We
live in a world where nearly everything is programmed to survive by killing one
other. Imported plants take over native species, big fish eat little fish, and
big animals prey on smaller ones. Ant colonies war with each other; primates do
the same. Within our bodies, white blood cells gobble up intruders; in the
heavens, black holes gobble up stars.
Eat
and be eaten, kill or be killed.
So,
we are doing the same. Whether it is dissenting political parties or tribal
warfare, conflict is part of human history wherever our species lived and still
exists today in remote places in the world. We should be surprised when there
is peace and good will for a few years, not when there is war and ill will.
We
are territorial animals. We want each other’s land or oil wells or to force
others to believe in our God or our political system—how different is it except
for scale and technology from wanting each other’s goats or women or totems?
So
even when it is not one nation against another, it is one belief system against
another. And that, perhaps, is the most destructive of all. When we raid a
neighboring village (or nation) to take their resources, we are satisfied with
our loot, but often the prize we want is to convert others to our belief system.
We
become so entrenched in the fight that we justify the violence as divinely
ordained (or moral and necessary to the great cause or the revolution). So,
where does that line of reasoning take us?
The
suicide bombers of the World Trade Center are sitting at the right hand of God
(for they did this in the name of Allah, killing infidels), or so they were
promised and believed. Who else is sitting there?
The
Christians who led the Crusades (also to kill infidels), or the ones who instigated
the Inquisition to kill Jews, or the ones who killed Native Americans in the New
World in the name of Christ, are they all sitting with God? What God would be
pleased that people kill in his name—Allah or
Jesus?
Will
the Catholics go to heaven, but not the Baptists? Or, will the Baptists, but
not the Mormons? Does a Muslim have the answer or a Jehovah’s Witness or an
Inuit? Did God speak to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Joseph Smith?
Even
within the same religion there is dissent: Orthodox versus Reform Jews and
Christians fighting with each other. So, what is it? Will half of Ireland go to
heaven and the other half be denied access? Do we know which: the Catholics or
the Protestants? Will the Sunnis or the Shiites?
Is
it a clash of religion or a clash of culture? Is it the “have nots” against the
“haves,” the bearded ones against the shaven, or the covered heads against the
bare ones? Is it dark skin against light?
The survival of our
species in the New Millennium will depend, not on ancient conflicts, but on new
ways of dealing with one other in spite of different gods and different mores.
We must invent ways to assuage the immense anger ravaging the earth today in
order to keep our species living on this small planet just a bit longer.
Every
gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the
final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
and are not clothed.
—Dwight
D. Eisenhower, US general and 34th President (1890–1969)
Perhaps the only
way we can counteract our evolutionary propensity is by education. Starting in
kindergarten, through high school and college, offer classes not only about
understanding diversity but also embracing the ones different from us. We tend
to be more comfortable with people similar to ourselves, but our job as
teachers, parents, mentors, and leaders is to help people get out of their
comfort zones, explore and hold out a hand to those so different from us.
The
surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those
who think alike than those who think differently.
—Friedrich
Nietzsche, philosopher (1844–1900)
Yet tolerance is not valued by everyone, some see it as a vice, a
lack of moral integrity. Maybe the real conflict isn’t between extremists
groups, but between the philosophies of absolutism and relativism.
If
we are programmed to fight, is there a way to deprogram ourselves, to accept
each other as different but still part of the same human family? Is there a way
for us to just love one another, not only in spite of, but because of…?
Copyright © 2013. Natasha
Josefowitz. All rights reserved.
