((AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
It is a mistake to blame and hate people who had nothing to do with the mass murders in Paris, but who are Muslims and/or Arab or Persian.
Blaming all 800,000,000 or so Muslims is erroneous, and serves to gloss over the political motivations of ISIS or whoever might have committed the mass murders.
Me personally, as an atheist, I don’t relate to the idea of loving enemies that Christians talk about, but I strive to base my actions on loving kindness, and to not allow myself to hate.
Hatred probably is self-defeating and mentally blinding. Overly simplified views of the world and hatred are mutually reinforcing. Mainstream media propaganda that spreads hate and fear tends to dumb us down, if we’re not careful to think critically.
In the wake of the mass murders in Paris I thought of the bumper sticker that reads”One human family.” (Why not include our non-human kin? ) Human beings do great and beautiful things. We also do ugly things, to one another as humans, to other species, and to Planet Earth as a whole.—
Human beings also make erroneous generalizations. The generalizations about Muslims enable some of us non-Muslims to not come to terms with the political motivations of those who engage in ‘asymmetrical warfare’ (aka ‘terrorism’) of which the mass murders in Paris are an example. —
Whether in our own minds or in the minds of our enemies, hatred detracts from our human ability to grasp reality. —As a result of our hatred, we focus on the wrongdoing of others against ‘us’ while being oblivious to our own possible connection to wrong doing. —
I’m not telling anyone what to think. I’m asking questions. If we’re upset about the loss of life and suffering in Paris, to what extent might our empathy and kindness apply also to the suffering of civilians at the receiving end of US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to the suffering of Palestinians at the receiving end of US-funded policies of the government of Israel?
To what extent might our empathy and kindness also apply to the suffering of animals on ‘factory farms’, or to indigenous people being murdered and pushed off their lands; or to people suffering in sweatshops connected to our consumer culture, or apply also to our racist, classist ‘criminal justice’ system? —
I am not making light of the tragedy in Paris, and I’m not suggesting a person can be involved in correcting every injustice. My point is to emphasize an ethic of global solidarity as beings on this planet, as a mentality that is better than confining our empathy to national, ethnic, or religious loyalty. In other words, the tragedy in Paris is an occasion to remind ourselves to work hard on putting our concern (‘loving kindness’, if you will) for one another into practice, instead of going down the destructive path of hatred.
—But as for US national interest, our nation and its allies can defend ourselves by killing those who intend to spread terror thru their various forms of asymmetrical warfare, without hate-mongering and without fear-mongering. Pacifism, whether on the part of our government or on the part of social movements, isn’t the solution.
—The way forward is an ethic of global solidarity that in at least some cases is more important than religious, ethnic, or national loyalties. —War and other forms of violence can’t be entirely avoided. But I suspect that a value system that emphasizes the fact that we are all in this together as beings on this sacred planet is more beneficial than a mentality of nationalism, racism, and religious intolerance.
Demagoguery involves using hatred and fear to manipulate the general population. The process of blaming all Muslims for the murderous attacks in Paris is related to the ongoing concentration of political and economic power within the US, whereby (1)big money buys public policy; (2) tax cuts and tax evasion by big corporations gut revenue for states and cities, closing schools and cutting social services; (3) police become more militarized; (4) millions of people are incarcerated for nonviolent offenses thru the War on Drugs; and so on.
—Islamophobia is part of the process of using fear and hatred to blind the general population to the fact that the United States is flirting with fascism. Part of the solution is solidarity across race, nationality, class, sexuality, religion and so on. The challenge is figuring out the basis of that global solidarity. Maybe the basic component is loving kindness with organized expressions of that taking place within social movements for improved democracy as well social movements for living in harmony with the Earth. I don’t have all the answers, obviously, but it’s reasonable to assume that fear and hatred, which further enables the concentration of political and economic power is not the solution; and that solidarity as one family of life on this beautiful planet is worth striving for.
Guess you could call such striving toward organized loving kindness ‘spiritual’ given its idealism. Maybe a spirituality of seeking harmony among all lifekind is a collective step toward something better than religion? Maybe, to collaboratively build that new spirituality, a person will on some occasions make her or his sense of Earth-based solidarity more important than her or his national, ethnic, class or other identities. At the same time, nation states, as modes of social organization, might become less important, due to things such as radical climate change or increased scarcity of energy or water. Within that hypothetical milieu, an Earth-based identity might make more sense. But is that the same thing as a tribal mentality (for those of us who admire “primitive’ societies?) ….Just some ideas here related, perhaps tangentially, to the folly of hating and having irrational fear of Muslims, and the folly of excessive patriotism. Of course, those who hate and seek to harm US civilians are similarly foolish.
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