Stereotype

Lately, courtesy 'facebook' I have come across numerous stand-up comedy videos where the act is centered around stereotyping nationalities, colour, religion, professions etc. One of the very first I saw was of Russel Peter a Canadian-Indian who managed to crack the audience up with his imitation and interpretation of the stereotyping Indians face in Canada. He didn't mind using himself as the butt of these jokes and I was slightly surprised at how he could joke about things so close to home. But then I came across more comedians from various 'coloured' parts of the world making fun of going through additional security checks, being addressed rudely and being the keepers of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) with panache. Middle Eastern comedians keen on showing to the world that their world is no longer Alladin's Arabia, Africans going beyond Rap about their accent and Indian crowds cheering to jokes about their children excelling at schools.

Quite unexpectedly I too, saw the humour and the purpose behind these shows. The genuine eagerness to show the rest of the world hidden facets of these 'infamous' countries. I was all for the cause eventually. And then I came across a news piece accompanied by a disturbing video of 2 teenagers being beaten to death in Pakistan while being watched by police. There were people who made videos, but none to stop the killing. Ironically, just before that I was watching a talk by Maz Jobrani (TED Talks) who with his group is on a mission to present to the world the positives of Middle East and is effectively leading a crusade against stereotyping.

Even though, I try my best to not to classify people because of their colour, geography or religion I found it really difficult to resist the mob-mentality of brutality being nurtured at our door step. In the 21st century, if an entire city did nothing but watch 2 young men being beaten to death in the most barabaric fashion and later hung as if dead animals, I could not but make generalisations. Apart from civilians who preferred making videos to post on youtube, there were armed policemen who simply took the 'best view' positions around the scene. If the police force of a country does not seem to think it was their duty to stop the violence what can one expect from the people at large?
And I am not talking about individuals, or even a dozen, there was a mob almost the size of a cinema audience. Not one of them felt the urge to stop it??

I may take a step back from my mental refinement, but very unfortunately it really made me re-think about the origins of stereotypes and that of 'popular belief'. Kudos to people like Maz Jobrani but incidents like this just keep letting them down. Again and again, breathing life to more security checks and more mistrust.