PureInsight | May 24, 2004
[PureInsight.org] I have always had difficulty relating to the many tragedies in history, e.g. , the Romans' persecution of Christians and the Germans' attempted genocide of Jews. I had been dumbstruck as to how this type of tragedy could have happened, or why so many civilians would blindly agree to participate in these persecutions against their fellow human beings. A New York Times article entitled, "Hard-Wired for Prejudice? Experts Examine Human Response to Outsiders," published on April 20, 2004 shed some light on some of my questions from the perspective of behavioral psychology.
I found the following passages particularly useful in explaining how the persecutors ignited persecution against social outsiders by instigating people's anger towards them. "The new research on emotions and prejudice has been partly inspired by changing ideas about the nature of emotion itself. Social scientists once dismissed emotions as an illogical nuisance. But by the 1980's, researchers had begun to consider emotions useful in their own right." "In a study that measured how emotional states affected views of outsiders, the researchers, from Northeastern University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, found that anger increased the likelihood of a negative reaction to members of a different group and that sadness or a neutral emotion did not." "'The anger is serving as a signal that there's some level of threat or hostility in the environment,' said Dr. David DeSteno, an assistant professor of psychology at Northeastern University and an author of the study. 'And if there's a threat in your environment, it's more likely to come from someone not in your social group than someone who is, because usually social group members reinforce each other. They protect each other from outsiders.'" "Dr. Galen V. Bodenhausen, director of the social psychology program at Northwestern University, said. 'Rational thought is great in a lot of circumstances where you have time and latitude to do it. But emotions provide rapid, immediate guidance, a gut reaction.'" (From "Hard-Wired for Prejudice? Experts Examine Human Response to Outsiders")
Now that I think of it, many of the historic tragedies resulted from a tyrant's plot to instigate people's anger towards his target victims through rumors, lies, fabricated charges, and false accusations. It is because of people's anger towards the target victims that they willingly supported and even participated in the persecution. For instance, there are many tales revolving how the Roman tyrant Nero incited his people to hate and persecute the Christians. One of the tales was that Nero accused the Christians of burning houses in Rome, when in fact it was Nero who was responsible. His purpose was to instigate the Romans' anger towards the Christians. Thus Nero could start and justify his persecution against the Christians. Another tale was that Nero later escalated Romans' anger towards Christians by spreading rumors about them, e.g. , that the Christians kill babies and eat their flesh and drink their blood in their church services. Or Nero would plant various crimes on the Christians. Thus the misguided Romans were filled with anger and started their persecution against the Christians.
Adolph Hitler instigated the Germans' prejudice and hatred towards the Jews using a similar approach. Apparently when people's anger was stirred up by the lies about the outsiders, they became unreasoning participants in the persecution. If only people would calm down and analyze the information rationally, they would be less likely to fall prey to the lies or become consumed by their anger.
History seems to repeat itself and mankind seems to be forgetful about past wrongs. Since July 20, 1999 when Jiang Zemin started to persecute Falun Gong practitioners in China, the Chinese people have accepted the lies about Falun Gong as the truth and are receptive to the slanderous lies about Falun Gong in the Chinese media. Many of them even think that they have heard enough horrible tales about Falun Gong to judge Falun Gong accurately. I wonder if they have ever thought about the truth behind these lies?
In fact, the truth isn't as unattainable as one might think. For example, the truth of the April 25 Appeal in 1999 was that the 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners didn't go to Beijing to lay siege to Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of the Chinese central government. They were actually going to the State Council Appeals Office, which was but one street away from Zhongnanhai, to peacefully appeal for the release of 45 Falun Gong practitioners detained in Tianjin, [a metropolitan city less than 60 miles from Beijing.] Their appeal was completely non-violent, peaceful, rational, and in full compliance with the Chinese Constitution. This is the truth of the April 25 Appeal.
Jiang Zemin was so consumed by his jealousy over Falun Gong that he even had all the Chinese media report the April 25 Appeal as "Falun Gong practitioners' siege of Zhongnanhai" to create a false impression that Falun Gong practitioners were a group of dissidents with a political agenda of overthrowing the Chinese government. The purpose behind the false report was to instigate the general public's anger towards Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners. After Jiang started the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners on July 20, 1999, he failed to eradicate Falun Gong within three months as he had claimed. Thus he felt that he needed to escalate people's anger and hatred towards Falun Gong practitioners, as he wanted to sustain and escalate the persecution. To attain that purpose, he had people pretend to be Falun Gong practitioners and set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square in front of ready cameras. There were firefighters standing by, policemen standing by, ambulances standing by, and hospital staff standing by in the nearby emergency rooms, all ready to jump into action and report this "tragic incident" in the fullest detail, including every "Falun Gong actor's" occupation and biography, within only two hours after the self-immolation act was staged. This is the truth behind the infamous "Tiananmen Self-Immolation Act." To this date, Falun Gong practitioners all over the world have spent five years of their time patiently explaining the facts about these lies, and the Chinese people have started to understand the truth about Falun Gong, and removed their anger towards Falun Gong.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2004/4/24/26852.html
