Saturday, July 26, 2008

Gamers as a media target, symptom of wider discrimination

This is sort of a follow up-prequel to the article I published on Global Voices Online:
Regardless if a person considers oneself a gamer or not, I think they should become concerned by the pattern of discrimination labeling group by group as abnormal, wasteful, and dangerous even. And this does not concern the various breeds of geeks only, it’s not just about technophobia. As Umberto Eco points out in his essay “Eternal Fascism,” the nascent forms of such movements incite the fear of difference.

Articles inciting fear of a minority can incite real problems for its members (“What does he do in his spare time? Playing DotA or Counter Strike? How can I employ this guy, he can go postal any minute.”), but seem to fit into divide and rule tactics used against the society as a whole. Instead of becoming united, Macedonian society becomes segmented into ever smaller, isolated groups which can be easily branded as freaks and dealt with as part of some final solution scheme.

Considering all of the above, I dared to paraphrase the antifascist quote by the German pastor Martin Niemoeller:
“First they came for the hackers,
but I was not a hacker so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the pirates, forgetting that Jesus said:
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone”,
but I did not resell other people’s software, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the gamers,
but I did not consider myself a gamer so I did not speak out.
And when they came to hunt the bloggers down,
there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Does this make sense to you? If yes, help raising awareness by digging the article, or join the discussions (in Macedonian) on Kajmakot or Blogeraj.