Xenophobia, The Fear Of Strangers Or Foreigners
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 meaning of Xenophobia is not only exclusive to people afraid of others different to themselves, but can also include fear of people from different backgrounds, maybe with different attitudes and higher confidence levels or maybe just “different enough”. It is also well known that people speaking in a foreign language can also be very threatening for those suffering with the illness.
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.
Throughout history and even today, tribes across the world follow some kind of Xenophobia and will fight any tribes different to themselves. This just shows how many different levels it comes it and how widespread it can be.
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.
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