As Mandela would have put it, Venetians started to learn hating others in behalf of their skin colour. Hence, an immigrant would most likely have been accepted regardless of nationality or ethnicity as long as he adapted to their customs and practices and did not breach with moral standards especially so if he-like Othello-associated “with the two dominant sociopolitical institutions of the period: Church (“Christendom”) and State (the government and military)” (Reynolds 204).īy the beginning of the 17th century, however, this started to change: as the number of encounters with foreign cultures increased, “color emerg as the most important criterion for defining otherness” (Neill 366-67). He even assumes that, during the Elizabethan era, “boundaries of otherness” had been based almost exclusively on behaviour and civility rather than physical appearance (366). Judging from Michael Neill’s investigations into the subject of notions of human difference in early modern societies, 16th century Venice had had a considerably open attitude towards foreigners of any kind, with a great deal of cultural exchange taking place between people of every colour and every religion. Mandela had originally formulated his statement with regard to Apartheid, it fits extraordinarily well to racism in Shakespeare’s Othello. There is nothing it could not explain, no dispute it could not illuminate. By itself, this is a simple statement but it is also egregious in the way it makes us understand. In 1994, Nelson Mandela wrote in his autobiography that “no one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion” and that, consequently, “people must learn to hate” (856). 4.Desdemona: not quite “the sweetest innocent that e’er did lift up eye”?
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