The accusation that ‘elites’ deliberately stimulate immigration of ‘inferior’ people who aim to take over society arose in the far right but is now mainstream. In the Atlantic world of US and Europe, in Modi’s India, and in parts of Africa, migrants and minorities are portrayed as a mortal threat. Today’s dehumanizing rhetoric and fear of migrants preserve roots from 19th-century mob violence against Irish in the US, Indian migrants in Burma, migrant restrictions after World War I, and the murders of minorities in World War II. Linking these instances of xenophobia and exclusion, this lecture focuses on the globalization of nation state ideology and its promotion of ethnic homogeneity, which fosters fear of losing racial or cultural superiority to ‘others’.

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