Wars, like that being waged currently by the Zionist terrorist government of Netanyahu are the destructive and mindless outworking of dualism; about winners and losers.
‘We unequivocally condemn the October 7th, 2023 heinous attack on Israel by Hamas’. And it’s absolutely right that we do. The attack was evil and indefensible, although understandable in the light of Israel’s decades long illegal and violent occupation of Palestinian territory. But evil nevertheless. No question. Violence only ever produces more violence. Humanity seems unable to learn and practise that truth.
We also unequivocally condemn anti-semitism, Islamaphobia and associated despicable, terrorising and destructive behaviours that are on the increase in Australia and other parts of the world. And we wonder why, and wring our hands and bluster about ‘cracking down’ on perpetrators and increasing punishments, and all manner of well-meant but unintelligent and ineffective protestations
Perhaps one of the reasons for the increase in the anti-social behaviour we rightfully find abhorrent is that we refuse to ‘unequivocally condemn’ the behaviour of some but not of others. We have yet to hear the governments of Australia and the U.S. ‘unequivocally condemn’ the atrocities committed by the Israeli Defence Force and the government of Israel. And take the action congruent with the words.
In fact, the reverse is true: there is stated and enacted ’unwavering support’ for what is a deliberate and ongoing genocide in Gaza. The U.S. continues to provide weapons and military hardware enabling Israel’s deliberate annihilation of a neighbouring sovereign nation previously dispossessed of much of its territory seven decades earlier in an act of appeasement in what can only be suggested as assuaging guilt.
Australia’s complicity in this genocide – and we are motivationally, actively and materially complicit – results from a fear-based, sycophantic and foolish alliance with the U.S., a self-confessed and aspirational hegemonic empire, unaware or in denial that it is in decline. It beggars belief why Australia, located squarely in Asia, abundantly-resourced and capable, persists with an archaic relationship of increasingly dubious security in favour of peacefully and respectfully interacting with our biggest trading partner and our Asian and Pacific neighbours and friends.
One of the clues to our current unwise alliances is that we are racist and we’re afraid. Racism is born of fear, and fear born of ignorance – ignorance of who and what we really are as human beings. Painful to admit, but however much we may remonstrate to the contrary, we “White Australians” are racist and afraid. To put it crudely, we don’t like brown people; we never have. The colonisation of Australia was characterised by racism. We arrogantly believed that aboriginal people were inferior – legally ascribed the title ‘fauna’ for a good while – and therefore irreversibly- separate from we ‘white’ people. But even that’s not enough for some of us; some of us don’t even like some white people. Anyone who I suspect or think or imagine is different from me is a threat to my little ego – although I’m not remotely aware of the unconscious drivers that are directing my life in false and destructive ways.
And we continue in racism and fear. We still don’t function as a single, integrated nation. No ceding of sovereignty, no treaty, no ‘yes’ to First nations, no demonstration that we belong to and with each other as equal members of the one human family. A casual glance at the overrepresentation of first nations people in our prison population, and the precipitating poverty and inequity in distribution of opportunity and provision will tell us all we need to know about our racism. Add to that our government’s vilification and abuse of asylum seekers and, most recently, our government’s pro-Israel and, effectively, anti-Palestinian stance and we don’t have a moral or ethical leg to stand on in the international community. Or in our own eyes if we are honest. We’ve allowed ourselves to become a pretty sad case. Did I mention that some of our political leaders have been named by the International Criminal Court as being complicit in war crimes? By not calling them to change their stance, we, too, are complicit.
But what is the origin and sustainer of racism and fear? I put it to us that it’s to do with our unwitting ignorant accession to what is known as ‘dualism’. Either/or, good/bad, right/wrong, you/me, thoughts/feelings etc. Shakespeare said ‘there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so’. My ‘good’ may be your ‘bad’. So our thinking alone is not the truth. Our feelings alone are not the truth. Nor is our physical experience. To value or trust in one aspect of our humanity above and in isolation from the others is dualistic and will leave us short of the full knowing; the deep, inner, mysterious Reality – knowing of ourselves. To be aware of each of our human functions and hold them together – often in tension but with unity – is to break out of dualism. The soul or spirit – that mysterious, inner, essential Truth of us– is the unifying power beyond the senses, mind and reason that holds all parts together. Without reference to this deepest Self, we remain at the self-accepted mercy of separateness from our Truest Selves, from others and from our physical world. Racism and fear are born here in this separateness; the either/or, the me/you. Only when we see the person in front of us as ourself and ourself as the person in front of us – non-dualism, ‘not two’ – will racism evaporate and every evil flowing therefrom.
And I’m a little apprehensive to say – because our ignorant default is to reject the notion – that this is a spiritual matter; a religious matter; religious in the sense of ‘re-linking’ to the deepest truth about ourselves and our function in this experience we know as life. But governments – and many people – refuse to ascribe authority to the spiritual or religious for many reasons, some of them seemingly valid, and others merely excuses to remain self- focussed and indulgent, and separated.
Wars, like that being waged currently by the Zionist terrorist government of Netanyahu (as distinct from normal, moderate Jewish believers) are the destructive and mindless outworking of dualism; about winners and losers. In reality there are no winners; those who ‘win’ are losers also. They lose contact with their souls and connection to the rest or themselves in their defeated sisters and brothers. There may be some sense of tenuous peace for a while together with overblown pride on the one side and bitterness, resentment and unrest on the other. But wars never produced peace. Violence never produced anything other than violence. ‘A bad tree can only produce bad fruit’. It’s always just a matter of time and circumstance before the aggression springs up again. Wars and aggression are born of dualism – arbitrary separateness of one from another, and fatal alienation and disintegration within the self.
Every credible religion and philosophy is at its heart non-dual. ‘All is One without a second’. (Chandogya Upanishad). ‘There is no longer slave nor free, Jew nor Greek, male nor female but all are One in Christ’ (Galatians 3:28, New Testament). Every creature, animate and inanimate, is an essential part of the One; of the Whole that is the universe in which we find ourselves and which is our material substance. John Donne’s reflection, “No Man is an Island”, is a well-known and loved expression of this connectedness of all humanity; of one to another. Whatever happens to you has implications for me.
‘No man is an iland intire of itselfe
Every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the Maine.
If a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
As well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if the Mannor of thy friends or of Thine Owne were
Any man’s death diminishes Me because I am involved in Mankinde.
And therefore never send to know for whom the Bell tolls; it tolls for Thee
(John Donne, 1573-1631)
Every death in war is death to part of you and me. We need – and are responsible – to do everything in our power to stop war, as war is killing us all and the glorious created order which is home to us and every creature.
Every racist word, slur and attack, wounds both victim and perpetrator. Noone escapes.
Anti-semitism and Islamaphobia – racism and – will only be eliminated when governments see beyond politics and lead people into ‘non-dual pro-humanity’. ‘Non-partisan’ for mere expedience. That’s their challenge. And it’s our challenge too because, in a democracy, the people are the government.
John White
John White was raised in Mount Barker, Western Australia, in a traditional working family, and attended the local state school. He worked as a farmer, singer and radio broadcaster before training and working as a secondary school teacher. Later John retrained, and has worked and taught for the past forty years in psychotherapy, counselling, group dynamics, restorative justice, spiritual direction and clinical supervision. John is the author of three books – No Bars Hold (Xlibris, 2010), Uncommon Sense: Reclaiming Humanity (Coventry Press, Melbourne (2019) and Making Australia Fair: Challenging Privilege, Wealth and power (Coventry Press, 2021).
John is married to Jennifer. They have two adult children and four grandsons. John and Jennifer live in Toodyay, WA, and are active advocates for truth and justice.