Coming from Nigeria, I have witnessed different reasoning in terms of our social relationships with others be it marriage, friendship at the workplace or school, business cooperation, and many more. It is usually a case of deductive reasoning where a certain group of people is judged by an attribute ascribed to their origin. For example, there are certain states where people would rather remain unmarried than marry from there, simply because of a deductive belief that people from the said state are not faithful in marriage, and has bad characters. There is even a statement on a particular Town that goes thus, " if you are presented in a situation where you have a snake and an unknown man in a room with you, and the man happens to come from a said Town ( I am withholding the name of the town for a reason), you should leave the snake and kill the man first". The saying was aimed at showing that people from the said town is evil but is that always the case?. For those who know the town, I speak of, haven't we met people from this state who are not just good people but admirable as well?
There is another state where the men there are ascribed with ritual money and fraudulent activities. Whenever a man from the said State wants to marry a lady from another state, the parents of the lady usually object to it. They fear that their child will be used for ritual as such stories used to be common in the state. Another tribe is attributed to dirtiness and Laziness. I can go on and on but the truth is that these are mere conclusions drawn from individual events, generalized over time and then from the generalized state, it is now individualized ( did that even make sense?, I hope it does ). What I mean however is that an individual incident(s) in the past is now being used to qualify a group of people ( inductive reasoning ), and still yet, the inductive reasoning is now being deducted to affect individuals ( I hope this makes sense now, lol). More like a continuous cycle of both inductive and deductive reasoning.
There have been people who married from States where the women are attributed with unfaithfulness but their marriage has never had cases of unfaithfulness.
There are men from states attributed with rituals who today have good legal businesses and are well recognized in society. The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, is from this state, is he a ritualist? He is loved by almost every Nigerian Youth.
The sad part of these things is the fact that people who subscribe to this deductive reasoning forget that we have different personalities. The Igbo people will say, "It is the same mother that gives birth but each is blessed differently by the same God". It is sad when Mothers hate their soon-to-be daughters-in-law even when they have not come in contact with the lady. Their hatred is mostly because she is from a *said" state or tribe. This happens even in this new age and even among people who claim they are literate.
In this period of let #speakpeace, let us try in any possible ways to sensitize people who subscribe to the deductive reasoning that coming from a particular tribe/state/environment, infers on one, the attributes of the tribe, especially the bad ones. None is born to be evil or with inclination toward evil. People choose their actions. One may come from a place known to be violent but choose not to be violent. The Islamic religion is rumored to be a violent one but haven't we met good Muslims? Aren't there some of them who speak up against those who use violence in their practice of Islamic religion??.
Let us #speakpeace to build peace and live peacefully, not just in Nigeria but the world at large.
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This is such a meaningful piece, Jose. And I get exactly what you mean by the cycle of inductive and deductive reasoning. The only way to break this cycle is to look into people's hearts... because that is the true voice. If we take the time to get to know people, then it becomes clear quite quickly where their heart lies and we will know then how we feel about them as an individual and not have our perspective clouded by generalisations. When I moved to the UK, my husband and I were treated so badly by a couple of blokes in a pub, because they overheard our South African accents and immediately pegged us as rascist. We were playing a game of pool with some British Asian guys that we had befriended before these other two asses walked in and disrupted our healthy enjoyable conversation and game. The statement couldn't be farther from the truth. I don't have a racist bone in my body... and you know what... that engagement with those guys cut deep. It hurt because is wasn't true... and being judged through a generalised view felt awful. So I agree that in being part of #speekpeece, we need to drop the generalisations and instead hone in on seeking what is in each others' hearts.
I dropped in from #dreemport this evening.
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I should say that the only reason I reference British Asian here at all is that the two asses made a big deal of exactly that... to the 4 of us playing pool, we were just 4 people enjoying each other's company, but some idiots had to go and ruin a good thing... we politely took our leave once the game was over. It wasn't worth getting into it with them and they were intent on being disruptive and vile. It's ironic that in the end, they were the ones showing prejudice, whilst the 4 of us had been playing in #peece# and enjoying each other's company - without a prejudice in sight between us.
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Thank you for this wonderful piece!
As a Nigerian I can absolutely relate to this.
My mom sat me and my sister down to lecture us on the various towns and villages, in my state of origin, that we must not marry from when the time comes.
This, of-course, was done from a place of love but ultimately it does more harm than good.
Because, as you said, every individual has different personalities and it is only wrong attribute a whole group of people to one characteristic just because of your encounter with a few of them.
This was an interesting read!
Thank you for stopping by and your wonderful contribution
You have spoken peece. I think every Nigerian can relate to this sort of discrimination and prejudice. It is being inculcated into individuals even right from an early age. We must learn to see people as people first before tribe, race color, etc.
Well done on this one.
Some times it is hard not to judge others because of where they are from.
Indeed we should speak peace to co habit peacefully in the society at Large
Thanks dear for sharing this wonderful piece
People choose there actions indeed but it should be always good
Thanks dear for sharing this
Came through @dreemprt
Unfortunately this can happen anywhere 😢 We must always try to get to know someone before deciding what they are like...
I found your post via Dreemport 🙌
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Wonderful post, thank you for presenting it in PYPT yesterday! Our preconceptions about people can rob us of beautiful friendships, and more harmonious communities! An important reminder to approach others with an open heart ❤️😁