Humanity
Hitler taught the world what can happen when you make a group of people hate another group. Back then the world could feasibly say they had no idea what was happening. Ever since 9/11 the ‘civilised’ Western world had another group of people they could hate. Muslims. Make all the world hate Muslims because they are all terrorists, and you can start a war looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction that don’t exist. You can test the public a bit more and commit a live-streamed genocide for 15 months just to see if they are ok with it. And yep, you will have affirmed that if you can get people to hate enough, they will allow anything to happen.
Chris Hedges the amazing author and reporter once said, “one day you will all be Palestinians.” And that is what we should fear the most. If we look at other people and instead of seeing a reflection of ourselves, we see something we loathe, then all bets are off. The last 15 months has proven that.
It is only February and in the last month we have seen many in the world excuse a Nazi salute, (twice) performed on an international stage. We have seen Trump sign countless orders that are putting back humanity decades and countless number of people applauding him. This week I saw Trump signing an order to abolish DEI employment practices. The first comment in the feed on that post was this, “about time we got rid of woman and blacks in the workforce.” He has also blamed a deadly collision with a plane and helicopter on DEI staff.
I saw the first US college student today who had her visa waived for being a part of the Palestinian protests on her campus. If democracy is about free speech, then surely it also must be about allowing people who you disagree with to speak.
Our world has been changed by democratic protest, by free speech, and by journalistic integrity. Yet the last 15 months has proven that none of that really matters if we can be encouraged to hate something more.
Humanity is all about seeing ourselves in an another and if we can’t do that, then all bets are off. We have proven that.
Humanity
surely humanity begins
when we see ourselves in another
and ends
when we see no reflection at all
Comments