Speech: fear of the unknown

Essay by ranoHigh School, 11th grade July 2005

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When we were young, how many of us were afraid of monsters? Many of us, if not all, were once afraid of the monsters that were hiding in our closets, under our beds, or waiting in the attic. Maybe many of us still are. Parents would sometimes use this fear to their advantages. They would make us clean our rooms or do our homework, but if we did not, they tell us that the "boogieman" would come find us at night. The fear of the unknown is an excellent weapon to be used to gain ultimate power over others; many of us have experienced it, or even used it.

In the Webster's dictionary, it states that xenophobia is the "fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners". This fear and hatred acts as a weapon because people tend to fear what they do not understand or know. They try to ignore the problem and think it will go away.

In the early 1900s, many Canadians were xenophobic. They placed a head tax over the Chinese and let only a certain amount of them come into Canada each year. They were afraid that the Chinese would take over their culture. However, as years passed, Canadians have come to understand different cultures and religions, and accepted people for who they were.

Fear is experienced by everyone on a daily basis. Some people may fear getting to school late because of traffic, doing something wrong at work and getting in trouble with their boss, or some even getting in trouble with their wives. Hopefully no one here has had to experience with that yet. However, in places like Africa or the countries of the middle-east, people there experience a different kind of fear. A primal fear for their own survival; at any minute...