subject: THE ONEHUMANITYPROJECT the evils that people do: xenophobia [print this page] The problem of Xenophobia has been with us for as long as we have looked at others, who happen to be unfamiliar to us, with both suspicion and contempt. It is an ill feeling towards another human person. In the past two years we have been shocked to hear that xenophobia was allowed to show its ugly face once more. There were reports from Europe as well as from Africa. Whatever happened to the perpetrators, the world still must wait for the courts of law to decide. May be we will never get any meaningful justice in this regard. We are talking about human brutality premised on the logic of geographical differences as well as greedy, fear and uncertainty. We could not also rule out the inability to resist violence by others who do not value human life and those with other ulterior motives, be they political or merely social. There are indications that some parts of the world were affected, and continue to be as well, but the media people may not have given them the attention they deserve. Of course we should not delight in bad news of this sort but information is equally vital so that we as humans may come to terms with the evils we are capable of doing to one another and how we stand challenged to resist them. This must be one of the international projects that still must be completed. Xenophobia could be viewed as a psychological disorder that results from little knowledge, lack of common sense, ill-disposition coupled with the animal instincts that still must be domesticated. Perhaps the best description could be that it is an evil that many find easy to justify from a materialistic point of view.
We have heard that people who went to other countries in search of opportunities to improve their lives were targeted, murdered, tortured, raped and subjected to all forms of wanton abuses simply because they were not local. The exponents of xenophobia justify their actions by arguing that foreigners steal their jobs and put unnecessary pressure on the limited economic resources of the host countries. Because of this they must be exterminated or their livelihood must be severely compromised as a penalty for being in a country they are not welcome. The irony is that no known governments of the world have ever openly promoted such savage policies ever since the Nazi era under Adolf Hitler. The whole world found itself face to face with the discomforts of a brutal war and there are no reasons for humanity to repeat the same mistake again. Clearly, when humanity sees its own from a xenophobic perspective, we have a serious case of misplaced convictions leading to the evils we would be better off without.
Xenophobia is in many ways senseless. It is the highest expression of social insanity and any reasonable human being would do better to resist it. Many developed nations have come to realise that recruiting people from all over the world does the opposite of exerting too much pressure on their economies. In fact some have actually been able to treble their economic growth by making use of the expertise that they import from wherever around the globe. The so-called brain drainage, characterised by the exodus of nurses, doctors, teachers, as well as experts in other fields, from developing countries into the developed world has been aggravated by the fact that good perks are at the core. What is happening is that people from other parts of the world are not seen as threats but as those who could make a significant contribution to the socio-economic aspirations of the host countries. Instead of spending billions on training their own, they rather import the expertise that is underutilised and under remunerated anywhere else. This is the right thing that human beings should be found doing because it brings us face to face with the need to unite and to share as brothers and sisters of the human community. Instead of attacking those from outside their borders, incentives are actually offered so that many young experts from the so-called Two Thirds World are flocking to Europe, Australia and North America where lucrative perks are in abundance.
Meanwhile these developed countries are benefitting, poor countries must still educate their own people on the benefits of attracting foreign experts. The term foreigner could command some dignity in the English context and usage. However, when translated within some vernacular matrices known to the world, it actually robs human beings of everything they could stand for. In fact it has a tendency of being exaggerated to such an extent that it degenerates into some derogatory connotations. When such a thing happens, the foreigner is seen as one who counts for nothing except in so far as they must be abused, murdered and done away with. The chaotic thinking obtaining here is obvious. The outside becomes almost like some other wild creature that either has no dignity or must be hunted down and exterminated. We could not imagine anything so malthusian.
THE ONEHUMANITYPROJECT the evils that people do: xenophobia
