Hostility to foreigners
and its cause

 
In 2004 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) warned the Swiss authorities to the risk of racist actions in Switzerland, especially against afro-descendant people and other ethnic minorities which do not speak German fluently. The document asked the government of that country to fight firmly all racist and xenophobic movements either in political parties or in individual actions.

Thus, it was not strange what has happened with the young Brazilian woman Paula Oliveira on the evening of February 9th in Dübendorf, Switzerland, a small town near Zurich. According to the newspapers, Paula was talking on the phone with her mother, who lives in Brazil, when the molestation and attack took place, causing the interruption of a 3-month pregnancy. There was no sexual violence or robbery. The aggression would have been motivated by a mere intolerance to immigrants, who are a significant percentage of population in that country.

On February 13th the Swiss police declared that Paula was not pregnant in the day the assault occurred and added that she may have faked the attack. On February 20th, Brazilian newspapers published Paula's confession  confirming that she faked both the pregnancy and the aggression, facts that never happened.

When the news got published in Brazil, the shock was not the violence itself but the place where it happened, because we have a different idea of Switzerland: a developed country committed to peace and justice. However, the truth has to be said, if the episode is proofed, it will be another example of what has already occurred with immigrants in Portugal, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and Russia, that is, in many European countries, the “Old World” which is a kind of an older brother of the nations whose sons have been insulted across the globe.

The reasons raised by the aggressors do not have any relevance because there is no just reason for physical aggression, especially when violence has economical reasons.

Xenophobia and racism should not exist in this world but unfortunately they do, which evidences that the worldly society is retrograde and how distant we are from the principles proclaimed by the French revolutionaries: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

Kardec performed a detailed study about the subject. “These three words – said the Spiritism Codificator – constitute the program of a whole social order that would promote the absolute Humankind progress, if the principles that they express could be fully applied.” (Posthumous Work, FEB, 26th edition, page 233.)

In his article, the Codificator initially defines the concept of Fraternity which the exact meaning of the expression summarizes all the duties the human beings owe to each other. Fraternity means: devotion, abnegation, tolerance, benevolence, indulgence. It is, by excellence, the Evangelist charity and the application of the maximum: “Do to others the same way we would have them to do to us”.

Fraternity is, as we can see, the opposite of Selfishness which says: “Each one by oneself”, while the first proposes: “One by all, all by one”. Since those values are opponents, it is as difficult that a selfish person proceeds with fraternity to its brothers as is an avaricious individual to be generous.

Considering that and objectively focusing on the French revolutionaries’ watchword, Kardec concluded: “Considered from the point of view of its importance to reach the social happiness, Fraternity is in the front row: it is the foundation. Without it, neither Equality could not exist nor a real Liberty”. “The true Equality comes from Fraternity and Liberty is a consequence of both.”

Obviously, while this feeling is not disseminated into people’s hearts – wherever we are, in Brazil, in Europe or in any other continent – nobody will be truly free and Equality will not exist as an opportunity to everybody, regardless of the color of the skin or the ethnic group they belong to. And then, individuals who consider themselves superior to others will exist, thinking they have the right to intimidate, by force, those who do not deserve their respect and friendship, according to their thoughts.

Does religion have any part of the guilt on this? Yes, certainly.

Of course, no serious religion would defend violence or evil to others, but the religious disputes, the need for ruling people’s thoughts, the pursuit for an inexplicable superiority, end up making a fraternal, pacific and respectable acquaintance something rare even between Christians, mainly when related to different religious denominations, as a contemporary version of what marked the sad history of oppression of the Huguenots by the Catholics.