Wednesday 4 January 2017

Why is it xenophobic to fear strangers?

I posted recently on the theme "stop calling my friends racists". But it would be easy for almost any Vote Leave or Trump supporter in the UK or USA to feel that they have been accused of just that.

In the wake of Trump's win I watched an American muslim interviewed on BBC news. The word xenophobia was used. I can understand why he felt alienated, but equally he did not appear to recognise a couple of, to me, obvious points:
1. For most of the Trump voter demographic, Muslims would be rare or outside their experience
2. People professing a virulently strong affiluation to that religion have caused some of the very few terrorist incidents in the US since its foundation

In that context, I would have hoped the interviewee would have said something like "I understand why you are wary of Muslims but we aren't all the same" and "the United States has a  proud history of religious tolerance". But instead it came across as "xenophobia".

It isn't xenophobic to feel afraid. After all, in the area of sexual harassment, we are always being told, quite correctly, that what matters is how the harassed person has been made to feel. So just turn that on its head for a moment. It may not be rational to fear all muslims because of 9/11, but some Americans probably do. Does that make it xenophobic? Pedantically, of course, it doesn't - xenophobia is fear of people from different countries or races, not different religions, but I suppose I'm splitting hairs.

What is out of order is branding half the population xenophobes or racists because of who they have voted for.

What is clear is that having parts of the community that are frightened of each other isn't healthy. And that name calling doesn't help.


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