Contrary to popular belief, most of the instructions from the greatest beings to walk this earth - Christ, Buddha, other prophets and many enlightened teachers whose names we do not know - are perfectly clear. It is the duty of the strong to help the weak, the wealthy to help the poor, the intellectually gifted to help those less so, the privileged to help the deprived, and the powerful to be gentle. These instructions are not idealism. They are useful, practical measures to bring about peace and well being. Those that have enjoyed first world childhoods, first world health care, a first world environment, a first world education system and have never known hunger or violence hold a moral responsibility to fellow human beings whose entire lives, minds and souls have been devastated by horrific violence and poverty. Islamic extremism, and ISIS exist because of the actions of the most economically and militarily powerful nations on this earth. Because of history and realities that are consistently ignored by our mental environment - our mass media. In order to understand a way forward that does not involve the deaths of hundreds of millions, people need to engage their imagination, their empathy, and to use thought experiment a lot more. Imagine a member of ISIS, who is perhaps my age, 38. What life have they known? A childhood blighted by war with Iran - brought to you largely by the CIA and US military supporting Saddam Hussein. In 1991, at age 16, they may have seen devastation, dismembered bodies in the streets, a highway of death and corpses being torn apart by wild dogs in the desert during the surgical strikes of Desert Storm. At 28, foreign troops invaded their country, and subjected it to over 10 years of brutal occupation, and bombed whole neighbourhoods indiscriminately. To even start to understand what this was like for people living in Iraq, you have to go looking for eyewitness accounts, research articles on war crimes, look for documentary footage. The midnight raids, the civilians casually murdered, the traumatised kids. Because the corporate media has no interest in presenting the invasion and occupation of Iraq as anything but a legitimate mistake by legitimate and responsible power. I can say the words bombed neighbourhoods indiscriminately to you, and you and I might think we know what that means. But we do not. We have not seen limbs crushed, people cut in half, heard childrens screams, or waited to die on multiple occasions. We have not seen our family members blown apart in corporate industrial military aggression. If the human race is to survive, those with the greatest advantage - the greatest privilege - hold the responsibility to look beyond their prejudice and ignorance and understand what has been done to those who have absolutely no power. What created terrorism? Human beings do not emerge from their mothers womb with a desire to behead other human beings. They are made that way by their environment, and actions of others. I once had a conversation with an Iraqi who is studying here, and he said to me: I wish I could tell you that there was a way forward to a normal society, but the reality is the people are so broken, so dysfunctional from violence and terror they have been through, that I cant see how that will happen. In order to follow the wisdom of humanities greatest examples - the prophets I mentioned - to be more than our individual privilege and more than our circumstances of birth, for us to successfully evolve to the next stage of humanity, people must become spiritually and intellectually more than a collection of desires, prejudices and fear. It must be understood that if we do not evolve to the next stage of humanity - to justice, peace, egalitarianism, wisdom and altruism - we will enter a new dark ages. This civilisation will fall, in nuclear conflict and environmental disaster, famine and war that will kill hundreds of millions and perhaps billions. We live on a planet covered in millions of tons of 21st century weaponry, and it will be used, make no mistake. Who does the responsibility fall to end violence through example, righteousness and altruism. Through decency and generosity? Does it fall to people who have lived in slums and been traumatised their entire lives to learn to behave and forget all that has happened to them? Or does it fall to those who have known nurturing, peace, education and health most of their lives? Does it fall to the wealthy, or to the impoverished? Because human beings have to change their motivations and behaviour if they want to survive. And we must all start with ourselves.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 09:05:02 +0000
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