Harvey's Hotline #14: On Xenophobia and Chauvinism

“XENOPHOBIA, fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.”

—Merriam Webster Dictionary  

“CHAUVINISM, excessive and unreasonable patriotism, similar to jingoism. The word is derived from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier who, satisfied with the reward of military honora and a small pension, retained a simpleminded devotion to Napoleon. Chauvin came to typify the cult of the glorification of all things military that was popular after 1815 among the veterans of Napoleon’s armies. Later, chauvinism came to mean any kind of ultranationalism and was used generally to connote an undue partiality or attachment to a group or place to which one belongs. The term chauvinism also may describe an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex, as in male chauvinism.”
—Encyclopedia Britannica

It is important to remember that rude assaults on the dignity of women are frequently linked with attempts to exalt xenophobic and chauvinist ideas.
 
I remember a time when—as a “ethnic” little boy in Canada of the 1950s—we were accustomed to calling our “non-ethnic” (i.e., Protestant British) neighbors “real Canadians.” Thankfully, that degrading episode in my life belongs to the past.

I remember a time when—after the immigration of a large number of French-speaking Haitians to Montréal in the 1970s—some political and cultural extremists in Québec asked whether “they” (i.e., non-white Haitians) could ever be considered “real Québecers.” Thankfully, that outrage, too, belongs to the past.

A collectivity that seemingly compels (?) individuals to say what they normally might not say, or to do what they normally might not do, is a frightening thing to observe and merits serious reflection. After all, it is what we have witnessed at the worst times in human history, from the slaughter of the innocent in the biblical texts to the extermination and the genocide committed against “them,” on behalf of “us,” in the twentieth century.

What often emerges from this type of primitive collectivity is a level of xenophobia and chauvinism that has no place in our lives. As in the case of the violence against women promoted by “us,” the veiled (actually not so veiled!) references to the “other” also seek to reintroduce a sense of what it is to be, for example, a “patriotic American” that is exclusivist and based on the dislike of those who “don’t seem really American” and don’t “respect our values.” This, too, must be carefully considered and seen as something far more than a minor “lapse in judgment.” Most regrettably, this behavior often belongs to not only the past but also the present.  

Let us all do more to break down the barriers between “us” and “them.” And let us do it without hesitation, while the barriers are new and still easy to knock down.

People are different, but not all that different. For it is “we”  who are  often the very ones seeking out those differences, often with catastrophic results. 

We have a lot to do, don't we? Let's get to work.