Last week, in Wānanga, we finished our worksheet on Inclusiveness "Tell Different Stories". We were given an article from Elif Shafak: ‘We need to tell different stories, to humanise the other’
Elif Shafak: ‘We need to tell different stories, to humanise the other’
History has shown that hate doesn’t start with concentration camps or civil war. It always starts with words.
The year 2020 hasn’t solely been defined by the pandemic, rising unemployment, deepening economic inequalities and a critical time for the climate emergency. There has also been an alarming increase in hate crimes across the world.
In Poland, LGBTQ communities have become enemy number one. In Hungary, neo-Nazi crowds organise demonstrations to expel the Roma communities. More than half of the hate crimes in New York last year targeted Jewish citizens. In Germany, there has been a dangerous increase in attacks against minorities and refugees. In the UK, Home Office figures indicate a surge in hate crimes, including those against sexual minorities and transgender citizens. In Turkey, Brazil and India, a dangerous form of dogmatism continues to brew. All these seemingly disparate events have one fundamental thing in common: a systematic hatred of and bias against people who are regarded as different; the dehumanisation of the “other”.
History has shown that it doesn’t start with concentration camps or mass murder, or civil war or genocide. It always starts with words: stereotypes, cliches, tropes. The fight against dehumanisation, therefore, also needs to start with words. Stories. It is easier to make sweeping generalisations about others if we know close to nothing about them; if they remain an abstraction. To move forward, we need to reverse the process: start by rehumanising those who have been dehumanised. And for that we need the art of storytelling.
Data and factual information are crucial, but not enough to bring down the walls of numbness and indifference, to help us empathise with people outside our tribes. We need emotional connections. But more than that, just as we need sisterhood against patriarchy, we need storyhood against bigotry. East or west, when we relate to others we do so through stories. Literature can be incredibly powerful, universally relevant and, most importantly, a healing force.
Under austerity, we have seen libraries shut, cultural centres neglected. Now, with the impact of coronavirus, the arts and culture are once again endangered. At a time when inequalities are deepening and prejudices escalating, we urgently need public and private support for creativity, especially among disadvantaged communities.
The art of storytelling is one of our last remaining democratic spaces. Now it must become one of our main acts of resistance against dehumanisation.
• Elif Shafak is a writer, academic and activist
Questions to answer after reading. Add your answers after each question below. Use full sentences with proper punctuation.
- What type of crime is increasing around the world?
- Hate crimes have been an alarming increase around the world.
- These crimes have one (fundamental) thing in common: a hatred or bias towards what?
- Others
- We learned in our Inclusiveness slides that it can be hurtful to judgments based on our differences to/with other people. Write the missing word.
- Many conflicts between people start with words? Write the missing word.
- To avoid dehumanising people that are different, the writer says we need to think about certain kinds of words. We know from our Inclusiveness slides that labels don’t tell us much about people. What is another kind of word that the writer says we should avoid?
- Stereotypes
- Why is storytelling and literature (and reading about others) so important? Write a paragraph about this in your own words as best as you can. (The writer discusses this in the second half of the article).
- To rehumanise them
- Select a book from our library about someone different than you; someone you normally would not read about from a different culture, for example.
- Identity, culture
