We've been talking about this of course, in an academic sense, but the other day at lunch I was reminded of how painful and infuriating it is to be on the receiving end of someone else's ignorance. I cannot disclose the details of the conversation - not that I have any interest in protecting this person's identity, but just out of my own sense of professionalism - but 'someone' made some very arrogant assumptions about one of my family members in order to prove a 'point' about a very controversial issue in Turkey. These assumptions were seemingly based solely on the manufactured fluff that passes for this person's brain. I remained calm, but I did not acquiesce: "Sorry, but how do you know that about my family member?"; "No, in actual fact that's not the case"; "I think you should ask for facts before you make assumptions" etc., but this person's motormouth was in overdrive and no listening was taking place, just a vitriolic spewing of prejudice the likes of which I have not heard in some time. 'Education' makes no difference to this particular issue amongst a certain segment of the Turkish populace: it is a blindly emotional, irrational and deep-grained brainwashed response. When you know and love a person who does not possess any of the negative characteristics of a so-called stereotype, you realise just how destructive and unfair such stereotypes really are. I was so angry afterwards that I was unable to concentrate well for the rest of the day; I just kept thinking of the self-righteous look that such people get on their faces as they bulldoze all rationality. And in fact, it makes sense that they just keep on shouting instead of listening, since intolerance cannot long survive when it's confronted with cold facts.I've got an announcement to make: protesting perceived fascism with your own brand of fascism is not the solution. As MLK put it, "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind."
'Martin Luther King smile' by Nelson Piedra, licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
