The Unspoken Truth About Xenophobia In USA, South Africa, Nigeria

When you say someone is Xenophobic, it means that person exhibits unreasoned fear of that which he perceives to be foreign or strange.

Xenophobia can manifest itself in many ways:

• If someone has a fear of losing identity 
• Exhibits an unusual suspicion of other people's activities
• Displays aggression, and desire to eliminate the presence of perceived others into order to secure a presumed purity
• An "uncritical exaltation of another culture" in which a culture is ascribed "an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality"
• All forms and manifestations of racism
• Any form of "deep-rooted, irrational hatred towards foreigners" and "unreasonable fear or hatred of the unfamiliar"

Xenophobia may be directed against a group which has been present for centuries, or became part of this society through conquest and territorial expansion. This form of xenophobia can elicit or facilitate hostile and violent reactions, such as mass expulsion of immigrants, pogroms or in other cases, genocide as in the case of the Hutus and Tutsi in Rwanda where over 800,000 persons were killed just in 100 days.

The second form of xenophobia is primarily cultural, and the objects of the phobia are cultural elements which are considered alien. All cultures are subject to external influences, but cultural xenophobia is often narrowly directed, for instance, at foreign loan words in a national language. It rarely leads to aggression against individual persons, but can result in political campaigns for cultural or linguistic purification. In addition, entirely xenophobic societies tend not to be open to interactions from anything "outside" themselves, resulting in isolationism that can further increase xenophobia.

Some Other Causes

A physically, emotional, or economically negative experience with a particular group which is then over-generalized to all members of that group.

Use of anti-cultural, anti-national and anti-terms as can be seen in Nigeria where each tribe has a pejorative for other ethic tribes e.g. "The tribe that eats people"; "The tribe that pooh-pooh's inside their rooms", etc. 

Classical conditioning, that is when someone is conditioned to having a fear or repulse from aliens generally, or, from specific group. Ways to instill it would be dehumanization, mostly by propaganda, for example: a video containing group members shown distorted, erroneous, and in proportional phases of horror sounding.

Imitating others, mainly those that are close to the individual, or, in many cases, societal norms of a nation.

Xenophobia: A World Wide Problem

According to Medindia, the forms of racism are numerous, but here are just a few examples of xenophobia in the world that have left the deep scars on the human race. 

The Jewish holocaust when approximately 6 million European Jews were mass murdered in concentration camps and forced labour during the Second World War. Hitler believed in the supremacy of the Aryan race and Nazi Germany and didn’t want it polluted by Jewish occupation. 

The Ku Klux Klan was an anti-Black movement in the America of the early 1900s. (It was actually born in the previous century but it was the resurrected version that is remembered for its cruelty.) The Klan was infamous for the lynching and murder of whole black families, community leaders and Black sympathizers. Identified by their hoods and flowing white robes, their movement also took on a religious colour as it was pro-white Protestant and preached Anti-Catholicism. . 

Apartheid South Africa is another lasting example of state-imposed racial segregation is the apartheid period (1948-1994). Blacks were denied citizenship, access to quality healthcare, public services, education and all amenities which had long been declared as basic human rights. The discrimination continued till the African National Party, led by Nelson Mandela, passed the anti-apartheid legislation. 

The Indian caste system, though not a racial issue, is still related to xenophobia. The class system which later evolved into the five general levels of caste divisions continues to be widely endorsed by Hindus. Despite legislation promising them a fair share of opportunity, Dalits (lower-caste) Hindus continue to form among the poorest sections of Indian society. 

Human zoos used to be a popular attraction in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries. These ‘public exhibits’ of human beings (caged, sometimes with exotic animals) introduced the West to the ‘barbarians’ of the East. Particularly popular exhibits were those of Africans, tribal pygmies, and the Philippines.

During the Second World War, especially after the bombing of Pearl Harbour in 1941, Japanese Canadians found themselves with the short end of the stick. Xenophobic public sentiment forced them out of their homes to a government-declared ‘safe zone’ where they were deprived of even basic human amenities. 

Rwanda’s Infamous Genocide was probably the worst modern humanity has ever seen. Ethnic strife, a simmering civil war and political competitiveness between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis led to the killing of several thousands of Tutsis in the space of a mere hundred days. Over 800,000 people are reported to have been killed in those mass killings. Even peace-brokering Hutus weren’t spared in the massacre. The genocide was also deemed a method of ‘ethnic cleansing’. Numerous Tutsi women were raped in full public view and the media has been accused of propagating anti-Tutsi sentiment during the period, especially channels like Radio Rwanda that was a dominant news source for illiterate people. In fact, it encouraged the killings in no uncertain terms, motivating listeners to kill “Tutsi cockroaches”.

Ethnic conflicts fuelled the war in the former Yugoslavia, as each tried to wipe out the other. Between 1991 and 1995, as the Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks and Slovenes fought over political domination, hundreds of thousands of civilians died. 

The 2009 records of the racially motivated attacks against Indians (particularly students) in Australia made headline news for a long period. Hate crimes were reported by the day, starting with the late night attack on an Indian taxi-driver and then further reports of attacks on Indian students surfaced.

In Nigeria Xenophobia manifests itself in terms of religious superiority, ethnic biases and political bigotry. In fact names are ascribed to different ethnic groups based on their common tendencies, lifestyle, and social proclivities. It may be the perceived reason why the Nigeria Civil took on an ugly aspect as the Igbos felt they were an unwanted ethnic group in the larger Nigeria society. Some reports have shown that genocide was a strategy used by the Nigeria military to crush the Biafrans. In the late '80s and early '90s Nigerians declared: "GHANA MUST GO" - a call that stemmed from the fear that many Ghanaians were robbing Nigerians of their jobs, although some say it was a fall out from how Nigerians were treated by the Ghanaian government at the time. 

How To Avoid Becoming Xenophobic

IGNORANCE breeds xenophobia.

Sense of superiority over and above others (in religion, culture, ethnic, etc.) fuels xenophobia.

Undue Fear of the Unknown creates a lacuna that thrives on xenophobia.

Unwillingness to learn about others or what we don't know heightens feelings of hate and covert hostility towards other.

When you don't know about something, ask, ask, ask. find out, an get accurate facts not just assumptions or perceptions or hear-says.