Even Hate Can Be Rationalized

Everyone has the chance to choose to open their heart and learn to do the opposite of hate like empathy, compassion, mercy, kindness etc. But to hate seems lazier to do. As much as truth does not need an advocate, sometimes, the opposite of hate needs advocates. This vanguard of advocates is in short supply the world over.

 Back In Time 

When a then sitting president of South Africa said, it is not by design for the white man to be lord over the black man, but as a natural course. An advocate of the opposite of hate, decades later, in the same country chose to put behind his pains the moment he walked out of the prison to unite a country deeply divided along racial lines. Sadly, less than 900 miles north of South Africa (Zimbabwe)– where the advocate of the opposite of hate saw strength in diversity and unity – the president of this country feeling a sense of validation of his birth right confiscated farms from the whites only to redistribute the farmlands to his own kind.

In the same manner, when a Muslim extremist straps bomb and shouts “Allahu Akbar” in a bid to rid the world of “infidels”, but they attach no lessons to the history of peaceful co-existence especially when Muslims in Arabia were asked to flee, by no less a person than the flag bearer of Islam, to Ethiopia – a country then under the leadership of a Christian King - for safety over 1400 years ago. Muslim fundamentalists will never see this as worthy of a reference.  

The Domino Effects Of A Failing System 

The threat of the dilution of Western cultures and values may seem a cogent reason for the present nationalistic fervor and tendencies in Europe and the U.S. On the surface, multiculturalism may be accused of culpability and a death sentence could be rationally passed on it, but where do we place the sins of the “trickle-down economics”, and other isms that have dangerously polarized the world and still do? Just when you think of a prosperous Germany that, at a time, had to incentivize power consumers to use more power because it had excess. Look no farther than Africa, this breaking news was greeted with amazement. To the inhabitants of this continent such news is better told as bedtime stories under the moonlight. This alone is a sufficient trigger for migration – no matter how perilous.

Many rationales could be put forward as to why people hate or why you should. But the advocates of hate will never advance their communities into prosperity when they are given the chance to lead. The only outcome they achieve is further division, despair and a renewed cycle of hate. However, because of their desperation to get more people on board this wagon of hate, they selfishly cherry-pick a molehill of issues, and make a mountain out of them.

The Choices Are Ours To Make 

It is now entirely up to the advocates of the opposite of hate to emphasize and re-emphasize those actions that truly demonstrate those ideals that run contrary to hate. For example, when in 2008 the U.S. closed ranks to elect a president of African descent – a monumental triumph for mankind and a foretaste of what unity in diversity could achieve. 

However, one conflict that has had a dangerous proselytizing effect globally is the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. The statehood of Israel has been used by extremist groups to galvanize support.  The Donald Trump administration's stand on moving the United States of America's embassy to Jerusalem will certainly take us back to the time when Al-Qaeda uses the Israeli-Palestinian crisis as a platform to advance its cause of Jihad. 

As the world grapples with myriad of challenges such as the displeasure displayed by law-abiding and hard-working citizens as they see their taxes being used to rehabilitate “undeserving” migrants; the brazen show of cultural superiority etc., these are all a familiar replay script from our past history. Similar obsessions made an entire race to be labeled “Yellow Stars” just some 70 plus years ago.

Clearly, the choices we have are binary – either you hate or you continuously opposite it. There is no fence to sit on. This is a clarion call to thin out the size of hate.