior, and shown that he has adopted them, and become a model member of the community, he will probably be accepted as a full unofficial member of the community. He will have earned the trust and respect of the community.
This is the reason why, traditionally and archetypically, many highly xenophobic cultures and communities may nevertheless have members who are clearly and categorically foreign, from a completely different country (and often completely different race), who are trusted and considered fully part of the community. This is not a contradiction. These foreigners have earned the trust of the community.
(The current western social justice ideology has made people think of this happening only with white communities against people of other races, but it happens in all kinds of combinations. Things like this happen all the time all over the world, where for example, some Japanese town, or an African town, might be highly xenophobic against white westerners, but have very trusted such people living among them.)
In the modern social justice vocabulary xenophobia is just yet another aspect of "racism", and they will happily call anybody who shows xenophobia as a "racist". However, they are not actually the same thing.
Racism is prejudice, distrust, hostility or discrimination based on race, on the ethnicity of people. It's when someone sees, for example, a black person as exactly that, a black person, and has strong prejudices against that person precisely because he's black. It doesn't matter if that person has been born in the same country, lived all of his life in the same country, and even has fully adopted the culture of the country, acting exactly as everybody else. The prejudice is not based on that person being of a foreign culture, but based on on that person's race.
Xenophobia, on the other hand, is prejudice against people who are from foreign lands and foreign cultures. It doesn't matter what their race might be. It often so happens that their race is distinctly different (and it may even happen that this is used as a visual sign that the person is probably from another country and culture), but that's just tangential, not the raison d'être.
Does xenophobia make any sense? Or is it an irredeemably bad thing, always and everywhere, in every possible situation, no matter what? It would be quite easy to think so.
But consider another perspective: Xenophobia is a form of a more general distrust of strangers.
Trust and respect is earned, not deserved. If a complete stranger came to you on the street and, let's say, asked to see your wallet for instance, out of the blue, I don't think you could be blamed for immediately having a strong sense of distrust. You don't know this person, you have never seen him before... Why is this stranger suddenly asking to see your wallet? For what purpose? Sounds highly, highly suspicious. You would certainly hesitate to comply, if not outright refuse out loud.
Would you blame anybody for reacting in such a distrusting manner to this event? I don't think anybody would.
But suppose that your spouse, who you have been married to for over a decade and who you love more than anything else, suddenly asked to see your wallet. It might sound rather peculiar, if this isn't something usual, but you would certainly be must more trusting. Your spouse has earned your trust and respect, so the situation is completely different.
One could argue that xenophobia can be even a somewhat healthy attitude towards strangers that could potentially disrupt the peace and harmony of a community. A community, such as a village or town, may have formed a culture that has helped it over the decades, even centuries, to become a peaceful place where people are amicable and help each other, and made it a really nice place to live, with very little problems.
Then a new person, from a completely different culture, perhaps even a distant foreign country, moves into the community. He probably doesn't know the local culture, and might have all kinds of customs and traditions, perhaps even demands, that may clash with the local harmonious peaceful culture. He may cause trouble. Who knows, perhaps he even is some kind of criminal? How can anybody trust this person? What if he's a burglar, or a rapist, or a murderer?
Should we blame the people in this town for being wary and prejudiced against this foreigner, especially at first? If we don't blame someone who is approached by a stranger and made an unusual request, why should we blame the members of this kind of community for similar behavior?
Once this foreigner has lived in that community for long enough, and proven that he's willing to learn the local customs and behavior, and shown that he has adopted them, and become a model member of the community, he will probably be accepted as a full unofficial member of the community. He will have earned the trust and respect of the community.
This is the reason why, traditionally and archetypically, many highly xenophobic cultures and communities may nevertheless have members who are clearly and categorically foreign, from a completely different country (and often completely different race), who are trusted and considered fully part of the community. This is not a contradiction. These foreigners have earned the trust of the community.
(The current western social justice ideology has made people think of this happening only with white communities against people of other races, but it happens in all kinds of combinations. Things like this happen all the time all over the world, where for example, some Japanese town, or an African town, might be highly xenophobic against white westerners, but have very trusted such people living among them.)
Comments
Post a Comment