Ethnocentism

2 Pages 394 Words

How do you learn about another culture without passing negative judgments on areas

that are different? This is the main question for me regarding ethnocentrism. I grew up

in three different countries within three different cultures and I luckily learned how to

suspend judgments in other people’s practices in order to understand their own culture.

As a war refuge, I’ve experienced many horrible things and unjustified judgments about

my own culture. I don’t want to go in details about it, but I also don’t want anybody to

experience what I did. Based on everything I went through, as an adult, I am doing my

best to respect every culture and their practices even if they differ from my own culture’s

point of view.

Let me explain a recent magazine article written by Serbian journalist. The conflict

between three nations in Bosnia (Serbs, Croats and Muslims) led to a war that took

countless number of lives. Everything that happened in those five years of war was

caused by ethnocentrism and hate. People just didn’t want to accept each other the way

they are. The writer of this article is trying to say how everything “his” people (Serbs) do

is right and whatever others do is wrong. Here, we can see a typical illustration of

ethnocentrism, “ Seeing the success of Croatian Nazis in turning the clock back to 1941, Islam fundamentalist Muslims of Bosnia are trying to turn the clock even further back into the Balkan past. They are trying to turn the clock more than 100 years back. Back to the time when Bosnia was part of Turkish Empire.... And non-Muslims were only second class citizens…….”

This article contributed a great deal to cultural misunderstanding about Croats and

Muslims If anyone who’s not from those surroundings reads this article, they are going

to think that Muslims and Croats in Bosnia are some kind of animals. I am from th...