ignorance.

you can partition the world in two classes: that of the stuff you know, that is familiar to you, and that of the stuff you don't know.
so far, so good, no problems with that.

for some people the unknown is fascinating, it's a chance to explore.
for some others it something to fear and hate, in a battle to defend their own turf.

i think there are two main reasons behind xenophobia: two different kinds of ignorance.
  1. xenophobes ignore the fact that all men are similar, all look for happiness and have to go through problems, etc.
    the knowledge of this stimulates, at least in me, a sense of brotherhood with everybody. as with my classmates at the different school levels, for instance.
    we're together in this, mates.
  2. xenophobes ignore cultures different from their own. they can thus think of people belonging to other cultures as to "the others", as of someone outside their group.
    as for me, i think that speaking some foreign languages helps me feel foreign people as my own kind. but it's not just the language, it's about the whole culture. for instance, when you don't know a culture and watch a guy belonging to this culture give a speech, even if you get a translation of what she/he says, you will most probably misunderstand much of the non-verbal communication going on, much of the implicit references to his way of seeing the world.

all these thoughts came to me when i read this piece of news about some italians beating up an angolan.
it seems so fucking senseless to me.
how could they?

my answer is: they are ignorant.
the solution to this is, in my opinion, to build a healthier society by teaching children that we're all men and that all cultures are as valuable as our own.

it seems to me that the italian society is going in the opposite direction, in a surge of fascism that i can hardly explain to myself.

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