A Few Random Thoughts

So what to blog about.... these days quite a few things are on my mind.

Stereotypes for example. Why do we stereotype? Because its easy or because we have been conditioned to be judgemental about everyone else and since our metro lifestyles leave us with so little time therefore we make snap judgements.

Remember all those polish jokes or sikh jokes or pathan jokes. In every culture we have whipping boys that we can make fun of. That help us in feeling superior. But the fact is the more I think about it, the more I realize that stereotyping is a sort of safety mechanism harking back to our childhood.

Remember the comic book hero... the world divided in Good versus Evil - all Black & White. Nothing to be confused about ... no greys anywhere. Unfortunately the real world is not like that at all. But since we don't seem to have any time of our own to think things through, stereotyping helps us in coming to conclusions faster and supposedly makes life simpler.

Lets see a Jew will always be money minded. A miser.
An Arab will be a simpleton and in recent times a terrorist.
A Chinese will have no individuality and surely they will soon over run the world.

But stereotyping can be very dangerous. As someone related to media, I have closely observed how stereotyping has been used to create mass hysteria and also to gain political mileage.

The Cold War, besides being an Arms Race diverting much needed funds from human development goals was also a political bonanza for the western and russian leaders. And stereotyping was evident in the way common Americans viewed the Russians with mistrust and vice versa.

And of course the current stereotyping is all about the clash of civilisations. Islam versus the West. Note that I don't use the word Islam against Christianity because it won't serve the purpose of those using stereotyping to utilize the Christian religion among the largely agnostic western audience.

The terrorist fundamentalist muslim is the new bogey. Why is it that on international flights all the "random" checks pull out only the muslim passengers. So who is benefiting from this new bogey. Can't be the Muslims....unless we talk about the leadership of a few of these countries that uses the threat of fundamentalist terrorism to perpetuate their hold on power. Can't be the common man on the streets of any western city....since they feel more insecure and look at any Arab they come across with a great degree of fear. The daily media briefing of some new terrorist threat every second day keeps them worried about their loved ones.

Than who is responsible for changing the world's landscape by stereotyping a great religion. Who is responsible for creating this great divide among the citizens of the world? Who gains from making the world more unstable than any period in recorded history? It is a fact that the rise of the so called Islamist groups and Jihadis is directly proportianal and related to the negative propaganda and degree of physical force used. Why is it that pre 9/11, we never realised that such a huge threat was about to engulf us.

As I said before .... stereotypes can be dangerous things. I routinely meet people from all over the world. I don't see them as Americans, Britishers, Germans, Saudis, Indians or the Chinese.....I see them as Individuals with sometimes great and sometimes not so great personalities, with families and responsibilities. With lives to live and things to do.
I cannot conveniently label all those people under convenient categories and expect to understand them without really paying any attention to the real person.

I think we owe it to ourselves as global citizens to spend a little bit of our time in trying to understand other cultures, other people. To step out of our comfortable coccoons, to take off the stereotype blinders and not fall into the media trap of accepting prejudged stereotypes. With understanding comes tolerance, and tolerance is the only way to lasting peace for all of us.

Even one man can start the chain of change. Can we begin the change to build a positive proactive society, I think we can and I believe we should.

It is our responsibility.