We explain what xenophobia is, what its causes and examples are. Also, its relationship with racism and discrimination.
What is xenophobia?
Xenophobia is called fear, contempt or hatred of women persons that come from a nation or one culture different from their own, that is, foreigners, including their cultural manifestations, their language or everything that can be associated with the foreign.
Xenophobia oscillates in its manifestations between intense and violent variants, capable of leading to crimes (murders, beatings, etc.) to gentler forms of rejection. One of the most common variants of xenophobia is based on racial distinctions, that is, racism.
The origin of xenophobia could be assumed at the beginning of human civilization, when groups and communities were weak and primitive and any stranger represented a threat to which they had to respond with force.
Thus, the feelings of primitive human civilization could be a cultural remnant of our evolution as a species, or they can be the result of social trauma, or attempts to find a convenient culprit for the human beings. problems what a community faces. It is no coincidence that in times of crisis, foreigners are the first to be accused as responsible.
Xenophobic attitudes, gestures and actions are not only ethically reprehensible for most of the nations modern, but also illegal: many criminal codes consider them as a crime punishable by law, in an attempt to prevent hate speech and social revenge, which at least in the West usually comes from reactionary positions, usually from the extreme right.
Examples of xenophobia
Examples to illustrate xenophobia abound in human history, unfortunately:
- The persecution of the Jews in the Europe of Nazism. The government National Socialist led by Adolf Hitler, trigger of the WWII and of the tragedy known as the Jewish Holocaust, promulgated in the mid-twentieth century a legislation that snatched the citizens of Jewish origin and other foreign peoples considered "inferior" (gypsies, Slavs, etc.) all kinds of civil rights and reduced them to the notion of slaves.
- Segregation on the island of Hispaniola. This Caribbean island is home to two different countries: Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere, and the Dominican Republic. The first is a former French colony, the second Spanish. And between the two there is a border that is sustained not only by political geography, but by the rejection of the Dominicans towards their poorer neighbors, blocking their way and often treating them as threatening agents.
- The Arab-Palestinian conflict.With deep roots in the 20th century, this conflict pits the nation of Israel, founded in 1948, against its neighbors of Arab origin, especially the Palestinians, who occupied the territory where the young Jewish nation was established. This complex conflict has resulted in hostilities and wars between both sides, and not a few acts of violence xenophobic on the part of Israel, the most powerful state and allied to the United States, such as massacres, expulsions and illegal appropriations of land.
- Mexico-US border. The intense migration Mexican and Central American migrants to the US has caused enormous tensions in the border area of both countries, causing US ranchers to violently reject the presence of migrants (whom they callwetbacks, “Wet backs”), and promoting a xenophobic policy of deportation and persecution, which considers Mexicans responsible for the evils of the United States.
Racism and xenophobia
While they are not the same, xenophobia and racism often go hand in hand. Racist considerations, which distinguish between one individual and another simply by the color of their skin or by their ethnic origin, take these individuals as strangers, that is, as outside the community, applying a somewhat childish notion of “ purity "or"nature”Which has nothing to do with the history of the constitution of nations, in which migrants and cultural and racial exchanges have been great engines of growth and cultural wealth.
However, racism can occur between individuals of the same nation, as often occurs in multi-ethnic nations or a product of colonial origins.
Most modern Western states have enacted laws against racism and promote ethnic diversity as a valueBut a true culture of racial equity has yet to be built.
Discrimination
Both racism and xenophobia are forms of discrimination, that is, granting or withdrawing opportunities, aid or benefits to various individuals or social groups based on their nationality, ethnic origin or other characteristics, such as sexual orientation (as denounced by the LGBT communities), biological sex (as denounced by feminism) or religion.
Thus, discrimination can be defined as the rejection of a certain human group due to prejudices, tribal hatreds or purist notions of culture, thus resulting in exclusion and an imbalance of opportunities. The sexismTo cite one example, it represents a form of exclusion towards women and towards diverse forms of masculinity.