"But they are understanding" Painting

THE OTHERS AND EMPATHY The "Chimpanzees" as a Metaphor I take the chimpanzees as a metaphor that symbolizes “the others” and the act of “othering”. The upheavals in the geography where I live and the attitude of the people against these cases, have impelled me to tackle the nature and psychology of otherization. Why Chimpanzee? I took a quote of a scientist who studied on chimpanzees that says : “We now have to accept chimpanzees as a nation”. I want to draw attention to the act of similarty between the viewpoint of regarding others and the viewpoint towards chimpanzees as a subhuman creatures. People find it weird to adopt the idea that assuming chimpanzees as a nation. We don’t know them enough so we act on prejudices. But the scientist know them better then us and they say “We now have to accept chimpanzees as a nation”. The more you know them the more you love and respect them. It is similar to the situation of formerly people used to be taken as slaves the Africans, was weird to assume as a qualified humanbeing class. For centuries used as slaves the Africans used to be taken lacked of humanbeing qualities. The Africans, who were othered, used to be considered as a kind of chimpanzee. We do not know that today's attitude towards chimpanzees will not be a similar source of criticism in the future. We assume it's a natural attitude to keep chimpanzees in zoo as a show object and using them as test subjects. We maintain this attitude against whom are otherized and assume this attitude desperately natural. Because “for oppressors; the side who are generally othering, being human is only a privilege of themselves, the others; the side who are generally oppressed, are only objects”. And there is a quote: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression” Despite of their incredible similarity to human being, we regard them as creatures or aliens. This attitude of prejudice which is lack of empathy, maintain against minority, the oppresseds and those marginalizeds. In this sense I paint Chimpanzees as a metaphor of “the others”; …the others who are not known enough but still otherised by biases; …it represents minorities and the oppresseds. Political Dimension of Othering Power holders who aware of tribalism or tribal instinct, channelise the accumulated aggression of society on the direction they want for their own self-interest. They otherise a certain minority or group, suggesting certain prejudices to the society about them. They legitimate and palliate the attack and the hatred against them. But they are speechless… In this case either the masses stay speechless and exuse assaults or they rejoice and participate directly in tha attack. Thus gaining support and approval of community the dictators, reach their goals. And the worst part of this intrigue is, they provoke unconscious oppressed versus withstanding conscious oppressed. According to Freire, the power holders or ruling classes do this in order to divide and keep in divided the majority to preserve their statue. Thus, they passivate, -by changing the direction of- the steam of aggression towards to otherized oppressed, which occurs in unconcious oppressed against injustice that would be against them. Assoc. Prof. Mustafa HAYKIR

Painting:Acrylic on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:37.4 W x 45.2 H x 1.9 D in

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