Love and Hate

This is Thomas Orhions Ewansiha, a 34-year-old Nigerian PhD student who died in a Malaysian detention centre earlier this week.

Thomas left behind a family of his own. He had a wife and two children. Thomas was pursuing a PhD in management.

Thomas's only crime was being an African in a condominium where Africans were frowned-upon. Apparently, there were "complaints" regarding the behaviors of African residents.

The police apprehended Thomas even though he had valid documents as he had a valid student visa. He was apprehended on "suspicion."

Thomas had to stay in a detention center for 14 days where he died due to a seizure.

We're all born equally as humans. We die as humans. We have the same number of bones and organs. The only thing different is the color of our skin. Why does that have to matter so much in this ever-materialistic world?

Hate can have many reasons. One reason is hatred of things different from us; We instinctively hate and fear what is different from us. Another reason for hate can be the in-group-out-group theory which states that whenever we feel threatened by outsiders (out-group) , we instinctively turn towards the familiar (the in-group.)

This theory makes sense to me as it explains how we always seek out the familiar in foreign environments such as international student clubs and assemblies for specific nationalities.

My first encounter with racism is during university as I had to seek-out an assignment group for my classes.

My university has a majority of Asian (Chinese and Malaysian) students. We have other nationalities such as Korean, Arab, African, Indonesian and many other nationalities. However, despite the diversity, I still suffer from alienation as the common stereotype towards Arabs is that we're rich, lazy, incompetent and are all Muslims. Many were the times people said there groups are full despite me clearly knowing they aren't. Many were the times people spoke in tongues that were foreign to me to purposely alienate me from the conversation. I've had people who were hostile towards me turn nice as soon as I started eating pork in-front of them and say "you're not a Muslim?" with a very happy and excited tone. I've had landlords refuse to give their units to me as I'm not Chinese and I even had people refuse me from adopting pets as foreigners "aren't allowed" as they put it.

So I must ask: WHY THE HATE? WHY NOT ABANDON ALL MISCONCEPTIONS AND JUDGE PEOPLE BASED ON MERIT RATHER THAN PRE-ASSUMPTIONS?

Why hate on people whose only option is to leave their once familiar homes and families to seek a better future which they cannot get in their countries? You have no idea how hard it is to live in a foreign land with no family, how hard it is to hear their voices but not have a face to relate it too. Internationals don't have it "easy." We sacrificed a lot to be here.

Why can't we all just co-exist?

San Algamal