The Levels of Prejudice
One can perhaps grade hatred and prejudice from one to ten.
Level one is a mere dislike but not a real hatred. For example, most people would not want their child to join a religion different from their own. But aside from that they would have no problem with peacefully co-existing with them, working with them and socializing with them. This could be considered level one.
One can then go up the scale to someone who would not want to marry a person of a certain race or creed, but otherwise has no problem with co-existing with them in harmony.
Higher up the scale are those who have no problem with someone of another race, nor would they deliberately hurt them. But they would not socialize with them or want to work with them.
Next are the people who again
would not deliberately hurt someone because of their religious beliefs,
color, race or sexual orientation, but want them somewhere removed.
This
would be like apartheid, sending them perhaps to a different part of
town
or a different country.
Almost at the top of the scale are those people who would kill or main someone just because of their color or creed. Like for instance the Klu Klux clan, the Nazis, the killers in Rwanda, Bosnia and countless other examples. They believe that another human being can be so inferior to them that they are not worthy of life.
And right at the top, the level
ten haters, are those whose hatred is so extreme that they will kill
themselves, just in order to kill a few members of this hated group.
Here we find the terrorists suicide bombers. The person who will climb
on a bus filled with schoolchildren with a bomb round their waist in
order to kill them..
So
the question is how can one reason or negotiate with people whose
hatred is so deep?