Savage versus Civilized

In trying to understand HOW THE HOLOCAUST HAPPEN, Gordon Willard Allport devised in 1954 a scale of prejudice.  It is to his 5-point scale that I point while responding to the recent ruling defining Defeat Jihad ads as free speech.

The Allport's scale shows how discriminatory behavior left unchecked may evolve into genocide.

In the first stage, antilocution, a majority group freely make jokes about a minority group and sometimes this behavior is labeled as "hate speech".  While antilocution itself may not be harmful, it is a gateway to xenophobic communication.

  

In the next stage, avoidance, members of the majority group actively avoid people in a minority group, creating "social exclusion".  While no direct harm is intended by avoidance, isolating a social group is harmful to the balance of power and freedom of expression in a society.

The third stage, discrimination, occurs when behaviors have the specific goal of harming a minority group by preventing them from achieving goals, getting education or jobs, etc.  We have seen cases of this in  the US, South Africa and Japan.

The fourth stage, physical attack, occurs when a majority group uses violence against a minority group (or their property) and sometimes we label this behavior as "hate crime". 

The final stage, extermination, occurs when a majority group seeks removal of a minority group. This has been evidenced in our global history through the American colonists' treatment of Native Americans, to American lynchings of former slaves and African Americans, to Nazi-led Jewish genocide, Rwandan Genocide, and countless incidences of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Sudan and elsewhere. 

As evidenced by World War II and implied by nuclear proliferation and social inequality today, we are capable as a human family of destroying ourselves and attention must be heeded to small infringements upon human rights and safety, in order for peace to prevail on a global scale.

By ignoring the the definition of jihad as savage and anti-Israel, it passively supports the social exclusion of Muslims in peace-making with Israel. This ad socially excludes people seeking a personal jihad of their own from supporting Israel.