In apartheid South Africa, being called a ‘Sammy’ was as derogatory as it could get. If you were not an African or a white European then by default you were a ‘Sammy’, and so Indians were Sammie’s. How did this term come about? Apparently, the indentured labor shipped to South Africa, from India by the British, many years ago, to work their mines; plantations and so on were from South India and in all probability had names ending with ‘Swami’. The Swami gradually turned to Sammy, probably innocently and stuck as a derogatory name for anybody who was brown in color, thus reinforcing apartheid and racial discrimination.
A few days ago, while discussing terrorism, a participant said that, terrorists were all ‘Jihadists’. An innocent remark, but with dangerous portends because it directly then links terror to a particular religion and then leads to broader stereotyping. As we now know terror attacks across the world have more to do with political ends and end result of social disparity rather than meeting religious goals. The England riots and massacre in Norway by a right wing lunatic are a case in point.
Stereotyping unfortunately happens all the time, innocently at first so that a person or people can be identified and pigeon holed and then get a life of its own with tragic consequences. In conflicts, people tend to develop a negative percept of the other side. The opponent is expected to be aggressive, self-serving, and deceitful. These stereotypes tend to be self-perpetuating. If one side assumes the other side is deceitful and aggressive, they tend to condition their own response. This turns to a vicious cycle grows worse, as communication is either shut down or filters develop which color interaction.
