Oldal 30 [30]
OCR
28 Christie Davies Scotsmen’s kilts cease to be tartan and become mere transvestite skirts, the bonnet takes on a different shape and the sporran disappears (Horecky 1985: 185-201). For the Slovaks the Scots are a distant and vague, unthreatening Other rather than a familiar neighbouring, well-observed Other and potential enemy. For neighbours, small differences are important because they define identity and tell ‘us’ apart from ‘them’. They are also important for other types of groups. For a Roman Catholic the differences between a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Methodist, a Congregationalist and an Anglican are not as important or as recognisable as they are to Anglo-Saxon Protestants, but equally Protestants do not distinguish between monks, friars and secular priests let alone Franciscans and Dominicans. How many Christians can properly distinguish Sunni and Shiite, let alone say who the Alawites or the Khoja Ismailis are? Likewise conservatives, libertarians, social democrats and Marxists can each make fine distinctions between their own different factions but outsiders cannot and are probably not interested in doing so. We all have both near and distant Others and this will affect the nature and perceptions of any conflict that occurs. Conflicts with neighbours are more likely due to proximity but neighbours are also better understood. Sometimes conflicts with a group whose views are similar to our own are the most bitter for they may be seen as heretics or traitors (Rokeach 1960: 301) and sometimes it is those at the greatest perceived social distance who are regarded as utterly alien and in consequence rejected more strongly. The perceived nature of the Other cannot be analysed in a simple way or predicted by a simplistic theory but has to be looked at on a case by case basis and by using or generating tentative generalisations. The Others as Monkeys: A Study in Conflict For the British, as for the East and Central Europeans, the depiction of the Other changes radically if there is a war or some other kind of violent conflict. People who before were portrayed as benignly ludicrous can very quickly come to be portrayed with images that depict them as dangerous monsters. The ludicrous portrayals do not entirely disappear—to that extent the enemy remains a human being like ourselves (Heath Robinson 1978)—but these are supplemented and overtaken by hostile ones. Even the humorous ones may be given a new and nasty twist as cartoonists get caught up in the national fervour or seek out of self-interest to please their patriotic editors and consumers. In anti-German British propaganda posters of WWI, a new image of a once very well regarded and admired people emerged— the enemy as a raging, ape-like beast identified by his distinctive Pickelhaube spiked helmet (Welch 2013: 161). These images were soon taken up in Australia and later (as in Fig. 2) in America when that country entered the war (Bryant 2006: 111; Darracott & Loftus 1972a: 41; see also Koch 1997). The savage ape image ran alongside vivid illustrations of fake atrocity stories (Bryant 2006: 76-79, 114), tales of German atrocities that had never happened, such as their crucifying a Canadian prisoner of war or of events that did happen but were reported in a grossly
