Fight the fetish

EVEN if you have never studied history, with an ounce of common sense you would be able to extrapolate that once upon a time, tribalism was a necessary evil for survival. After all, it is normal to be suspicious of those you do not know or of cultures you do not understand. Ignorance and unfamiliarity breeds fear.

But as society evolved – with greater interaction between tribes, strides in the levels of knowledge and greater awareness of facts of life – thinking human beings began realising one important fact: all groups of societies around the world have contributed in some way or other to the betterment of life today. It wasn’t exclusively due to one ethnic or religious group.