In last night’s Shabbat dinner, the unofficial theme was stereotypes. The topic began when a friend from Oklahoma and a friend from Georgia (US) listed off stereotypes of Californians: hippy-dippy, overly concerned with appearance and health, superficial, focus on short term dating rather than marriage, and liberal. In turn, I listed stereotypes of the Midwest: obese, corn fields, cows, conservative, religiously zealous, and Christian. Funny enough, both sides confirmed the stereotypes to a certain extent. For instance, I am from California and am concerned with what one might call “hippy” views, such as the quality of the food I eat, the energy I exude, and getting regular exercise. I was also raised in a primarily liberal environment. However, there are also obese people in California, and cows and corn fields, as well as Christian religious zealots. Not only that but there are some extremely conservative areas of California. Similarly, in the Midwest, there are liberal communities and other religions practiced besides Christianity. In addition, whereas the land might be more rural, there are also cities in which you’d have to drive out of your way to see cornfields or cows. My point is stereotypes may exist because they are true to an extent, but they are not all encompassing and certainly not representative of an entire group of people. Stereotypes can become dangerous when they breed fears of the “other” (i.e., not being socially accepted or being killed when around this other group) and prevents interaction. An example that has been blatant in the US since 9/11 is Arabs. First of all, the biggest stereotype is that being Arab automatically means that you are Muslim. Let's break it down: WHO IS AN ARAB? According to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League, you are an Arab if Arabic is your native tongue. Another definition is those whose ancestry stems from the Arabian Desert. DOES BEING AN ARAB MAKE YOU MUSLIM? Among the 148,400,000 people who live in the Middle East, such as Lebanon, Syria, Israel, West Bank, Gaza, Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan, about 14,155,000, or 10%, are non-Muslim (mostly Christian). Furthermore, the majority of the world's Muslim population lives in Asia, not the Middle East. As you can see from the beautiful graphic above, the countries with the largest Muslim population are actually in Asia, not the Middle East. According to Pew Research, over 88% of Indonesia's population is Muslim. This was surprising to me because I grew up under the assumption that most Muslims lived in the Middle East, perhaps because Osama bin Ladan, who many believe was behind 9/11, is from Saudi Arabia and most of the hijackers were also from Saudi Arabia. HOW MANY MUSLIMS ARE THERE AND HOW MANY WANT TO KILL WESTERNERS? Based on the graph below, you can see that Muslims still make up a minority of the population, and are projected to continue to do so. Now please bear with me as I list off some statistics, courtesy of Thereligionofpeace.com:
Pew Research (2013): 19% of Muslim Americans believe suicide bombings in defense of Islam are at least partially justified (global average is 28% in countries surveyed). People-Press: 31% of Turks support suicide attacks against Westerners in Iraq. Pew Research (2010): 15% of Indonesians believe suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified. Doha Institute (ACRPS) 2014: On average, 72% of the Arab world has a negative view of ISIS. WHAT DO THESE NUMBERS MEAN? It is terrifying to think that millions of people say they want to kill Westerners just for being born non-Muslim. It is easy to want to enclose myself in my safe, familiar bubble with family and friends. While this might be the comfortable path, stepping outside of that bubble is how we grow personally and as a civilization; in my opinion, it is also much more fun. I came to Israel in part to challenge my pre-conceived notions, or stereotypes, of Middle Easterners that I grew up hearing from people who - to be honest - do not know what they are talking about. Most of the knowledge in the US about the Middle East, Arab culture, and Islam is from a Western point of view and dispersed through an "us versus them" viewpoint. When I turn on the news, I see a plethora of horrifying videos of ISIS members beheading people and, at this point, too many terrorist attacks to count. Humans have the tendency to oversimplify matters that are too complex to easily understand (Kahn 2016). Therefore, it is convenient to categorize people by religion (i.e., "all Muslims want to kill me") or by nationality (i.e., "all people who live in Turkey want to kill me"). This, of course, deters us from traveling to certain places or meeting certain people who might actually dispel these stereotypes. Another way of eliminating stereotypes is to try to see things from the other person's point of view. Tom Pyszczynski of University of Colorado did one of the first experiments using both Arab (specifically, Iranian) and American subjects. He demonstrated that, among both Iranian and American students, reminders of death led to more extreme aggression towards the "other." In the Iranian students' case, the "other" was the US and in the American students' case, the "other" was Middle Easterners in general. After being asked to describe in detail what it would be like to die, the Iranians became more in favor of suicide bombings in the US and Americans became more supportive of aggressive military attacks in the Middle East that might result in thousands of civilian deaths. Firstly, this study demonstrates the polarizing effect of social identity and, secondly, how similar we really are. I relate this to forgiveness. Often, we are held back from forgiving or making amends because we believe the other does not want to make up with us. For me personally, I find it very challenging to admit that someone who hurt me might want to make amends, but does not because they believe the same thing about me. What I am getting at here is that the majority of Westerners and Arabs might have more similarities than differences. Both groups of people want to go about their lives, enjoying time with their loved ones, and practicing their cultural worldviews undisturbed. However, currently both think that their cultural worldview is under attack by the other. This is due to, one, US occupation, violent military raids, and failed attempts to democratize Arab countries and, two, extremist Islam groups who have interpreted Sharia to justify violent means. It is more crucial now than ever to remember that a minority of the world's Muslims support violent attacks against the US, and that, whereas these do pose a threat to our wellbeing and way of life, that perhaps they feel the same way about us. Although I am very happy where I grew up and the life I currently lead, who am I to try to impose that way of life on others? My hope is to encourage you to get out of your bubbles and meet people who you hold negative stereotypes about, whether that's liberals, conservatives, Israelis, Palestinians, Westerners, or Arabs. REFERENCES (In order of appearance) American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. (2009, November 29). Facts about Arabs and the Arab World. Retrieved November 25, 2017, from http://www.adc.org/2009/11/facts-about-arabs-and-the-arab-world/ Tristam, P. (2017, May 22). Christians of the Middle East. Retrieved November 25, 2017, from https://www.thoughtco.com/christians-of-the-middle-east-2353327 The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, & Pew Research Center. (2009, October). Www.pewforum.org (Rep.). Retrieved November 25, 2017, from Pew Forum website: http://www.pewforum.org/files/2009/10/Muslimpopulation.pdf TheReligionofPeace.com. Muslim Option Polls: a Tiny Minority of Extremists?Retrieved November 25, 2017, from https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/opinion-polls.aspx#isis Kahn, D. T., Liberman, V., Halperin, E., & Ross, L. (2014). Intergroup Sentiments, Political Identity, and Their Influence on Responses to Potentially Ameliorative Proposals in the Context of an Intractable Conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 60(1), 61-88. doi:10.1177/0022002714535250 Pyszczynski, T., Abdollahi, A., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., & Weise, D. (2006). Mortality Salience, Martyrdom, and Military Might: The Great Satan Versus the Axis of Evil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(4), 525-537. doi:10.1177/0146167205282157 |
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