The Othered Muslims

Renowned psychiatrist Carl Jung, credited with founding analytical psychology, developed the idea of "the other". A critical line from this definition is "Others may be not-us, and so we can see how we are different from others. Otherness thus creates alienation and fear." Indeed, the other is often the embodiment of what we reject, what we seek to repress. Often we may other certain qualities of ourselves, creating a shadow reminding of us what and who we really are. But societies can other(verb) people different from the mainstream or modern society. In America we might reject this, considering ourselves the melting pot and lauding ourselves on our diversity. Yet subconsciously racism and prejudices persist, resulting in the othering of people. This has taken its most recent turn regarding Muslims in America. 

Muslims are othered. After our twin towers fell, the word "terrorist" took on a different meaning, one associated with Muslims. A harsh stigma against Arabs and more specifically Muslims was created not intentionally but just as notion of society. Many of us have had no need to face this stigma and thus it is easy to forget that it exists. But these men and women are still othered, even today. Islamophobia is a term now in use. This othering includes actions too, not just opinions. There are many stories of men and women unjustly searched or detained at airports under false presumptions. This article from BBC details hearings that are given to Muslims under the threat of terrorism, though most people are just average Americans who are practicing Islam and have no such affiliation. Yet in the land of the free, there are still many people who are being othered.

 Why do we other? I don't think we can avoid it as per the society we live in. For one, we are a very nationalistic nation and when our leaders declared enemies, us citizens followed suit. This is similar to the situations Japanese men and women living in America were facing during WWII, though not as extreme. But in both situations, we were attacked by one group of people, only to stigmatize and "other" all those even related. Our society also has standards of right and normalcy, and expressions too different from these standards also face the cold shoulder immediately. It is by our nature to support some and oppose those against. But we cannot continue to preach tolerance and not act upon it. As a society we have to learn that it is wrong to give unjustified prejudices to people of which only a very select few deserve. A tall order some may say, but we are the melting pot. And if we are to stay true to our name, then we must make the moves to do so. 

Venezuela Not Trapped

 In a book titled, The Bottom Billion, a discussion about the poorest nations and their state in our world is had. Author Paul Collier identifies four traps that have prevented the nations of these last billion of people from developing or from developing effectively. The four traps are: landlocked, natural resources, conflict, and bad governance. But to this in perspective, I will discuss these traps through the nation of Venezuela to see how these traps apply, or don't apply, to its development.

We will begin with the trap of being landlocked. Defined as being surrounded by nations on all sides, the spillover from these neighbors is significant, especially if they are bad neighbors.

In Venezuela's case, it is not  landlocked. It is on the northern tip of South America, surrounded by Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana to the east, south, and west but its entire northern side is a coast to the Caribbean Sea. This has allowed Venezuela to import and export very effectively. The landlocked trap is not very applicable to Venezuela because it simply is not landlocked. Though some can claim that it has a bad neighbor in Colombia, by not being surrounded by Colombia nor other bad nations, it is not debilitated in its development.

The second trap is the conflict trap. The conflict trap is focused on civil wars that many of these bottom billion nations are engaged in and these wars hold stark economic consequences with a large chance of relapse after such conflict. Venezuela experienced some political turmoil with its attempted coups in the early 1990's as well as the final election of Chavez and his launching of the Bolivarian Revolution, a social movement. However, none of these culminated in war, allowing Venezuela to be spared of the woes associated with countries still in and/or recovering from a civil war.

We now arrive at the trap of bad governance. Venezuela's resource of oil was discovered in the early 20th century around World War I, providing a general trend of great economic growth into the 1980's. The trap of bad governance is that poor leadership results in stagnation economically, often attributed with decline and other similar economic situations. But while Venezuela's had many different political systems, men, ideas, and powers going through office, its oil industry allowed it to become stronger economically over the 20th century, landing Venezuela where it is today.

The last trap is the natural resource trap. What this trap entails is that a nation will have or will come upon the discovery of natural resources that are valuable but a country's inability to control and manage this resource can lead to serious economic difficulties and have severe consequences. Venezuela plays close here because, as I afore mentioned, the oil reserves were found around WWI. Oil then dominated its economy, pushing its previous agricultural exports aside. However, this did not create significant issues as nations under the trap have experienced and instead Venezuela saw growth under their new found power of oil.

Overall, we have seen that Venezuela is not largely applicable to any of the four traps. This very reason should be Venezuela's motivation for the continuation of success. It is has been lucky to be hurt by the various coup's and the oil discovery. Yet Venezuela's government is not viewed positively around the world with heavy opposition from the US. Political issues can be brewing, but Venezuela should seek not to become hampered down with any such issue so as to remain as one of the leading nations in South America.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela#20th_century