Psychopolitics: Immigrants As The Enemy
In February 2011, the leaders of leading EU states announced the failure of the policy of multiculturalism. First, former French president Nicolas Sarkozy declared the attempts to assimilate immigrants a failure, saying
that France has been “too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him” (The Telegraph, 2010). French leader made this statement
right after the former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel made similar statements (The Telegraph, 2010). It is unlikely that these almost parallel statements were just a coincidence,
although one cannot call them sensational.
European countries have long been in a crisis of multiculturalism. The concept is almost ideal in theory, but it is difficult to put it into practice. The core of multiculturalism is the maintenance of “the integrity of cultural distinctiveness” and diversity within a single national state (Kolig & Voyce, 2016, p. 11). Such a unity in diversity should promote the peaceful coexistence of diverse culture within the territory of one state. Unfortunately, the growing migration flows associated with the processes of integration and globalization created a number of dangerous phenomena such as the spread of xenophobia, racially motivated crimes, and the growing
popularity of conservative organizations and parties. People just start to perceive immigrants as enemies. However, this attitude does not come out of nowhere. A psychological analysis of the negative attitude toward
immigrants shows that this phenomenon is rooted in the childhood of a xenophobic person, but it is also inherent in every society to varying degrees.
Psychological Characteristics of Individuals Who Perceive Immigrants as Enemies
There is no doubt that people who perceive immigrants as enemies are xenophobic. They experience a whole spectrum of negative emotions when dealing with immigrants. Those feelings may include a feeling of
superiority, aggression, envy, and fear (Auestad, 2012). They usually explain their behaviour with unconvincing arguments. For example, a xenophobic person may attribute indecent behaviour and negative personality
traits to immigrants, although the person might have a clear understanding that someone might as well attribute the same negative traits to his or her own nation. There might also be no explanations at all, and people who do
not like immigrants might just do not like their appearance features such as the colour of the skin, hair, the way immigrants speak or the language they speak, and others (Auestad, 2012). The first distinguishing feature of
these arguments is the desire of xenophobic individuals to contrast their nation with other nations (Auestad, 2012). They perceive immigrants as if the latter are different in behaviour, feelings, personal characteristics,
life values, an …
