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BY ANGELICA LOUISE PFLEIDER
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Wednesday, February 8, 2017
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WHEN US president Donald Trump issued the executive order (EO) of a travel ban for seven Islamic countries, everyone lost their minds. Protests here, protests there, and celebrities and civilians sharing their opinions online, and several disapproving statements from other world leaders clash between those who are in favor of the 90-day travel ban and those who are not.
I have to admit, when I heard about the EO I felt sorry for those would-be immigrants stranded at the airport but I thought it was necessary. For me it was the usual case of “desperate times call for desperate measures”, especially with all the rampant ISIS attacks. I imagined it was like President Trump was playing a game of chess and he had to maneuver his way into protecting his own citizens. I thought, since it was only for 90 days it was necessary to make ensure the safety of the American people.
That was, however, before I got the sudden impulse to watch Zootopia. It’s an animated movie set in a world ruled by animals that have evolved into living with each other in peace. The main character is a bunny cop named Judy Hopps who takes on the task of finding a missing otter, one of 13 missing predator animals believed to be kidnapped.
Judy Hopps teams up with a fox con-artist named Nick Wilde. During their journey they develop a friendship and deep trust with each other. When they find the missing animals they discover that the animals weren’t actually kidnapped but have gone “savage” or reverted back to their old predatory ways and they are just being contained by the city mayor, a lion.
The lion mayor is arrested and Judy becomes the city’s hero. During a press conference when she is asked about the victims, Judy states that maybe it has something to do with the “biology” of the predatory animals and that it is an inherent tendency among them.
After she say that, there is panic among the citizens of Zootopia. Prey animals start shunning and discriminating predator animals and this even affects the friendship between Judy and Nick since foxes are predator animals.
That hit me like a bucket of ice cold water in the face. I realized how much of what was going on in the movie was actually going on in real life. Terrorist attacks bring suffering and fear among everyone, especially among those of the Muslim race. The panic and hate people feel among these terrorists, they take out on those who look even the slightest bit Arabic.
I was reminded of a Bollywood film called My Name is Khan is set around the time of 9/11. The attack left Muslim citizens of America being hated and discriminated even though they had nothing to do with the attack. They were being judged purely because of their race and religion.
These movies made me realize that causing panic among people does not help the situation. Even if that is not the intention, associating those of the Muslim race with the terrorist group ISIS creates a divide among the people. I am glad that at least now people are more accepting and don’t fall for moral panic as easily as before. There are still those who stick to that mindset though and things like banning a particular race just builds up on that.
The best way to combat a common enemy is by bringing people together. Make your country more secure when it comes to weapons rather than when it comes to people. Make the trade of chemical and nuclear weapons more tedious than the process of welcoming refugees. Don’t give terrorists a chance to get their hands on paraphernalia that can cause mass destruction rather than instill fear and hate among the hearts of people.
Remember, in the long run we outnumber them and that gives us more of an advantage if we only learn to accept each other and work together.
By the way, in Zootopia, the mayor wasn’t actually the bad guy. He was framed by the assistant mayor, a sheep who was giving those predator animals the nectar of a flower that causes them to go crazy.
She was planning to little by little annihilate predator animals from society. So that’s another lesson for us – moral panic is sometimes the result of someone’s own self-interest./PN
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