Multicultural Society: Event at Abu Ghraib - Essay Example

Humans since the beginning of their evolution valued the company of those closer to them and rejected others outside their social groups or cultures.It has been an innate social-biological drive of our kind to not accept others and immediately mock and stereotype the way others behave. The history of humanity is full of instances in which mankind treated others of our species inhumanely simply because they were different. Equality is a term used a lot by western countries and other developed nations to describe their culture, but in reality there is still a lot of discrimination taking place in the minds and hearts of the people. In the United States who is the self-proclaimed protector of human rights and a country which has a multicultural society, discrimination is still a huge problem within this society. In this country hate crimes are an epidemic and a real solution towards preventing them are currently not viable since the society is not ready to transform itself and truly accept people who are different from the status quo. In 2004 an unfortunate event occurred at Abu Ghraib in which Iraqi prisoners were abused by American soldiers and civilian subcontractors. This paper describes this event and proposes that the reason the abuses at Abu Ghraib occurred is because of the basic social-biological drives of humans which makes them naturally prone to treat people who are not considered of their kind inhumanely. On April 2004 the entire globe learned about serious violation of human rights and abuse that American soldiers committed against Iraqi prisoners stationed in a correctional facility in Iraq called Abu Ghraib. The acts committed by the Americans were truly inhumane and included things such as rape, physical abuse, taking naked pictures of prisoners in extremely revealing positions, urinating on them, and sodomization with batons among other despicable abuses. The story was revealed by the media when insiders in the prison revealed the photographic evidence of the horrific things happening at Abu Ghraib. The person claimed that the army was ready to cover up the event and was going to secretly deal with the matter. The scandal created hysteria throughout America especially within governmental officials. US government officials acknowledge that the event at this prison violated the Geneva Convention which prohibits torture and cruel treatment of war prisoners. The army reported that 27 people are accused of being associated with abuses at Abu Ghraid, including 23 soldiers from a military intelligence unit and four civilian contractors working under the army’s supervision (CNN, 2006). Some of the soldiers and contractors who committed these acts felt they were within their rights to realize them claiming they were realizing legitimate military interrogations. They felt no remorse for their actions and for them it was a natural act which was realized against an enemy who they perceived to be criminals, terrorist and killers that did not deserve any rights. Ironically a lot of the prisoners inside Abu Ghraib were not soldiers and were serving time there minor infractions. Something beyond the imagination of the group of 27 people that was involved in the events at Abu Ghraib made these people believed that their actions were justified and it was acceptable to mistreat other humans the way they did. Within the social – biological theories of social behavior there is the notion that many social behaviors might be explainable by mechanisms that evolve because of past social behaviors of our species (Ucsd). Throughout human history there have plenty of instances in which the majority view of society lead to massive acts of abuse and discrimination against entire culture of groups of people which were different. In the middle age society was ruled by the church that controlled the mainstream. During those times people with different views regarding religion or with innovative scientific ideas were outcast of society and would be persecuted and abused if they went public about there scientific findings. During the Crusades the crusaders would kill enemies of god abroad (Baldwin). When Columbus discovered America the Europeans found a primitive society of Indians in the Caribbean islands and in the mainland. To them the people of the tribes were inferior human beings and they felt they were within their rights to dominate and deprived them of their own culture. The Europeans raped the Indian women and enslaved and abused the men and stole precious natural resources from them such as gold. The domination of other cultures continued towards other continents such as Africa. The white Europeans felt that the black color of the African people was a sign of inferiority and they captured many African and brought to America in ships to become their servants. The Africans slaves were sold in the marketplace as a commodity to the other colonists. During the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in the United States there is a new target group which is regarded as inferior human beings that do not deserve acceptance from society, this group are illegal immigrants. Once they enter the country the wealthy are more than happy to hire them for below minimum wage in harsh jobs such as agricultural and other types of manual labor employments. The middle class takes advantage of their illegal status and hires them in their homes for very low wages to be their house servants. Working the household shores might not be as bad as slavery, but the American employer in this situation is not complying with the employment laws in these arrangements and is abusing the rights of immigrants to take advantage of cheap labor for child day care and to have a better quality of life by eliminating their home work responsibilities. The government created a lot of laws to take away the basic rights of immigrants such as the right to receive medical attention in case of an emergency. The government is fully aware that this social class is providing a great service for our society by working hard and trying to survive and eventually become United States citizens, but they reject them and are creating discriminatory laws to persecute them. A person that is participating in a war is subject to many changes in his personality. They see death and have to kill in order to survive. Iraqi in the war are the enemies of the Americans in the conflict. The soldiers battle against them everyday and since the war in Iraq does not follow the traditional guidelines in which differentiating between military and civilians targets was possible, the soldiers state of mind is that all Iraqi are a danger to their lives. They have seen suicidal bombing attacks by men, women and children against them. The soldiers become bias to normal social standards and it becomes possible for an event such as Abu Ghraib to occur. The soldiers that participated in Abu Ghraib were driven by socio – biological drives which distorted their normal values and made them act inhumanely against people that to them were different and inferior. In their minds they even thought that the despicable acts they were committing were justified since the Iraqi prisoners were part of a society that was a threat to the lifestyle of the American people. It is human nature to reject that which is different. Our instincts are to protect our own traditions and social groups at all costs. Cultures which are not aligned with the way we live are seen as abnormal and wrong. At Abu Ghraid the evilness of human kind arose due to factors that were imprinted in the minds of the soldiers through years on reinforcements which made humans believe that people that are different are inferior and should be taken advantage of without any regard to the feelings or basic human rights of the individuals. Hopefully mankind will soon realize that unity is the path towards a prosperous future for our planet. References Baldwin. The Crusades Begin. Retrieved August 4, 2007 from http://www.medievalcrusades.com/crusadesbegin.htm Cnn.com (2006). Iraqi government denounces Abu Ghraib Abuse. Retrieved August 4, 2007 from http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/16/abughraib.photos/ Ucsd.edu. Issues regarding biological determinants of behavior. Retrieved August 4, 2007 from http://psy.ucsd.edu/~eebbesen/psych18699/186Biology.html Read More