The form of xenophobia I wish to discuss here, is one that is rampantly prevalent among the denizens of various states, amongst each other.
Much can be discussed on what we mean by the words ‘preservation’ and ‘identity’, though the kind of identity whose discussion should suffice us here, should be ‘regional identity’.
By regional identity, we should be meaning to something that characteristically ‘binds’ the individual to the region, i.e. to say by a form of organic habitation translates some of its own regional attributes and attitudes into the individual and thereof makes them, a ‘native’. Anyone wanting to seriously contemplate how it is that something like xenophobia emerges in the first place, would naturally identify an economic – basis for this attitude. I.e. to say, the limited presence of resources (of natural, man-made etc.) that the particular region offers, necessitates (or at least does not make it sound unreasonable) the preferential treatment of ‘natives’, in its allocation. But sadly, this is only a poor makeover which the prejudice seeks to pass itself off as.
Were the question of ‘preferential treatment’ (in resource allocation) really only an official policy- stance and nothing else, the attributes (of natives and non- natives) would soon cease to be of any consideration as soon as the question of allocation were determined. But when has this been?
Xenophobia, symptomizes an essentially prejudicially attitude, the sickest of parochial ills that equates the degradation and censure of another (identity) with the preservation of one’s identity. Since what I write, draws legitimacy from my experience, and since my experience has been in this state (Goa), I speak of how xenophobia subtlety colours what is sought to be idealised as ‘Goenkarponn’ (Goan-ness).
Who does not know the condescending labelling of ‘outsiders’ as Ghaati or Bhiknaa? Not only do those who harbour such an attitude feel it is their right to use such labels which have gained the rancour and acidity of expletives, but such an attitude is welcomed and relished as an indispensable part of being a Goan!
Which is to say that ‘the assertion of one’s identity as a native, must imply the negation of another’s’ and always is this negation, this refusal to identify, accept and treat the other as a fellow equal (national), endowed with a learned violence of sorts. A violence in speech (among other things) seems the modicum minimum.
Identity preservation and xenophobia mustn’t go hand in hand. Our ‘preservation’ must be an active, productive effort that must aim at the realisation of those values in everyday living. The erroneous understanding of ‘preservation’ as ‘compositional purity’ (as though identity were a liquid) must be done away with, for it then produces the false notion of ‘adulteration’. If anything, xenophobia produces a dangerous monotony and intolerance of thought and empathy; a diseased inbreeding of thought and experience; this eventually has debilitative effects, all of which are products of the same bandwagon effect.