Fear of strangers lurks in our collective conciousness
Berjis Desai
Xenophobia is a morbid dislike of strangers (Greek, xenos = stranger). Worldwide, the mood is xenophobic. From Trump’s America to Putin’s Russia to Erdogan’s assault on the Kurds; the rise of far right populist parties in aristocratic Austria and egalitarian France; Brexit and other potential exits from the European Union; the Shia-Sunni conflicts and many more, the planet is looking inwards. As a community and ethnic group, do we harbor fear of the foreigner and the stranger?
We forbid all those, however close, who are not Parsi Zoroastrians from viewing the face of the dead after the last ablutions. We do......