Oppression: a history

The other day, I was reading the opening chapter of the Old Testament book of Exodus. I've read it before, but as so often happens, something jumped out at me that previously never had. Of course I knew the story was about slavery and deliverance. But the way the story is told is a real study of the roots and development of oppression.
It sets the scene by telling us about a people group (the Israelites, the family of Jacob) who had migrated from famine-stricken Canaan to prudent Egypt (who had stored grain during the boom years for the bust years). Incidentally, the brains behind that Egyptian plan had been Jacob's son Joseph, who'd been sold to an Egyptian as a slave, and had been fast-tracked to Grand Vizier.  But now, in a different generation, all the original cast have gone, and the Israelites have been fruitful and multiplied in Egypt. So the new Pharaoh decides that they are too numerous, and something needs to be done about them. The story goes that,

"He said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’" (Exodus 1:9-10)

There are a lot of hauntingly familiar notes to this. I wonder whether Pharaoh said this stuff to his people at a rally? Whipping them into a frenzy, stirring up a wave of anti-Israelite feeling with his racist rhetoric? What really struck me about this speech, though, was the way he so expertly de-humanises the Israelites. He is afraid of them becoming too powerful, but doesn't respect them as being able to overthrow Egypt themselves. They might join Egypt's enemies, he says. And there's classic 'them' and 'us' language as well. The Israelites are 'them,' they are different, inferior, other. Egypt has problems, and these problems are laid by Pharaoh at the door of the Israelites, the others among them. In this story, the Israelites are a people group that has arisen, or arrived, and has never (been) integrated into society. At least, that's Pharaoh's angle on it.
How often do we see this stuff? How common has this pattern been in human history? A 'dominant' people group vilifies an 'easy target', and then builds systems to oppress them. I can think of some examples, like Africans, Jews, indigenous peoples (in the Americas and the Atipodes), homosexuals, those with disabilities, women, religious minorities, the poorest in most societies. So often such groups have been scapegoated for political or economic crises not of their making. In many cases, people have been de-humanised, ghettoised, even experimented upon (it's well-known that the Nazis conducted experiments in the concentration camps; I've also heard that black people were treated similarly in Victorian times). Slavery is built upon the notion that the other, the slave, is not fully human, not equal to their masters. Ethnic cleansing is another deadly fruit of this kind of thinking.
Today, I see elites, politically and even more so economically, building systems and sructures that protect their own privilege by the organised oppression of the many.
Another observation on this stuff is that it's often classed as 'phobia' of some kind or another, such as 'xenophobia', or 'homophobia', or 'Islamophobia'.  This has a connotation of hatred (of the other, the homosexual, or Islam, in the examples I've mentioned).  But that hatred is born of fear.  Phobia means fear.  If someone has a phobia of spiders, they don't start a campaign against them.  They usually run screaming.  However, phobias can be overcome.  And often, they are overcome by learning, by experience and understanding, by replacing ignorance with education.  A friend of mine recently told me how she was scared of dogs when she was little.  Then the family got a dog.  She wasn't scared anymore, and now she has a dog which is helping my kids deal with their uncertainty around canines.
In the New Testament letter called 1 John, the writer, an experienced member of the early Christian community, briefly talks about fear.  Writing in Greek, he or she uses the word phobos, meaning fear, the root of phobia.  But the emphasis isn't on fear, it's on the antidote:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." (1 John 4:18-21)

Love casts out fear.  If we have love, which comes from God, perfect love from an experience of the loving God, we can't hate others.  The more we are full of love, the less room there is for fear and hate.  I guess the Exodus image and idea works in many dimensions.  It's not just the slaves who are set free by the end of slavery.  It's the 'masters' too.  It's not just the hated and oppressed who are released; it's the haters and the oppressors.  Set free by love.  Set free to love.
Then we can recognise that, despite our differences (and we are all different), there is no them and us.  There's just us.