The recent trend in media to unerline the nationality or the country of origin when revealing the terrorist identity, is just a long line
of tradition that started with the 1st Industrial Revolution. Ever
since we have become used to stereotype people’s country of origin by linking
it to some certain common trades. Turkish truck drivers, Polish plumbers, Cuban
doctors, Argentinian psychologists, Mexican gardeners… it’s just a small part
of a wide range of stereotypes commonly found in most of the parts of the
Western culture. The latest version of it is the media using the nationality/contry of origin of the terrorist in the same context as the indictment.
In a way, it is a normal response to the basic
need of our brains to seek for coherence within the reality that tries to
interpret. That is why we love the news headlines. But, the danger comes when
the ethics are no longer involved in the process.
One of the most absurd examples of it I lived
not long after coming to live in Spain. It was in the October of 2002. I was
watching the news on the TV. Among all the others, one of them struck me for
its absolute lack of coherence and ethics. The news reported that a group of
masked robbers had attacked a security van carrying large amount of money belonging
to one bank. In the attack one of the security guards was killed. The news report
ended with a statement saying that the police had solid leads and that the cruelty
shown by the attackers indicated that they were allegedly coming either from
Eastern Europe or Latin America.
To anyone familiar with those two parts of the
world it is obvious that there is very small resemblance between them. Culturally,
linguistically and, in the certain degree, physiologically speaking the resemblance
is similar to the one between Neymar and Lewandowski. But then again our
brain loves coherence and the news produced simply coped with it. Very few people
payed some attention to the fact that some months later the real perpetrators
were brought to justice. They were Spanish.
The need for coherence makes us associate familiar
images to the everyday events. Today is Easter and the image of a tall, long
blond straight haired and pale skinned Jesus predominates the western imaginarium. But the
probability of Jesus from Nazareth being tall, blond and pale is similar to
Mohamed having the same appearance.
What it all comes down to, in this homeostatic
loop of cruelty that makes us all take parts and assume roles, is that we are
all responsible for perpetuating these narratives that make young men and women,
of whom their victims knew nothing about and who knew nothing about their
victims, give their lives in ortder to and take innocent ones.
Their unfortunate role is to perpetuate the
narrative behind the construction of the “usual suspects” among us. Those
common people, neighbors, colleagues and friends who struggle to live their lives despite the
stigma brought upon them by the absolute minority that draws all our intention.
There is something (if not many things) we are
not doing right to stop this madness and search for solutions. Instead of
labeling, we should be thinking about how to get the “usual suspects” on our
side and fight this insanity together.
So, instead of lightning up more candles and guessing
the names of the cities to add on the template:
We are all…
let’s stop the loop and say:
We are all wrong.
Let’s take it from there. We can't change what happened, but we can start fixing our future past. Because eventually this war is not to determine who's right or wrong. It is to determine who's right and who's left.
BTW If you have the answer to the question on the photo please write.
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