The challenging encounter with “the other”

When people from different cultures and backgrounds meet, the encounter is always challenging for the people involved as many different thoughts and feelings pass through the intellect, such as: trust/distrust, suspicion/curiosity, pleasure/disgrace, feelings of superiority or inferiority, and so forth.

No matter language, ethnic group or geographical location, the challenges for the people involved in an encounter with “the other” is felt and experienced inside. However, the outside reaction to the encounter varies from people to people, from culture to culture. In world history we have seen many different responses how to deal with “the other”: building walls, through diplomacy, starting wars, trade relations, colonisation, exploitation, surveillance systems, alliances, altruism, etcetera. Also systematic suppression though a social and religious system, like the caste systems in India and Nepal, is one example of a system made to classify “the other”.

As the world increasingly is becoming globalized, so is the understanding and recognition increasingly that higher walls, strict surveillance, suppression, or killings of “the other” is not a lasting solution and an appropriate recipe. Quite the opposite – and increasingly important is the need to understand “the other” through compassion and empathy. Information and sharing of different values, ideas and dreams are all important ingredients and needed for the creation of a common platform where all can meet no matter social, cultural, ethnic or religious background.

As elsewhere in Nepal, many of the so called lower caste people, the Dalits for example, are suppressed by so called higher caste people in the coverage area of Radio Lumbini. To mitigate the negative outcomes such suppression might generate in a society, Radio Lumbini in January hosted a conference on “Dalits representation in the media”, and invited two Dalit intellectuals to present a paper on the issue. Community reporters and listener club representatives were also invited for the seminar.

It was a very inspirering but also emotional seminar and the waves were sometimes very high. After a stimulating introduction to the subject by the two intellectuals on how they perceive Dalits representation in the media, the seminar opened space for a discussion between the panel and the participants. One of the Dalit presenters expressed his opinion: “why do [so called, red.] high caste people treat foreigners more human than the Dalits?” The response from one of the participants was that the Dalits should not claim anyone as racists as they themselves also have discriminatory practices.

Discussions like this moved back and forth between the panel and the participants, and I sometimes had the feeling we were at the limits of what we could manage and opening a Pandora box we not easily could close again; there are no easy and single answers to these very difficult issues. During the debate I constantly had a stressed feeling in my solar plexus, which also underlines the very emotional nature of the debate. My colleagues, fortunately, successfully managed to safely land the discussions again, and we all left the seminar as friends.

Without any doubts, seminars of this nature help people to broaden their horizon and assist in developing empathy and compassion for “the other”. No arms can deal with these very subtle issues, nor can they address the root causes of any conflict. These can only be dealt with though accuracy, empathy and compassion. Besides the issue of discrimination of so called low caste people, Nepal has many other pending issues which can be dealt with in a modality similar to the described. The participation in the seminar showed great eagerness to peacefully and through dialogue searching for answers to some of the many sensitive issues waiting to be resolved, to again making Nepal a peaceful and prosperous country.

In an increasingly polarised conflict, automatically a middle path is created in which moderate, democratic and peaceful interests can meet. Radio Lumbini showed with the seminar such a path to walk.

The article is written for Radio Lumbini's Annual Assembly Magazine.