« Health Impact Assessment (HIA) | Main | UN expert stresses education in sustainable development »
May 13, 2005
Are you a Terrorist?
All of societies have stereotypes comments.
We have heard, for example, Americans stereotyping Iranians women as “uneducated home makers” or Iranians stereotyping Americans as “ no family values”
Stereotypes are generalizations based on limited knowledge and/or hearsay and very common in understanding peoples, situations, events, relationships and things.
In the absence of knowledge about reality, people often rely on stereotypes to make sense of the world around them.
Common stereotypes about Iran:
Iran is an Arab country and Iranians speak Arabic,
Iranian men are “Aggressive”
Iranian ride camels in the streets
Iranian women don’t have right for voting or driving
Iran is a sandy desert land with a lot of camels
Men in turbans and long white robes
Women in black with their faces covered
Husbands with four wives
Rich oil and terrorists
The media often perpetuates stereotypes.
For example a few Palestinians celebrating the event of September 11th were shown by CNN.
So one of my colleagues at an American institution questioned me why did you guys celebrate the 9 11th attacks?
Movies Travel agencies, advertisers and computer game producers generally emphasize the exotic and strange.
Posted by Syamak Moattari at May 13, 2005 03:35 PM
