As of late, my mind has been buzzing on why people group up together, and we may all see the easy and obvious reasons why we all do, at some point in our life, but I mainly wonder about the reason why we band together and at some point become agressive.
Well my own story may not be of much help, as I had a great adolscense, with mostly no negativity in it. I still stand by that statement, as my foot has been embedded in the spirit of positivity with a great tattoo. But as of late I have begun noticing group-voilence between people. Both Norwegian and immigrants have these tendenzies, but I mainly refer to immigrant youth societies. This is because we all tend to generalize these types of groups right from the start, which in most cases is overrated. As seen through my young eyes I feel that I can bring another view to the table, which older men and women can’t include themselves in.
“We are strong together, we are one together” a friend said to me once, and I never really got that one, untill now. Alone we are nothing, only a mere chicken for the pickings, and when a young boy, white or black skin colour is of no importance, we all band toward eachother. We group up in fear towards the other man, who is different, in both colour and culture. things that are strange to us, like different views of religion especially a Religion which may include more gods than the one we are carrying, may feel strange, and even wrong. This is natural as when different viewpoints in Religion defines the culture. The Indian man may be more indifferent to things that we value and the other way around. We all claim to have the right lifestyle, and claim to best everyone in every aspects of life. This is problem number one.
Media also tend to blow up stories that include the minority in our Nation, even going as far as refering to gang-voilence or the persons skincolour. This creates this basic fear of the unknown, and suddenly we all spawn a terrorist out of the harmless Imam on the bus. You have all read that in an educational book somewhere, but I am not joking, this really affect all of us. This makes an ignorant and fearfull son-of-a-bitch out of us automaticly.
This makes us group up with like-minded persons, who share the same opinions. And when we are strong we tend to be braver that we would be when alone, and in some cases we become so brave that we neglect strange ways, even start to mutually hate it. We start to not tolerate it, rather pushing it away than facing it, fearing it even more. At this point there is no going back, and it all usually ends in voilence to some degrees.
This may be the cause that we all pit the other man against eachother so often, and even makes us “hate” the other man. The other man is not like us, invades our land, taking our work from us, and lives of what would be ours. This is bullshit, as we are all actually equals, in both heritage at some point, and righ to live the life we all want. But if we really are in a big family then why do we hate eachother so much? The older generation seem to be the blame in this. Ignorance and fear grips us all, but it is actually stronger in the older generation. Thank you mom for bringing me up to be this responsible, but I fear that you are overreacting! You have told me from the beginning to stay away from the scary world, in hope of shielding me from alle the “dangers” of this world, when in fact this world is my playground. I am glad that you brought me up not fearing the odd and new, but the “other man” was not the barberian that you would have me believe. There was no need to fear him, only embrace him, and his strange ways. For one day, his ways will not be that strange anymore, and rather familiar. I will not fear him, nor hate him. I will love the other man as my brother, and treat him with respect as I would my own kind.
“An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Written by:
Espen Dyrland
