Getting along
We are all one common humanity
“Can’t we all just get along?” Rodney King went on television with his famous plea to end the 1992 riots that bore his name. An ordinary guy, not a saint, speaking for a common humanity.
Today we need our humanity more than ever. But what can make people more loving and peaceful—is it religion? Well, yes, no, and maybe.
Half the world’s inhabitants belong to one of the three Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism—“The People of the Book.” Christians have the Old and New Testaments. Muslims believe in the Quran. Jews hold the Talmud and Mishnah second to the Torah (the first five books or entire Old Testament).
By casting their lot with the written word, each group of followers had to decide how to interpret those ancient passages. One result of diverse interpretations is that Christianity has thousands of different denominations.
Human beings are competitive, including with religion, but it’s past time to drop the schoolyard arguments: “My holy books are better than your holy books!” They all contain wisdom. They all contain examples which should never be followed today. That includes genocidal wars.
The world holds an estimated 2.38 billion Christians, 1.8 billion Muslims, and 15 million Jews. However, some of them are just going through the motions, like my grandparents who never attended church or read the Bible. Many Christians only turn up at Easter, weddings, and funerals. Others seem to identify with politics more than with the teachings of Jesus.
All three Abrahamic religions have powerful traditions about pursuing peace. They have also been part of many wars. In the Thirty Years War (17th century) fighting between Catholics and Protestants killed about 8 million Europeans from battles, disease, and famine.
Often people wave the banner of religion while the real root of contention is territory, natural resources, and strategic locations.
And religious or not, societies often persecute some minority. The scapegoating of Jews reached a horrific peak in the Holocaust with the death of six million Jews. The world vowed “Never again.”
Yet antisemitism is growing again because of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. However, it makes no sense to blame Jews everywhere for the actions of Israel’s leaders—a far-right government actively opposed by many Israelis.
Some use the barbaric massacre by Hamas on Oct. 7 to justify hating everybody in Gaza. Or all Muslims. But the world hardly needs still another all-purpose scapegoat.
We see a concerted effort to dehumanize Palestinians, to erase them from our consciousness as well as from their lives. Justifications go back to the same basic error—mistaking the part for the whole (conflation). Collective guilt and punishment. Guilt by association. Over-generalization (as if 2.3 million people all think alike). This is how one sees children as enemies.
Won’t we ever get past this primitive way of thinking?
Everyone is expected to pick one “side,” but I see many sides: Israel; Palestinians; United States; Iran; Christian Zionists; the military-industrial complex; various Arab nations; the UN; multinationals who depend on Suez shipping; and others.
Islamophobia is based on shallow understanding of the history and diversity of Islamic countries. Most Muslims live in Asian nations—Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh—not in the Middle East. Nigeria has more Muslims than Iran or Egypt do.
Saudi Arabia covers about 80 percent of the Arabian Peninsula and is almost all desert. It contains nearly half the world’s oil. The Saudis want peace with Israel, unlike their rival Iran (which is Persian not Arab). We’ve forgotten that 75 years ago, a CIA coup took down Iran’s elected government, installing the Shah and his brutal secret police, SAVAK. Many Iranians hated us then, but today Iran’s younger generation is in a struggle with the rigid rule of the ayatollahs.
The Arab Empire (8th to 13th century) was the fifth-largest empire in history. Why are many Arab countries so poor today? Because the Middle East is low in natural resources. It was invaded by Mongols. Trade routes were replaced by ocean shipping. More recently, the Iraq War and ensuing conflicts have roiled the region. Wars create poverty.
During their Golden Age, Arabs added a tremendous amount of knowledge to the world including Arabic numerals, algebra, trigonometry, and the basics of many fields such as optics, geography, chemistry, botany, and medicine. Stars in the heavens have Arabic names because Arab astronomers first named them.
All peoples have contributed to civilization. We are all basically alike. Could we finally move past the habit of demonizing each other in the name of religion? The Golden Rule in various wordings is part of almost every religious and ethical tradition. What if it were the basic religion of humanity?
Can’t we all just get along?