Today in ASTU we discussed how trauma is interpreted and perceived as a result of reading Sall’s essay “Regarding the Pain of Self and Other: Trauma Transfer and Narrative Framing in Jonathan Safran Foer’s: Extremely loud and Incredibly close”, and the first chapter of Butler’s book “Frames of war: when is life grievable?”.  In this blog post I will be examining how people in Canada and Europe perceive trauma differently and how it is discussed in each culture. I will not be discussing how trauma is viewed in the US because I have never lived there and do not have the required knowledge to discuss this.

Canada being the bastion of having a very open minded and accepting culture that it is looks at trauma in a very particular way. In Canada we look at trauma from across the world and say things such as, “oh that’s an awful thing that happened there” and unless an event in history has occurred that is in a way very relatable the trauma will be compared. As Canada its self has not experienced much trauma throughout its history in comparison with European nations this is natural. The fact that in Canada (from my experience) we look at trauma this way is important because we as a society here need to attempt to understand events on their own and not start looking at other events and compare numbers and who suffered more. The fact that here we can agree that everyone suffered who has experienced trauma on any scale is a testament to how young and innocent Canada is. This is not a bad thing however because it lets us view trauma across the globe with a wide perspective and see events for what they are and not for “how bad they could have been”, or “oh well others suffered more”. This is a great virtue of Canada and I hope it will not be lost as time goes on and traumatic events continue to happen.

Now we come to Europe. Europe has a long history from even before the Roman empire and their enslaving of conquered people, to the second world war, and on through the cold war up to this very day. In Europe today we see that when a traumatic event happens such as the holocaust people begin to compare it to other events that are similar, (such as the estimated 10 million lives lost during the Russian civil war, or the estimated 25 million killed during the reign of Stalin). This then brings forth the inevitable question: Who suffered more? In all cases there will be one example that supersedes all other events either in lives lost or in the inhumanity and disgust that people have for what happened. In my opinion this is devaluing the value of human life. I believe this because when looking at trauma many Europeans look at numbers and how important that ethnicity was at the time. An example of this is the estimated 25 million Russians that lost their lives at the hands of the Germans in World War II, many in Europe will look at this and respond with something similar to this: “that is shocking but the Germans also were the cause of 6-7 deaths as a result of the Holocaust”. Here we see immediately that people begin to start comparing numbers and the fact that people were imprisoned and killed simply because of their beliefs and not as a part of war (which seems to have become an expectation that numbers are very high in this respect in Europe). Trauma has also become a source of dislike towards other nations and cultures. For example, the Belgians will in the near future never fully forgive the Germans for the raping and destruction that was bestowed upon them during the First World War. Europe, because of the long list of traumatic events ever since and before the documentation of them is unable to go back to viewing trauma objectively instead of through a clouded lens of other events that are worse.

In conclusion we see that trauma is experienced and perceived differently when looking at Canada and Europe because of how long each has actually existed as an entity influenced by European values.

As always comments are appreciated

In ASTU 100 we have recently been reading the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The book tells the story of a young boy called Oskar Schell and his story after his father was killed in the 9/11 attacks on the world trade centre. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close provides a fictional telling of one family and how they attempt to deal with the tragedy that has befallen them. In the book Oskar at one point expresses that he is not a racist but gets scared and tries to avoid muslims and people wearing a turban because of the 9/11 attacks. Today we will be discussing how after 9/11 we have seen a rampant rise in Islamophobia not only in the United States but across the world.

After 9/11 the world was shocked by what had happened and then president Bush gave his speech outlining “You are with us or with the Terrorists”. This is key because arguably if these attacks had not taken place on American soil or in a country that belongs to the “Global North” then the world would have most likely not taken it as seriously and the Islamaphobia that we have today worldwide would not exist on the scale that it does. The fear of islam skyrocketed after the attacks as the news stations of the world were quick to blame “muslims”, thus throwing the worlds second largest religion under the bus. Despite calling the attackers “muslim extremists” the only world that the public hears is “muslim”. The fear of islam however did not peak in the months after 9/11 it grew and continues to grow with US and world conflicts with radicals from the religion. For example, the “ground zero mosque” which is projected to finish 2017 will neither be located on ground zero or in fact be a mosque but rather would have been community centre, the attacks in Benghazi on september 11 2012 resulting in the deaths of 4 US citizens including ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The fact that both of these events have happened in the last 5 years and have been reported on to such an extent that media outlets such as Fox News. This discussion has made into shows such as the “Daily Show with John Stewart” a political satire show where in one instance he takes on the Fox News corporation in their discussion on the events of Benghazi. The “ground zero mosque” also made an appearance on the HBO show “Newsroom” where the show provides a view of attempting to reduce the fear of islam. The fact that late night shows and and a TV drama are some of the most well known forums for showing a different side to fear in the world surrounding Islam shows us that despite the fact that the news organizations should be reporting the news they are in fact the leading contributor in the spread of Islamophobia.

The spread of Islamophobia is also aided by the constant reoccurrence of terrorist attacks from muslims in the “global north”. This has been recently been streamlined by the terror group ISIS and the attacks in Paris killing over 100 people. Another example of this is the molesting of German women (mostly in Cologne) by refugees and asylum seekers on new years eve. This event sparked more anti immigrant riots in Cologne and across the country to show the discontent of the people and the fear that they have because these people are predominantly of muslim faith and the way that the faith has been portrayed in the news ever since 9/11. Another example of how paranoid people have become is the banning of all muslims from some gun stores in the US. Leading republican candidate Donald Trump is also adding more fuel to the fire as he expressed that he wants to put mosques under surveillance and even possibly close some because of the fear of islam in the United States if he is elected. The fact that Donald Trump is the candidate with the most publicity from either party is concerning because he is reinforcing the idea of Islamophobia and all of the negative connotations of the religion. It seems that no one is even talking about the fact that the muslim radicals make up a very small portion of the religion and most muslims are in fact peaceful people seeking only to practice their religion. This however does not make for good publicity and thus only the negatives are looked at and portrayed from the religion. On the other hand we have radicals from all major religions in the world. The KKK in america were a white Christian organization and in Sri lanka and in Myanmar there are buddhist radicals who in Myanmar have even killed muslims (in a riot in 2012 40 in one day). This however seems to go largely unnoticed as it is not happening in what we perceive as a “western” nation thus making it less important.

In conclusion we can see that although we are now in 2016 the fear of Islam is more present than it has ever been because of recent events such as Cologne and Paris. I however believe that this dehumanization of the worlds second largest religion is unjustified as only a small portion of the religion belongs to radical groups such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS and as a result of news organizations the world over only showing the bad side of the religion people have a very negative view towards all muslims. I hope that over time we can get past this, however if events such as paris continue to happen and people overreact such as in the US with gun store owners making their store a “Muslim free zone” there is not much hope for this to happen in the near future.

as always comments are appreciated.

bibliography:

Jon Stewart Slams “Shockingly Terrible” Fox News Over Ferguson, Benghazi Coverage

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gun-stores-muslim-free-zones_55ce4e52e4b07addcb430539

http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/donald-trump-just-announced-his-plan-for-mosques-in-america/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22356306