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Xenophobia, The Fear Of Strangers Or Foreigners

Written by Trevor Johnson Wednesday, 16 December 2009 08:49

The fear of strangers or foreign people is often known officially as Xenophobia. It can not only be a fear of people you have not yet met, but of foreigners to your country and people with different beliefs to you. Xeno means stranger and phobia means to have a fear.

The fear of strangers or foreign people is often known officially as Xenophobia. It can not only be a fear of people you have not yet met, but of foreigners to your country and people with different beliefs to you. Xeno means stranger and phobia means to have a fear.

The fear of foreigners and people different to ones self can be regarding anybody from a different culture to your own, people with different personalities, higher levels of confidence or just somebody who believes in different things to yourself. People speaking in a foreign language can also cause alarm for those suffering with this phobia or fear and will always give a cause for alarm.

Xenophobia is not just something that a person decides to feel, it is naturally coded into them and is a mental wave. People suffering from this will genuinely believe deep inside that anybody different to themselves can hurt or harm them. A certain level of this phobia can exist in other people in their day to day lives also.

There are many Xenophobics who not only suffer from this mentally, but can be vocal and act violently towards the people that they fear. They can lash out and cause harm due to their extreme fear. Most sufferers however are placid and do not expose their fears to other people and keep it only to themselves.

It is extremely common in tribes across the world for this fear to still show strongly, mainly because they aren't as exposed to strangers as we are in the Western world. Tribes can fight to the death if they find each other too different.

Hitler was the most extreme active Xenophobic in his day and due to his extreme feelings, had millions of Jews gassed and killed. This was all because they were different to him so he had his soldiers do the dirty deed of destroying those that he took a strong dislike to.