The Othering Phenomenon
Date — 14/12/2020
6th of Dec came and went
The mainstream media or the cacophonous social media noticed it.
It’s been exactly 28 years when the goons and mob egged on by politicians destroyed a heritage structure and razed it to the ground.
This article is not about whether a mosque was bought down.
This article is not BJP growth since then.
This article is not about the Hindu Muslims riots which followed this incident.
This article is not about Mumbai bombing following this episode.
This article is not about how Congress appeasement policy since Independence led to discontent and insecurity in the Hindus.
This article is not about how the Arab world along with Pakistan reacted .
This article is not about how Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh were targeted, temples destroyed.
This article is not about how it affected the Indian Muslims and how it lead to home grown Islamic fundamentalists.
This article is not whether a temple was razed centuries ago and a mosque built on it
This article is not whether Ram was an actual person and was actually born at this place and hence got its nomenclature Ramjanambhoomi.
This article is not about how the weak Central Congress Govt or the state Govt of UP were mere mute spectators when this tragedy occurred.
This article is not what actually happened that day — Was it a premeditated act as confirmed by the Liberhan commission or was a spontaneous act of mob fury.
This article is not that Supreme Court passed a judgement terming the razing of the structure as an illegal act but still allowed construction of a Ram Mandir.
This article is not whether Ram mandir at Ayodhya will lead to more such demands at Mathura and other such sundry places.
This article is about ‘The Othering Phenomenon world wide
The term Othering describes the reductive action of labelling and defining a person as a subaltern native, as someone who belongs to the socially subordinate category of the other. The practice of Othering excludes persons who do not fit the norm of the social group, which is a version of the Self; likewise, in human geography, the practice of Othering persons means to exclude and displace them from the social group to the margins of society, where mainstream social norms do not apply to them, for being the Other — Source Wikipedia.
Othering is not about liking or disliking someone. It is based on the conscious or unconscious assumption that a certain identified group poses a threat to the favoured group. It is largely driven by politicians and the media, as opposed to personal contact.
We are in the midst of a rapidly changing world. More than 300 million people are currently living outside their homelands. Ethno-nationalism is on the rise — from the Rohingya people forced out of Myanmar in what many are calling the world’s latest genocide, to neo-Nazis marching through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, in an action President Trump pointedly refused to condemn.
Is Othering a recent phenomenon?
Not really
Even if we look into the last 30 years since Babri Masjid was bought down.
The Bosnian War was characterized by bitter fighting, indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, ethnic cleansing and systematic mass rape, mainly perpetrated by Serb and to a lesser extent, Croat and Bosnian forces in the erstwhile country Yugoslavia.
The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina — which was inhabited by mainly Muslim Bosnians (44%), as well as Orthodox Serbs (32.5%) and Catholic Croats (17%), each ethnic group being submerged by their identity crisis.
The Tamil and Sinhalese conflict in Srilanka led to civil war for decades.
The root cause of this conflict was the continuous discrimination against the Sri Lankan Tamils by the Sinhalese dominated Sri Lankan Government.
Since the end of the civil war, the Sri Lankan state have been subject to much global criticism for violating human rights as a result of committing war crimes through bombing civilian targets, usage of heavy weaponry, the abduction of the Sri Lankan Tamils and sexual violence. The LTTE gained notoriety for carrying out numerous heinous attacks against civilians and politicians.
In August 1999, Islamist fighters from Chechnya infiltrated Russia’s Dagestan region, declaring it an independent state and calling for holy war. On 1 October, Russian troops entered Chechnya. The campaign ended the de facto independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and restored Russian federal control over the territory.
Somalia has been in a state of civil war despite having a Muslim majority.
The various splinters of the majority Sunni population radicals and moderates are at war with each other
The Supreme Revolutionary Council seized power in 1969 and established the Somali Democratic Republic, which collapsed 22 years later, in 1991, with the onset of the Somali Civil War. During this period most regions returned to customary and religious law. In the early 2000s, a number of interim federal administrations were created. The Transitional National Government (TNG) was established in 2000, followed by the formation of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004, which re-established the Somali Armed Forces. In 2006, the TFG assumed control of most of the nation’s southern conflict zones from the newly formed Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU subsequently splintered into more radical groups, such as Al-Shabaab, which battled the TFG and its AMISOM allies for control of the region.
The Middle East crisis wherein both Israel and the Arab countries have continuously upped the ante of other has led to so much blood shed and tragedy.
The West bank encroachments by Israel and the subsequent Palestinian intifada has only fueled more fear and paranoia of the other community
The 9/11 twin towers and airplane hijacking attacks on US had its genesis in this Othering myth
In Osama bin Laden’s November 2002 “Letter to America”, he explicitly stated al-Qaeda’s motives for their attacks, blaming the “Zionist crusader alliance and their collaborators” for aggression against Muslims in many countries including Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Qana massacre in Lebanon.
In Afghanistan the 6th century Bamiyan Buddha statues were blown up and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.
These are few examples of what mass destruction has been wrecked on us due to so called uniform identity of nations, cultures and mankind.
What is particularly concerning is with how Othering shows up in today’s power structures: how it is used to divide and dehumanise groups, and capture and reshape government and institutions.
The language being used by many national leaders not only activates people’s anxiety and fear around a perceived Other, it creates new processes of exclusion and dehumanisation.
While it is common to focus only on economic changes to explain the rise of right-wing nationalists and Othering, the loss of economic power is not the only thing stirring anxiety around the globe.
So how do we respond to our collective anxiety today?
Either we “bridge”, reaching across to other groups and towards our inherent, shared humanity and connection, while recognising that we have differences; or we “break”, pulling away from other groups and making it easier to tell and believe false stories of “us vs them”, then supporting practices that dehumanise the “them”.
The opposite of Othering is not “saming”, it is belonging.
And belonging does not insist that we are all the same. It means we recognise and celebrate our differences, in a society where “we the people” includes all the people.