Endangered Humanity

One of my class fellows in US happened to be a jew by religion. She was with me in 'Social Problems' class which was an eye opener for a lot of students, myself included. We studied and analyzed injustice, conflict resolution, international wars, militarism, drone strikes, poverty, social issues, socio economic dynamics and Human Rights at most. Since the nature of the subject was such it invited healthy debate and discussion, and she and I would sometimes discuss social issues for hours even after the class. She told me that a jew who practices his religion would not stand for violence and I told her that a person who practices Islam will never commit violence, and then we discussed how Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other religions have a lot in common. None of the religions and no religious teachings promote violence. We concluded and concurred upon the fact that a terrorist has no religion for every religion in the world seemed to discipline humanity and tame humans. She asked me how I feel about Holocaust and I said I strongly condemn it, it was an attack on innocent civilian jews and a pure violation of Human Rights. She paused for a while and then looked up saying ‘ I feel the same for Palestinians, violence against Palestinians is condemnable’ . It was at this point that both of us realized further that Humanity is a single race. Jew or not, Muslim or non Muslim, the pain of violence against Humanity is common. In the course of our discussions we also realized further that a lot of stereotypes and profiling about Muslims and Jews are baseless and over generalized. For instance when a muslim girl covers her head she is profiled as narrow minded and when a muslim man grows a beard he is profiled as a terrorist whereas covering the head for women and growing a beard for men is just as common among jews. It was through my jewish class fellow that I learnt not all jews are Zionists, there are different points of views among jews regarding possibility of jewish land, some of them even consider jewish state an oxymoron and think that a jewish state is forbidden by jewish law, a few of them also think that Israel is not a jewish state because it is secular. Not just because Im a Psychology major person who would never appreciate stereotypes, biases, hatred , violence, and conflicts and not just because Im a muslim who believes in peace, equality, love and kindness but because I am a human being I would stand for, respect, and value Human Rights and Humanity. Religion is something personal and every religion is worthy of respect but a common factor that is social and comes even before defining ourselves in terms of our gender, color, race, religion or ethnicity is Humanity and for the sake of Humanity I wish that Peace prevails around the globe. How often have we heard of President Obama and President Bush use words like ‘war on terror’ ‘global fight against terrorism’ ‘mutual interest’ in their speeches and addresses? Quite a lot of time and they were right- terrorism is infact an ugly monster that affects all of humanity and all of us together should counter it. However, when Israel breaches 65 UN resolutions, uses violence and terror as a force against indigenous Palestinians, does President Obama have the same take on the issue then? No. More than 170 Palestinians have died in just a few days time and more than 140 Palestinians are seriously injured and these are not militants or armed personnel we are talking about, these are unequipped innocent civilians including innocent children and women. If this isn’t enough rehabilitation centers in Palestine have been bombed too. In addition, it’s the fifth day since Israel cut off water supplies to Gaza strip and guess who helped making it possible-Egyptian Government! Not just UNO, EU and US but the Arab League remains unmoved too. When I read about Holocaust against jews , my heart cries, When innocent Christians and their community was burnt, my heart ached, and today when Palestinians are facing genocide , my heart is pained for the same reason- attack on humanity !

I am passionate about women rights but when I think of women and girls in Palestine I think that in the kind of conditions they live, ‘women rights’ would be a luxury. A normal pregnant woman feels joy about embracing the divinity of motherhood but a Palestinian pregnant woman probably only feels apprehensive about the future of yet another Palestinian child born in the face of killings. In my view, Israel and Palestine both are inflicted with aggression and contempt and the whole world should unite in order to reinstate Peace in the region. Only when your own children, mother, daughter, sister, husband, brother, wife, and father become victims of genocide will you speak? Does Human Life have no worth? Is Humanity not a single race? The whole world should speak up and condemn killings in Palestine.

Peace.