Amid the hideous chaos erupting around the world at the moment, might there be some possible silver lining? Something existing at a deeper, more fundamental level than all the uproar, wars, terrorism, inflicted hunger, wretched misery? A tiny chink through which we might glimpse, if not a radical solution, at least a glimmer of light? Some hopeful candle flickering in the window?
Yes! Honestly, I think there is. The proposition might well make you roll your eyes – but in fact, though hardly standard, it’s simple and basic. And profoundly, quintessentially human.
Into the brains of our reptilian ancestors as they crawled from the swamp, evolution rammed a fatal stamp: tribal wariness of those “different from us”. We’d needed it then, to survive in that fierce new world.
Rarely, therefore, has human hatred zeroed in on those we consider “like us”. Few wars have been fought when two sides truly feel they share most basic things: DNA, race, language, history, religion, social status, wealth. Plus all the offshoots: education, political views, domestic arrangements, taste in art, fashion, food, music, humour…
So even in any mildly unified world, seeds of suspicion and hatred really shouldn’t find anything nourishing enough to feed on and trigger a nasty sprouting of thorns.
But… clearly they often do! It seems there are bitter little seeds embedded in our individual hearts and brains that can prompt us to seek out even the tiniest succulent scraps of difference. To eagerly taste-test them, munch, swallow. And finally, bingo! Burp up a wondrous truth!
We are superior to “them” after all! Even if — for now — some of us might feel just a bit poorer, less powerful, trendy and cool. But… superior we are!
An example. Though classical music is my great love, old dinky-di Aussie ballads warm the cockles of my heart too. But crikey! What’s happening now? Aussie country music singers warbling away about shearers and stockmen with – yuck! Fake Yankee accents? Cowboy twangs? And Akubras tossed away for sideways-up-curled cowboy hats like in the movies?
On hearing those dodgy Southern drawls, a snarky, uppity smirk twists my heart – and nostrils! Clearly my cultured taste whispers of an innate superiority! Oh deah! Kindly switch that Mozart back on! In turn, those fake Yankee warblers might well sneer at my pomposity, and in disdain turn their snooty noses up at me! How amusing!
So once identified, what are we to make of “them”? Those alien beings so fundamentally “different from us”. Different in all spheres of life that matter. And therefore… lowly, somehow. Despicable. Possibly even sub-human. Obviously, then, bombing is an option. Starvation. Exile. Even cleansing the earth by organising their eventual… ahem!… removal.
History shows that again and again we humans have fallen into our own living, writhing trap. Group A sees Group B as inferior, stupid, grasping – possibly evil. Group B, in turn, sees Group A as inferior, stupid, grasping – possibly evil.
And there, deep down, pulsates the mysterious hidden truth that we all carry deep within us. Could it be that this ubiquitous tendency to look down on those “different from us” only proves how incredibly alike we are after all?
Yes! Essentially, the same we are. And nothing reveals this truth so starkly as the very identical flaw that divides us – and, at the same time, miraculously unites us. The belief embedded in us all that you are probably “different” from me. (And doubtless inferior…)
The world is witnessing today, brutally, this ancient human truth zinging to life right before our eyes. Israel and Palestine offer wildly clear examples of humanity’s fundamental sameness gone wrong. Sameness warped and twisted into prejudice in the traditional old human way. Because many Holocaust survivors and their children, recent victims of hideous mass cruelty, are now… what?
Re-creating in Gaza an agony of effects weirdly like those they themselves suffered. The Exodus song, that hymn showering a glory of blessings on certain chosen ones, avows:
This land is mine! God gave this land to me.
This brave, this golden land to me…
But hope there is. In these days of the Gaza war, we hear a lot about antisemitism and Islamophobia… but scarcely a peep about the multitude of Jews worldwide who plead passionately for Palestinian rights, or about Muslim supporters of the Abraham Accords who make similar appeals for Israelis. Yet they most certainly do exist: and consciously refuse to obey that inborn instinct to reject.
Years ago I stumbled upon Jewish Voice for Peace, a world-wide movement dedicated to justice for Palestinians, whom the members refuse to see as fundamentally “different” from them. Though not myself Jewish, as a long-time supporter, I’m glad to be counted as a “JVP member”.
Their website says it all:
Now into the second year of genocide in Gaza, we are overwhelmed with sorrow and outrage. There are no words to describe the devastating pain of the past year in which the Israeli military has killed over 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children…
We… demand an arms embargo to Israel, immediate end to the genocide, a lasting ceasefire and an end to Israeli siege, apartheid, occupation, and oppression of Palestinians and Lebanon.
All are welcome. All are needed.
Another unsung group is “Women In Black”, founded by Israeli and Palestinian women in 1988. Their regular vigils still send out a gentle message of peace and hope across the world, as monthly in my hometown, Armidale.
“We are silent because mere words cannot express the tragedy that wars and hatred bring. Our silence is visible. We invite women to stand with us. We wear black as a symbol of sorrow for all victims of war, for the destruction of people, nature, and the fabric of life.”
So… yes, different we are. Yet so very much the same. Surely that’s one fact we can acknowledge, and consciously grab as a foundation on which to build something truly useful for the future. Starting with some comfortably basic good will and friendliness…
Frances Letters is the author of ‘The Surprising Asians’, studied by a quarter of a million NSW School Certificate English students in the 1960s and 1970s, and ‘People of Shiva: Encounters in India’. After studying in Switzerland to become a teacher of Transcendental Meditation, she taught for several years in Barcelona. Her memoir ‘Razor-wire round our hearts: But truth-telling can help set us free’ will soon be published.