A World of Love and Hate
In Firdausi’s Shahnameh Rustam and
Sohrab face each other in battle, fighting on opposing sides, not knowing
they are father and son, until Sohrab is fatally stabbed by Rustom. In one
tragic moment, the enemy becomes the beloved. How easily aggression has turned
into compassion.
The recent deadly events in Palestine
reveals the extreme polarization of world opinion as oppressors become the
oppressed, and the oppressed become the oppressors, in a dizzying interchange. The
world is in a moral confusion of right and wrong. The pivot of this conundrum are
the primal emotions of love and hate bound together in an uncomfortable union. In
order to love one’s own, the other must be ‘hated’
This forms the basis of training of
soldiers who must hate the enemy enough to be able to kill him although in some
ways they are the same, as Wilfred Owen expresses so poignantly in his poem
Strange Meeting “I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark”
and “Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also”.
There is
much discussion on the close relationship of love and hate as two sides of the
same coin. Freud theorised that the human psyche is made up of two basic
instincts: Eros, the preserver, and Thanatos, the destroyer. However, hate has
to be inculcated in adults. Hate does not come as naturally to humans as does
love.
It is often people in power that
inculcate hate in order to maintain control or protect an exclusive identity,
whether tribal heads, nationalist politicians, or school bullies. In the world
of football, Arsenal fans say “stand up if you hate Tottenham” rather than
“stand up if you support Arsenal.” The French politician Marie le Penn insists
her racist views spring from a place of love – the love of the French for their
home. Similar motivations drive White Supremacists, the Hutu militias of
Rwanda, the ‘Aryan’ Nazis, and,
ironically, the Jewish settlers in Palestine. One can say it’s Modi‘s love for
the Hindu faith that leads him to purify India of the intrusion of people of
other faiths.
On a much grander scale and across
centuries was the hatred of the Jews, who were held responsible by Christians for
the crucifixion of Jesus. The crime of Deicide (killing of a god) was nullified
in 1965 by the Vatican Council. Jews were not allowed to own property or seek
employment, with money lending and trade the only options left for their
survival. Martin Luther, Voltaire and many others supported their annihilation,
which saw its most ghastly expression in Hitler’s extermination camps.
From the 12th century Inquisitions
were held by the Church, to root out heresy amongst the Christians, in which
the accused were tortured to extract confessions, and executed often by burning
at the stake, finally ending in the 19th century. While Christianity
has returned to a religion of love, the Zionists in their desperation to have
their own country, ironically call for the extermination of the Palestinians,
with senior ministers calling them wild beasts, snakes and calling for chopping
off their heads with axes.
Today it is the Muslim who is the
object of hate, a confrontation dating to the crusades. When
British General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem on December 11, 1917 he
declared “the wars of the crusades are now complete” followed by a public
pledge by the British to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in
Palestine. Resistance by Palestinians, and Muslims supporting their cause, has
turned into decades of suppression and fanning of hatred and fear of the
Muslim.
As Michael
Hardt says “Love versus hate has become a standard frame for describing today’s
primary political divide.” What is not spread through war rooms, the press, and
cinema, is played out on social media. We live in a time of ‘likes’ and
‘dislikes’ and digital name calling in a sordid power game.
David Mann
says hate has to be whipped up because hate is difficult to sustain and left
untended becomes indifference, or even empathy.
As a new generation waits for love to triumph, we are reminded by Rumi “God
turns you from one feeling to another and teaches you by means of opposites, so
that you will have two wings to fly - not one.”
Durriya Kazi
October 24, 2023
Karachi
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