November 28 , 2014
Easy Scapegoats
The hunt for scapegoats is often easy. November’s mid-term elections in the US provide the most recent evidence. Republicans found it easy to scapegoat Obama for the myriad of American ills. In past US history, the Klu Klux Klan was at the forefront of scapegoating blacks. In Nazi Germany, European Jewry was scapegoated for what befell Germany in World War I and after.
100 years ago, in 1914, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan warned the House of Commons in London of the repercussions of scapegoating those Muslims who were not “servile flatterers” and who were not “adept in the art of betraying their community”.
20 years ago, in Rwanda, the Hutu tribe nearly annihilated the Tutsi tribe killing nearly one million in 90 days.
Scapegoating diverts attention and lets too many others escape scrutiny. It also nullifies the search for a solution-oriented approach. There is specific targeting to direct and vent anger and frustration. Sometimes the target is fabricated. Mostly frustrations are taken out on those who are soft targets with the least capacity to resist and retaliate. Xenophobia is one of the consequences.
Scapegoating mobilizes hatred to target groups and minorities. With 24-hour TV, the whole family can now enjoy the spectacle. It is a malicious and destructive process with pressing socio-economic problems remaining as is, unaddressed, and at a standstill. Sometimes even the most educated people are most prone to ignorance, especially so, when it comes to condemning entire communities. It is easy to shift blame on tempting targets.
Counterfeit leaders, charlatans and demagogues revel in it. Politicians are often blamed. A senior general once told me that he has a two-part criterion for assessing politicians: (a) he should be a patriot and (b) he should not be a dacoit. But this picture might be incomplete. It begs the question of who placed the looters in a position to loot? Did they parachute from the heavens? From a similar setup will emerge similar people with similar mindset, with similar priorities, and with similar results.
The political history of Pakistan is notable for scapegoating. Ayub was scapegoated in 1969, Yahya Khan in 1971, Bhutto in 1979, Zia in 1988, Musharraf in 2007, and Nawaz Sharif in 2014. Scapegoating government on deliverance and governance is now a habitual norm, while issues of common human decency, fairness of opportunity, and due process of law are squashed. It is much easier to deflect attention from the source of distress than to attack with application and determination the ills that infest state and society.
With all the chatter of social media and overflow of information, the cold fact is that people, in effect, have stopped thinking.
According to Rod Serling, who conceived the 1960’s hit TV series, TheTwilight Zone: “prejudices can kill and suspicions can destroy.” It is a warning to the Republican politicians of America who are in the forefront of scapegoating Muslims.
The great Muslim leaders of the subcontinent eschewed scapegoating. In fact, their great feat was to kindle the spark of self-awakening. It is a self-improvement lesson that Western Muslims need to heed to avoid becoming easy scapegoats.
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