Fear of the Other

I'm embarrassed to admit that I never met a Muslim person until I was 18.

It took me about seven minutes of sitting through a biology lecture on my first day at college before realizing that I wasn’t cut out to be a scientist. Immediately afterwards I went to the registrar to find out what else I could take. The only option still available was a seminar on Middle Eastern History. I didn’t know what seminar meant and I’d only taken one history class at Kaua'i High. Because of extenuating circumstances, we spent most of that high school semester watching Blockbuster (literally, from Blockbuster) movies. So, my vision of history was Mel Gibson with long hair.

But, it was either history or biology-- and I knew I couldn't handle a semester of biology.


Almost all that I knew about the Middle East was that our president said that Iraq and Iran were part of the Axis of Evil, that they flew planes into the World Trade Center, and that Muslims have to pray five times per day towards Mecca. Oh yeah-- and my favorite movie was True Lies, where the bad guy’s name is Aziz.

I wasn't a bigot-- just ignorant.
But maybe that's the same thing?

On the first day we all had to introduce ourselves. My memory is that every one of my classmates was either the son of the Ambassador to Turkey or the daughter of an Israeli diplomat and they were all double majoring in Arabic and Pashto as they pursued careers in international relations. I think I said, “hi, my name is Luke. I signed up for this class because I didn’t want to take biology.” 

The professor told us he was from Tehran.   

It was the most challenging semester of my life. When people talk about that one class that changed their life-- this was mine. Though there were only 13 of us and we sat in a circle for a three-hour continuous dialogue, I don’t think I said a single word during the first month.

I remember the day that I finally tentatively offered my opinion on a subject. It may have been my first time speaking in any college class. I had like fifteen pages worth of notes on the book we were discussing, and I felt confident in the subject matter. Regardless, my heart was racing and I could feel my throat choking off as I tried to get a word in. I opened my mouth and out fell a jumble of unintelligible sounds. Something about fear of the other. And then for a horrifying moment—nobody spoke. Nobody knew what to make of the quiet kid finally saying something.

And then the professor nodded his head, smiled, and expanded encouragingly on my thought. And then the kid across from me also took up the topic. And the ball of dialogue began bouncing around the room again.

I wrote my final paper on the complex figure of Harry St. John Philby. The professor took me aside after class and told me that he was so fascinated by what I wrote that he showed it to his wife. I was dumbfounded. I honestly thought that there must’ve been two papers on Philby and that he’d mixed them up. Nobody, maybe except for my mom, had ever encouraged me to write.

Through the rich history of the Middle East, Professor Khazeni changed my life. I switched my major to history, he became my advisor, and, most importantly, he encouraged me to have a voice.

I never would have stepped foot in that class if it hadn’t been the only one available to me. It forced me out of my comfort zone and into a realm that I knew nothing about.

The Internet was supposed to do the same thing: to be the great intellectual equalizer. We have unprecedented access to nearly all of human knowledge and culture. If I wanted to, I could start a conversation with a thirty-year old in Algeria, Afghanistan, or Australia.

But I don’t think that any social scientist twenty years ago would’ve guessed the actual result of the internet age. All we’ve done is isolate ourselves. We can always find friends who agree with us and a news source to reinforce us. It feels good, because we are never wrong—never really challenged.

Most importantly, it allows us to always blame someone else.

An article in Vox yesterday uses the theory of “ethnic outbidding” to explain what is happening in today's vitriolic politics:

 ...multi-ethnic democracies seem at times unstable and prone to conflict. The basic problem... comes from ethnic parties. When a party’s base is overwhelmingly from one ethnic group, politicians inside that party have a strong incentive to appeal to that group’s particular interests. One really effective way to do that is to appeal to xenophobia and fear of outside ethnic groups. 

This can create a demagogic arms race. When one politician gets traction by demonizing other ethnic groups, others follow suit-- and even try to one-up them.  

Whether it's our county council or the race for U.S. President, the venom in our politics is because of us. We create it and we demand it.

If we want a better system-- then we need to start stepping out of our comfort zone. Whether it's a class in Middle Eastern History, socializing with a different crowd of people, or simply reading a book from an opposing ideology.