The Dangers of Othering

You may have noticed from the tone of my blogs of late thatI feel like humanity is in a very dangerous place right now. And though there’sprobably only a half dozen or so of you out there reading these as I shout helplesslyinto the void, I still feel the need to do it or I’m probably going to burstwith frustration and rage. So my apologies everyone but here we go again…

It’s always someone else’s fault. We all know that person,don’t we? Anything that goes wrong in their world, well, it wasn’t their fault,oh no, impossible, it was someone else who caused it, it wasn’t down to them.The dog ate my homework. He pushed me. She wasn’t looking where she was going.They didn’t explain it properly. It wasn’t made clear that wasn’t allowed. Iwanted to be there and they were in the way. They didn’t do what I told them todo. They weren’t behaving properly. I wanted to do it, they got in the way.They came over here and took our jobs, it’s not down to me that I can’t getone. They didn’t deserve it, why shouldn’t I have it? Everything’s their fault- it just can’t be mine.

And then that person becomes a politician and that’s whenthe trouble starts. Because democracy, let’s be clear, whilst a wonderful idea,boils down to be being a popularity contest. Most people don’t sit down andread the details of a political manifesto, they listen to the rhetoric anddecide who they like or agree with the most. To be popular, a politician needsto make sure that no mud sticks to them and nothing is their fault and to make votersfeel like any problems aren’t their own fault too. They need to distract you fromthinking things are down to them. And what’s the best and quickest way to dothat? Blame someone else, of course.

It’s that other party’s fault. It’s the people who supportthem. It’s the people who don’t agree with us. It’s that other cultural group.It’s that neighbouring country, they are to blame. It’s those incomers, theyaren’t contributing. They are the criminals, that’s why the crime rate is up.They are taking our resources, that’s why we haven’t enough money. They aretrying to interfere with us, all our problems are being caused by them. Everything’stheir fault - it just can’t be ours.

And slowly, though rhetoric, through media, throughpolitical desperation, suddenly whole groups of people, whole races, wholereligions, whole nations, whole regions stop being human beings and start beingThem. They are The Others. The ones who are to blame. The ones who, if we couldget rid of them, all our problems would be magically solved. They are the problem,they are the evil ones, they are a homogenous mass of bad, they barely count aspeople anyway, so why shouldn’t we drive them out?

And history well documents what happens next. After all, theRomans did it to the Christians. The medieval Crusaders blamed Islam. The Protestantsaccused the Catholics and the Catholics pushed right back, in a variety ofdirections. Pretty much everyone over the years has had it in for the Jews,though Nazi Germany took it to a whole new level. 1950s American blamed theCommunists – the Communists blamed the West right back and their Russiandescendants still do. Islamic Extremists do it to everyone who isn’t one ofthem and innocent Islamic people suffer retribution. And now, in countriesacross the world, everyone blames the Immigrants.

Nationality seems to be irrelevant (race possibly less so) –it’s simply those nameless incomers who are to blame. They don’t conform, theydon’t contribute (yes still somehow manage to take people’s jobs), they arecriminals, they bring down the area, they are different, they are wrong, we don’twant them in our back yard. They aren’t like us.

The other big one at the moment is – it’s our national neighbour’sfault. They aren’t behaving like us. They aren’t doing what we want them to do.They aren’t towing our line and seeing our superiority. They are wrong, theyare the enemy, they are out to undermine so we have to take them down and putthem back in their place. They aren’t like us.

And then we are back to - they are the problem, they are theevil ones, they are a homogenous mass of bad, they barely count as peopleanyway, so why shouldn’t we drive them out?

They are The Others.

No, they are not. They are and always will be people.They are human beings with lives and feelings and problems, just like you. Andto dehumanise and other them, usually for the sake of some politician who wantsto shift the blame and some media outlet who wants to fuel clicks, is never,ever right. True, there are bad apples amongst them. But there are just as manybad apples everywhere else, because is what humanity is – there’s alwayssome. Blaming the mass for the faults of the few is wrong. Whenever you feelthe urge to Other someone, just try to imagine for a moment yourself in theirshoes. How would you want to be treated? You’d want to be treated like a humanbeing. History is replete with lessons about what happens when a group or raceor nation is so othered that their right to be a human being is taken away. Itdoesn’t end well for anyone, especially the human race as a whole.

And that is a lesson we could all do with remembering rightnow.

NOTE: Shortly after writing this blog, I found in a book I was reading a quote that beautifully sums up what I have tried to say here. The book is The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan and the quote, on page 291, comes late in life from Miep Gies, one of the brave helpers who sheltered and supported the Frank family and others during their concealment from the Nazis in their annex in Amsterdam during World War II:

"The message to take from Anne's story is to stop prejudice and discrimination right at its beginning. Prejudice starts when we speak about THE Jews, THE Arabs, THE Asians, THE Mexicans, THE Blacks, THE Whites. This leads to the feeling that all members of each such group think and act the same."

And this is from a woman who lived it.