Name: Jwalin Chaudhari

Module: Introduction to Sociology

Course: B.A. Liberal arts & Human Sciences

Xenophobia
Introduction:
The word Xenophobia originates from the Greek language, where xenos means
“stranger” or “guest” and phobos means either “fear” or “flight”, having a
phobia. The whole term together means “stranger fearing” or “fear of a
stranger”. The term is defined as a general fear towards a stranger who is from
different place, culture, the one who looks, speaks, dress, and act differently.
It’s an intolerance towards a person who is from different ethnic background
and completely alien to the native place. In modern world that “stranger” is
referred to immigrants who come from different places and countries. There are
many historical examples of xenophobia such as, the revolt and struggle for
independence by the people of India against the British, although it was an
invasion but we can see xenophobic characteristics evolve among the people of
India, Slave revolts in the Caribbean to the Ghaddar of 1857, Algerian war of
Independence and Hindu-Muslims riot in India shows signs of Xenophobia. The
most extreme example of it can be the Nazis wiping out Jews, the atrocities
committed against them was inhumane just because Nazis developed a
xenophobic nature towards them. Due to this the social problems such as
racism, prejudices, discrimination, anti-sematic and anti-foreigner sentiments
intensely develop among people against the foreigners or immigrants, which
can become a root cause of war and violence.

Causes of xenophobia:
If we look at the psychological perspective behind it the human mechanism has
developed the process of adapting to the natural environment for survival, to
secure kinship bonding and ethnic boundaries. The argument here is that the
human fear of the unknown and a fear of intrusion by others have created
suspicion of threat and hostility towards the stranger or an outsider. From a
sociological perspective xenophobia doesn’t inherent humans naturally but it is
developed social. The reason behind its motivation is the social mechanism
which is designed to ensure group cohesion, maintenance of social stratification
and to increase solidarity with one’s own ethnic group. This results in regional
loyalties and national identities which are socially maintained and reinforced by
the nationalistic ideologies and values of any given society.
There are various social science theories causes Xenophobia in contemporary
society such as:
 The cause of xenophobia is a collective hatred for the “other” or
“strangers” rather than the individual hatred of a specific individual,
which involves a collective judgement and reaction towards a particular
group.
 The growing scarce economic and social resources may lead to rise in
hostility towards foreigners. The capitalistic democracy maintains ethnic
barriers and inequality between majority and minority section of the
society, which encourages competition in jobs, labour markets
characterized by high unemployment. The ethnic battles can increase
political tensions and can lead to civil wars among groups of different
ethnicities.
 Xenophobia also rises when there are rapid social changes and economic
instability which can give rise to feelings of disgruntlement, disappointed
expectations, frustration and anxieties about an unknown future. Under
these insecurities those who have fewer opportunities, capabilities and
resources to deal with social changes will be at higher risk of feeling
threatened and open to anti-foreigner sentiments.
 The media can also give a rise in xenophobic nature among public by
targeting and developing a perception of threat of large numbers of
immigrants as well as spreading arguments about cultural incompatibility.
These procedures become a productive ground for institutionalization of
racist ideologies through increase organization of right-wing parties and
militant group.

Xenophobia vs Racism:
Now we know the meaning of Xenophobia which is “fear and hatred of
strangers or foreigners or of anything which is an alien to us”. On the other side
the racism has a slightly broader range of meaning than the xenophobia. The
term “racism” means “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human
traits and capacities and the racial differences produce an inherent superiority of
a particular race” and “a political or social system founded on racism.” Both of
them have sufficiently different that a person may very easily be both racist and
xenophobic.
The key difference between Xenophobia and racism is that the Xenophobia is
the fear of the different and the hesitance of accepting the unknown, while
racism is a downright rejection of someone that is different from you in terms of
race, colour and ethnicity, etc.
They both are two terms that are similar in nature and are considered to be
interchangeable, which is kind of not true. The words have two different
meaning and are used in two very different situations. The continuous
advancement of the world has led to many social changes due to which the
world has seen a rise of racism and Xenophobia feelings, which has also
resulted in rise of violence around the world.
In a nutshell, Xenophobia is the fear of the different and the hesitance of
accepting the unknown, while racist is a downright rejection of someone that is
different from you in terms of race, colour, ethnicity, etc. Xenophobia can be
dealt with as a person who may learn to also accept it but a racist has firm set of
beliefs that the other person is inferior is cannot be changes so easily. Racism
can also be considered as a part of Xenophobia so certain racist feelings arise
from not knowing the culture and the person.

“Old” vs “New” Xenophobia:

I recall one of recent online talk with Mr. Tabish Khair who is an Indian-
English author in which we had discussed about his new book “The new
xenophobia” in which he discussed how it is arising in the contemporary world.
He also explained that how the new xenophobic characteristics differ from the
old xenophobic characteristic. He told that the only difference between the older
model and the new model is that older model did recognized the difference in
the stranger, for example we can take racial difference, caste difference, gender
difference, these all characteristics made one community to discriminate
another. But, the new form of Xenophobia means that it allows the stranger to
remain stranger, but it prohibits from exhibiting these differences. That means
they are no allowed to express their difference between other communities
because they are socially being dominated by the other communities, which
expresses their xenophobic nature. In contemporary world this problem is face
by the immigrants who reside in a country for job opportunities, they have lived
long as refugee, relocation, etc, for example, we can take the ban of burqa in
France which shows the state being dominating towards its Muslim immigrants
and in U.S. Pres. Donald trump idea to build a wall along the border to stop the
flow of immigrants in the country but also kicking out those already settled
immigrants from the country. The new Xenophobia is giving rise to a new form
of violence, while the old form of violence was political base the new violence
is more of social based which means that the community of a state would try to
dominate the other minor or foreign community both socially and politically. It
also makes me think that how colonialism played its role in, the pre-colonial era
the casteism was still in effect but there was no violence between religions. But
as colonialism rose it divided all the communities because that was the principle
which it followed “Divide and rule”. The communities formed xenophobic
nature towards each other, which also gave rise to the nationalism which led to
partition of the nation between Hindu and Muslim. The modern world and its
economies work under model of capitalism and I was completely astounded
when author explained that how the modern world capitalism shares its link
with Xenophobia, the author explained that how the idea of capitalism today has
completely changed. While the old model allowed unrestricted flow of goods
and labour the capitalism today allows free movement of the products while
imposing strict regulations on the labour across the globe. It’s because each
first-world nation works in favour of each other to sustain the disequilibrium.
Also, the political and social management of capital nations involves strategies
that encourage xenophobia.

Conclusion:
In conclusion, I would say that we need to question our conventional ideas
regarding Xenophobia. We also need to question our structure and reframe the
policies. Otherwise, the rise of the new Xenophobia can lead to wars and cause
catastrophe among people. We need to spread awareness about this to the
people because of what I believe we all have some form of xenophobic features
in us which are sort of hidden in us, we do have a bit of tolerance for it but
when the situations arise we all know who we blame for it, those immigrants,
refugees, foreigners, and people form different culture and ethnicity, our
Xenophobic nature shows out. If we don’t control it and prevent it the upcoming
social changes that we all are going to face would lead to violence among
people and the order of peace would be affected.