On the flight to Budapest to work with teachers and students at Scheiber Sandor School, I noticed something that struck me as “normal,” yet at the same time, sad. What was normal? People helped each other. They helped each other hoist suitcases into overhead compartments, they allowed people with small children the convenience of boarding first, they smiled, they were cordial and they were respectful.
I know what you’re thinking, what could be sad about that? To answer that question, I need to describe myself. I am a non-religious fifty-five-year-old white male. In other words, here is what I am not: I am not a person of color, I am not a person of obvious religious affiliation and I am not a young, aggressive looking male. While I might come to blows with anyone that would refer to me as “grandfatherly,” it is a description that is closer than I’d like to admit. What can’t be denied is that am not threatening in looks or demeanor.
Yeah, yeah I know, you’re still not getting the sad part of this story. The sad part is that this was a connecting flight to Budapest that was bound for Istanbul, Turkey. As a result, the majority of the people on board and certainly the family that sat next to me were Muslim. This family was incredible. There was a Grandma, her daughter, the daughter’s husband and their toddler daughter, named Natasha. When I sat next to them on this midnight flight from Washington D.C. to Istanbul, I was fearful; not because they were Muslim, but because of the age of Natasha. I was fearful that I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep over her crying through the night. Yet, that didn’t happen. Natasha slept more quietly than anyone on the full flight. And, the next morning she was happy and playful and she and I formed quite a nice play group. I helped the parents when I could, and, even though we didn’t speak the same language, it was not an interaction that would be totally different, even if they were my best friends.
So now for the sad part: I couldn’t quit thinking about how our interaction with each other might be different if they knew I was a husband of a Jewish Woman or the father of Jewish Children. In other words, would “what” I am interfere with “who” I am? “What” people are is a culmination of various objective realities. There is one’s gender, one’s religion, one’s skin color, one’s political persuasion. Yet, “who” people are is not so easily confronted, though often times we make it seem as if they are the same.
Why is this so? I think most animals, humans included, are hard-wired to recognize threats. Evolution is not kind to the naïve organism that cares not who is passing through their particular space. Walk by a dog slowly without making eye contact and chances are you will be left alone. Yet, if you make eye contact or make quick, threatening gestures, things may turn out differently. As a result, not only are we acutely aware of threats, but we also strive to isolate ourselves from obvious threats – at least as much as possible. On this particular flight, I did not perceive my Muslim neighbors as threatening, nor, seemingly, did they perceive me as a threat.
But, what if my experience with my Muslim neighbors would have been changed by just one addition: a kippah. Would they have been welcoming to my help? Would they have allowed me to play with their daughter? Would the gentleman who allowed me to exit the plane in front of him with a smile that reflected general respect, have instead walked in front of me, or would he have let me go, but instead with a look of disdain?
I don’t know. What I do know is that too often, we never allow ourselves the opportunity to know “who” someone is because we are all too well aware of “what” they are.
A case in point involves my wife, who leads groups of “influential” Baltimoreans to Israel once a year. On one of her trips she met a Muslim shop owner named Omar. At that first meeting “what” my wife was was clear: she was a woman who was bringing many potential customers into Omar’s shop. And, “what” Omar was was also clear: he had a shop in the old city of Jerusalem that offered some of the most exotic and interesting fabrics, jewelry and furniture that could be found in Jerusalem. For the powerful people that accompanied my wife on her trips to Israel, these goods were like candy to children. So, from the beginning they each knew “what” each other were, and they were happy that “what” they were was mutually beneficial.
Yet, within a short period of time, something extraordinary happened: they got to know “who” each other were. It became a relationship that was not just defined as a Muslim man’s business being patronized by a Jewish woman. They got to know the details of each other’s families. They allowed themselves to speak to each other as humans, devoid of thousands of years of hatred and paranoia. On my wife’s annual trips to Israel, a visit with Omar is now not one of simple business interests. They have allowed themselves to know “who” each other are and they genuinely like the “who” they have come to know.
My experience on the plane and my wife’s experience with Omar both exhibit the same type of interaction that reminded me of the conclusions of Muzafer Sherif in his famous “Robber’s Cave” experiment. This experiment was designed to study intergroup hostility. At first, Sherif pitted two groups of twelve-year-old boys against each other in various competitions. He then set about trying to ease this conflict and tension that had grown between the two groups. What he found has informed the field of Social Psychology for decades. In a nutshell, he found that simply having the boys interact with each other in a non-competitive activity did not reduce the tension. What did reduce the hostility was to give the boys a task that required, not just their interaction, but their cooperation in a shared task that was valued by both groups. According to Sherif, “hostilities were best reduced by establishing superordinate goals, defined as goals that were desired by both groups and could be achieved best through intergroup cooperation. Certainly this would describe the interaction between my wife and Omar, as each person benefitted from their interaction. And, it also describes my interaction with my neighbors on the plane: they were happy to take whatever help I could give in order to achieve the mutually beneficial outcome of keeping Natasha happy.
The connection I hope to make of all of this connects to the just-completed Budapest Summit on Migration. In the recent years Hungary, led by the Nationalistic vision of its Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, has followed a zero tolerance policy regarding allowing migrants into the country. Not coincidentally, President Trump has also gained support from his blue-collar base for his hard stand on “the wall” that will prevent illegals from passing through our border. My goal is to introduce these discussions of how majorities define minorities; as well as, how competition for scarce resources informs the immediate immigration issue, but generally relates to any relationship that is defined by power or number differences. Moreover, is it even possible to define a group as a “who?” If not, what does that portend to intergroup conflict and the ability to diminish that conflict. The hope is that they may then utilize these ideas and theories as they think about their studies in history on any level.
We’ll see what happens. ~ Joel Monroe
