The Emotional Intelligence Crisis
What happens when emotions backfire?
EMOTIONS CAN PUSH US TO ACT compassionately, but they can backfire and compel us to act maliciously.
For example, if you are a parent and you see a toddler who is hungry, that child will remind you of your own child. When you think of your son or daughter, you’ ll be emotionally charged up. In that state, you will help a stranger’ s child.
On the other hand, as a reaction to the ongoing wave of Islamist terrorism, average citizens have been found to be committing hate crimes against people who have similar appearances to those involved in terrorism. People of Middle Eastern and South Asian ethnicities, in particular, are victims of this misguided approach.
Let’ s suppose there was recent news of an Islamist terrorist who carried out a suicide bombing, murdering many innocent people along with himself. Later on, a Muslim man was exhibiting anger or frustration in public; someone watching him who had seen the news would be reminded of the Islamist terrorist involved in the bombing. This reminder would cause such a person’ s emotions to reach their peak; it may even incite them to physically harm the innocent man in front of them.
Four days after 9 / 11, Balbir Singh Sodhi was shot and killed in Arizona by Frank
Roque, who mistook Mr Sodhi for a Muslim. Mr Sodhi was a Sikh who wore the traditional turban and maintained a lengthy beard per his religion’ s guidelines; traditionally, Muslim men also keep lengthy beards and may wear turbans. Mr Roque said,‘ I can’ t take this anymore. They killed my brothers and sisters.’ [ A UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE ON
HATE-CRIMES: THE STORY OF A CONVICTED
KILLER; HUFFINGTON POST ]
This was not an isolated incident; we are seeing a dangerous rise in hate crimes as Islamist terrorists threaten global peace.
HH Younus AlGohar asserts,‘ To help stop terrorism – it is not just about deradicalisation – you also have to take care of the emotional intelligence of people so that people do not become outrageous and are able to control their own emotions.’
6 MESSIAH HERALD / ISSUE 05 / JUN 2017