Xenophobia and scapegoating: lessons from history
Re: “Thailand is for Thais; don’t let it become like the US”, Letters, May 22.
I take exception to John Arnone’s xenophobic (and fashionably Islamophobic) outburst posing as concern for Thai sovereignty.
How can a minority now be a majority (his word)? This may just be Arnone’s clumsy clumping together of various groups including women and homosexuals (who are “minorities” anyway), but if so it has not been made clear, nor indeed has the apparent hard-right disregard for protecting these groups, as “liberal” politics presumably would do.
Furthermore, there is an abrasively intolerant tone running right through Arnone’s letter, which hails the xenophobe Trump as some kind of noble, frustrated citizen when he actually behaves like a flip-flopping, serially mendacious demagogue, and exhibits a tendency to follow the one who shouts the loudest – a phenomenon witnessed in Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s. As we now understand from that point in history, scapegoating minorities is dangerous and extremist nonsense, a combustible mixture that can create problems in the future, as indeed it did for Europe and the world.
All of us, Arnone included, should learn the lessons of history, as Churchill counselled. Does anyone remember that wall that fell in Berlin only a generation ago? Does anyone remember what it stood for? Does Arnone seriously think a wall between the US and Mexico is a do-able proposition, when the absurdity of it is there for all right-thinking people to see? Moreover, does he seriously believe that Thailand might “learn” from this idea? Also, when criticising United States’ immigration policies, he might recall the US motto – e pluribus unum – one from many, and the rich diversity that comes from it. Thereon lies one of that country’s obviously greatest strengths.
Dr Frank
