ESSAY MODULE 5

DEALING WITH CONFLICTS

Student: Nikola Tomić

Tutors: Bernie Laverty

Tony Macauly

Module: 5

Project: Novi Sad

Date: 23.01.2006.
Word Count: 1569

Title:
“What did you learn about your own prejudices and
attitudes to discrimination on this module and how will this
influence your work with young people”
In this module I gained lots of theoretical and practical knowledge on the subject of
prejudices, stereotyping, discrimination, and conflicts. At the beginning I thought that
I know pretty much about those things considering that I live in a region where there
are 26 minority groups with a great variety of different customs and religion. I
considered myself as a prejudice free person that would in usual cases avoid conflicts
because I was of a peaceful nature and of an opinion that conflicts and prejudices are
in all cases bad and something that a peace loving person should not engage in or
have.
Rather soon I realized that I have a lot to learn and that my point of view was in a
certain sense (which I was jut to realize afterwards) stereotypic because in my opinion
most people consider them selves to be prejudice free, or maybe I was just having
prejudice about my self and did not know it. As I engaged in the process of learning I
discovered that there are some other points of view on these subjects: prejudices,
stereotyping, discrimination, and conflicts. Throughout working and discussing these
subjects with my tutors and the participants in the group I realized that having
prejudices is normal, in spite of what I thought, and that everyone has prejudices
including me too.
I think that people have prejudices about things that they are not familiar with, and
things about which they did not form their opinion on their own experience but were
subjected by either general opinion or political or religious or other type of
propaganda opinion. I myself was aware of these influences but I still was of the
opinion that prejudices were bad and I tried to think I don’t have those.
In this module I realized that it is normal to have prejudice and that everyone has
them. Also I learned that conflicts are not necessarily negative but in some cases can
be very useful and healthy, even necessary. But probably the most important thing
that can help me in my future work with young people is that I realized that the same
situation can look differently from the perspective of a person that is influenced by
prejudice. “Prejudice is about feelings and beliefs and it can influence our perception.
There is a good deal of evidence to show that what we believe actually influence the
way we see an event (i.e. people are not usually prejudiced because of what they see
and hear, but will see or hear people/events differently because of what they believe)
(Community Conflicts Skills – Mari Fitzduff 1988)”.This is one of the most valuable
lessons I learned in this module since it helped me realize the way to deal with new
and unknown situations. It helped me to realize that unknown events, concepts, ideas
or persons should be approached “cool headed” in the sense that we need to let our
selves “forget” or not believe what we hearted about those things but question new
events by our selves and then form our own opinion. One very important thing about
learning and forming opinion from our own experience is that if we have a picture of
one situation or person we must not assign that characteristic to the group of the same
situations or individuals because than we can easily fall into a “trap” of making a
stereotype opinions.
There is also another very important thing I learned on this module that I think is
worth mentioning. It is through the Importance of respect towards religions, and the
strong influence and impact of sectarianism I realised and overcame one of my
prejudices and become more tolerant. Before, usually I would pay a small amount of
respect if any, towards the religion whichever it was, because in my opinion it was an
imaginary, fictive thing that in this or that way was “served” or presented to the
people in order to gather them around the same idea in the purpose of control and
manipulation. However I found that majority of people have a need to believe in
something, and so they found it offensive (they were offended) if I would show my
disrespect towards religion. At first I did not understand why that was, why they
would find it offensive, since I did not show disrespect to them personally nor to their
particular religion but to the religion in general, from my point of view I was showing
disrespect to the general subject, or concept. Afterwards I realised that they thought
that by not showing respect to something they respected in a large amount I showed
disrespect to them personally or to their particular religion, which truth was not. Than
I came to realise another important thing, I realised that majority of people do strongly
believe in religion of some kind and they would find it offensive if I was to show low
amount of respect to their religion, and since it is their need to believe in something
(that was fulfilled by religion) and personal right as much as a human right, my
opinion on religion did not really matter; all that mattered was that I was showing low
amount of respect to something they respected and if it offended them, than that was
wrong. I think that this is a good example of acknowledging differences and
overcoming them. I will have my own opinion and other people will have their
opinion, and we will never be able to have the same opinion, but we will respect each
others opinion, and if anyone finds something I or anybody else does offending than
we must not do that because that is not right and if we show disrespect unwillingly we
would be correct to explain and apologize and not repeat it again.
All the acknowledgements from above made me think about the everyday situations
and also helped me to reflect to the situations from my past where I was discriminated
and when I acted discriminatory. I thought about those situations and got to the
conclusion that I find it easier to remember the situations when I was discriminated
than the situations where I was acting discriminatory to the others. I suppose the
reasons for this are firstly because people in general, including me, remember better
when injustice is done to them then when they do injustice to others. I think that
whenever someone is discriminated they undergo a psychical impact or some kind of
minor or major frustration depending of the amount and intensity of the
discrimination they undergo. I think that a morally and politically correct person
would not discriminate somebody willingly, and in that sense it is very useful if we
can remember the times when we acted discriminating towards somebody because
than that can help us realize the situation and not repeat it, which as a result has a
personal development.

After learning all of this I think that it is very important to forward this knowledge to
others, especially young people. With this experience I think it will be easier for me to
recognise prejudices in other people and I think it will also make it easier for me to
find and choose adequate approach to the persons with prejudices. In my future work
with young people I plan to talk about these subjects and to try to open their
perspectives. I think that this knowledge could help me understand their problems and
difficulties especially when dealing with differences and conflicts. I will try to make
them understand that conflicts are not always bad and that it is very bad if conflicts
are just put aside or neglected or suppressed. Judging from my experience I would say
that most of people and not just young people think that the les conflicts the better.
With the things I learned in this module I will challenge their opinion and ask them
for a response and in that way I hope I will manage to make them think about the
everyday things and maybe see and overcome differences by engaging in conflicts
(with them selves as much as with other people) and expressing them constructively.
This knowledge and experience for me is valuable because I know how it feels to
overcome personal prejudice, and I felt better after overcoming my, and so it
motivated me to encourage other people to try and see and overcome their own
prejudices, so consequently they will undergo a personal change which can hopefully
in time produce maybe even a political change. Also in my future work with young
people I will encourage them to think for them selves and not take things for granted
and not to judge about things before they have a chance to get familiar with the
subject.
Finally I think that this experience and knowledge that I gained throughout this
module made me think a bit more openly, it made me find out more about my self and
consequently others, it widened my perspective and helped me overcome prejudices I
had and in the bottom line I think it made me a better man.