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Xenophobia is a fear or contempt of foreigners or strangers.[1] It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning "foreigner," "stranger," and φόβος (phobos), meaning "fear." The term is typically used to describe fear or dislike of foreigners or in general of people different from one's self.
As with all phobias, a xenophobic person is aware of the fear, and therefore has to believe at some level that the target is in fact a foreigner. This arguably separates xenophobia from racism and ordinary prejudice in that someone of a different race does not necessarily have to be of a different nationality. In various contexts, the terms "xenophobia" and "racism" seem to be used interchangably, though they have wholly different meanings.
For xenophobia there are two main objects of the phobia. The first is a population group present within a society, which is not considered part of that society. Often they are recent immigrants, but xenophobia may be directed against a group which has been present for centuries. This form of xenophobia can elicit or facilitate hostile and violent reactions, such as mass expulsion of immigrants, or in the worst case, genocide.
The second form of xenophobia is primarily cultural, and the objects of the phobia are cultural elements which are considered alien. All cultures are subject to external influences, but cultural xenophobia is often narrowly directed, for instance at foreign loan words in a national language. It rarely leads to aggression against [individual] persons, but can result in political campaigns for cultural or linguistic purification. Isolationism, a general aversion of foreign affairs, is not accurately described as xenophobia. Additionally, in the world of science fiction, xenophobia may refer to a fear or hatred of extraterrestrial cultures or beings.
From 1641 to 1853 Japan had a policy of exclusion of virtually all foreigners (not merely an avoidance of foreign relations), known as 'national closure' (sakoku 鎖国). In the early 19th century Mito scholars (水戸学者) advocated jōi (攘夷), the forceful expulsion of 'barbarians', though almost none existed there. By the middle of the 19th century, with outside pressure mounting, some Japanese scholars and leaders tied 'Western Learning' and 'Nativist Studies' (kokugaku 国学) toward the project of nation building.[2] Nihonjinron, a widely popular type of nonfiction literature emerging in the second half of the 20th century, has been described as xenophobic.[3], though most of the works in the genre cannot by any description be so defined.
Currently, the only legal protection foreign citizens enjoy from xenophobic practices is Article 14 of the Constitution, which states: 'all of the people shall be equal under the law,and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic, or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin[...]'. Japan ratified the ICERD in 1995, but has failed to enact appropriate legislation as directed by Article 2b, simultaneously using 'freedom of expression' rights as a shield against the stipulations of Article 4a and b. The 2006 report by the UN Special Rapporteur for Racial Discrimination, Doudou Diène, was highly critical of current Japanese xenophobia and on-going discriminatory practices, which include difficulties in access to housing, accommodation (hotels) and other commercial establishments open to the public (spas, bars, night-clubs, restaurants and others) based on physical appearance and myth, and bullying at school of foreign-looking children. [2] The current Japanese word for xenophobia -外国人恐怖症, (gaikokujin kyoufu shou, lit. 'Foreigner fear condition') - interprets it as if it were a medical condition, revealing a lack of proper understanding of the concept.
Modern emotionally-charged, political Left moralists term "racist xenophobia" (dislike against the genetically dissimilar out-group and nepotistic favoritism towards the genetically similar in-group), is coldly analyzed by many sociobiological researchers as an irrepressible and innate biological response on the part of the evolved human organism in an inter-group competition evolutionary-strategy. In his famous book, The Ethnic Phenomenon, Pierre L. van den Berghe, anthropological professor of the University of Washington, discusses the concepts of kin selection, ethnic nepotism and the biologically rooted tendency of people that are more similar genetically to behave more generously toward each other. Frank Salter, an ethological researcher of the Max Planck Institute, deals with similar "taboo" topics in his controversial book, On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity and Humanity in An Age of Mass Migration; this work has been praised by well-known sociobiology innovator E.O. Wilson as "a fresh and deep contribution to the sociobiology of humans." Salter posits an "innate group-descent module" in the human mind to explain the universality of ethnic nepotism. In Salter's view, favoritism towards one's own ethnicity is an evolutionarily based, "objective" value and, from a political science perspective, Salter proposes a "universal nationalism", in which all planetary ethnic-based communities or nations have the right to preserve their own heritage and distinctiveness.