Of demons and humans

By admin-s Last updated Jun 10, 2014

Why are we the chosen ones and everybody else an infidel, a kafir, an untouchable? Why is the need to feel good only achieved by demonising the other?

Kapil Sethi, MMO

History is replete with examples of violent persecution of entire races and religions for extended periods of time. Corporations and sports clubs ― not so much. People who are perfectly content to work together and cheer for the same football team seem to morph into rabid, red-eyed foaming at the mouth villains when it comes to questions of race, caste or religion. Come to think of it, most of the ugliness in football also smacks of racist undertones.

What is it about the idea of racial and religious membership that seems to foment so much extremism, especially given that on the face of it they are all given to endless sermons on peace and brotherhood between all of humankind? Why are we the chosen ones and everybody else an infidel, a kafir, an untouchable? Why is the need to feel good only achieved by demonising the other?

It could be because to the believer that is genuinely the case that she has seen the light and the others have incredibly not, despite all the evidence before them, so while we wait for them to either see the light or be dragged to it, they are still unclean and unfit to be dealt with on equal terms.

Or the reason could lie in a much simpler facet of human nature, the desire to be better. To be better today than yesterday, the desire to be better than someone else, the desire for progress. This requires an other. Somebody or something to be superior to.

Better than who? The Aryans are better than the Jews because they are physically more prepossessing, are more virtuous and definitely more intelligent. Depending on who you ask, either the Chinese are an industrious, innovative entrepreneurial bunch or thieving, womanising weasels who will do anything for a buck.

The first casualty of this way of thinking is the idea of fairness. The world is an inherently unfair place because of our competitive streak. The people moaning about injustice are always the ones at the losing end, either due to their own inadequacies or through an accident of birth. Charity in religion then becomes a way to assuage the guilt of the winners while simultaneously proclaiming the virtue and thus the superiority of the faith.

Race and religion are thus caught in a perpetual paradox of trying to make the world a better place for all, while assuring their adherents that they come first ahead of all the heathen. How can the ideas of mutual tolerance/peace and prosperity for all and “heaven for me, hell for you” coexist?

This seemingly impossible conundrum is solved fairly simply by stating that the world will indeed become a better place for all, but only if the disbelievers acknowledge that that can only be brought about by the chosen race/religion.

But what if these stubborn oafs refuse to see the light? Why then, they are the instruments of the syaitan himself and must be exposed as such. But for demonisation to truly work, the other cannot be allowed to be seen as a human being but reduced to an evil object.

So the black man as an animal ready to rape all white women in the days of slavery or deemed to be subhuman below white people in the time of apartheid. The Jew as a hooked nose, caricaturised Shylock, and the Muslim as the Jihadi suicide bomber living only for paradise in the hereafter. This strategy works best where the other is in a minority that will find it hard to resist.

After this, the rest is fairly straightforward. Education is slanted to teach young minds of the evil of the other, interaction between races/religions is restricted through propaganda and ghettoisation so that the humanity of the other is rendered invisible and a few people are made examples of to demonise the entire community and whip the majority into frenzy.

And finally, if they still do not see reason, off to the crusades to restore the will of the almighty or the purity of the blood.