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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 25 Dec 2022

Taken: 25 Dec 2022

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OF FEAR AND STRANGERS •
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George Makari •
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Xenophobia •

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In the Cracks of History

In the Cracks of History

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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Words are not just part of lexical maps or pragmatic tools. They may be incanations, invitations to imagine and remember. By 1945, xenophobia had become all of those. In started out as a name for psychological illness and extreme nationalism, the noved to notions of racial and cultural primitivity, before it settled as an animus against immigrants and minorities. After Auschwitz, xenophobia now also possessed a sickening, nightmarish resonance. Its very mention could unleash searing images of pencil-thin bodies in striped work clothes. It carried the stench of fresh turned into smoke, crushing images of children behind barbed wire, histories of immense sadism and cruelty. In the postwar years, the definition of xenophobia stabilized; it became part of that broader discourse deployed to stir the dead and warn the living.

. . . There is a foreigner at the gas station, on the playground, in the baker’s shop, and by the schoolroom. Globalization threw more tribes together. So it was fair to ask: When and where would it start again? Xenophobia lurked in the cracks of history. Invisible for a while, it periodically rushed forth and loosed decimation, only to then disappear. Despite its countless victims, the nature of this beast remained elusive. It was clear only that, if the past was any guide, it would surely strike again. ` Page124

OF FEAR AND STRANGERS
16 months ago. Edited 16 months ago.

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