Kindling Malcolm's Dream

Forty-four years ago today, the world lost one Malcolm X, champion of rights for his African sisters and brothers, gunned down by his own former colleagues in the Nation of Islam, presumably because he said too much and knew too much and wouldn't take crap from authority. This is not a requiem for Malcolm X by any means, for I cannot profess to know much about the man; rather, his tragic demise is one of many examples of the war we are waging on each other, a war that keeps us suppressed.

This week, with my own two eyes, I witnessed two more examples of this "war of all against all", as Thomas Hobbes so described it. Tuesday, the Tamil student union at York staged a rally demanding justice for the people of Tamil Eelam, caught in a twenty-five-year-long bloody war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government forces of Sri Lanka. These students were waving flags of the LTTE, which seemed to upset a group of Sri Lankan students who proceeded to voice their displeasure. Afterwards - I don't know precisely what happened, for I was in a meeting at the time - one side tried to set fire to the flag of the other (I was told someone from the Tamil group instigated the burning and was met with a similar response from one of the Sri Lankan side) and tempers flared. Thankfully, the powderkeg did not erupt, as cooler heads prevailed. Oddly enough, I had emerged from a meeting with a professor who investigates the automatic associations we make to witness the consequences of automatic associations: perhaps the mere sight of the flag invoked chilling tales of the LTTE, which fomented such a fervid response from these students. More importantly, though, how do we get to such a point when we're ready to kill each other over a flag? What series of events led to these automatic associations being made?

The very next day, I found myself amid a crowd of students arguing over the apparent Israeli apartheid in Palestine, as it is so deemed. Some Jewish students had congregated around a pro-Palestine display in a high-traffic area on campus, claiming some members of the latter group harrassed them, calling them "dirty Jews" and the like, while the pro-Palestine clan retorted with claims that Jewish students were doing the same to them. Students from both sides tried their best to plead their respective cases; thankfully, the situation did not become too heated, but there remained many unhappy people on both sides. All the while, I was thinking how easily this wall separating people into "Israel" and "Palestine" can come down if we realize we are not defending ourselves from some foreign invader hell-bent on destroying us; we are killing each other. Even those on the side of the conqueror are themselves oppressed, wheedled into buying the lie bestowed upon them by their "leaders".

These are but examples of our "us versus them" mentality that results in an "us versus us" war. The television tells us to fear "Terrorists" and "Thugs" and "Gangsters"; once upon a time, it was "Communists" or "Japs" or "Krauts" or "Jews" or "Negroes". The newspapers admonish against giving "handouts" to "bums" who need nothing more than a swift kick in the ass to cure what ails them. Our teachers and parents try their best to keep us away from the "losers" who won't amount to anything in society. Our employers pit us against one another for that coveted "dream job". Hell, even on the so-called "Left", I see factions who preach taking up arms and sticking it to the cops and soldiers and government officials.

I say, if we want peace in our world, this mentality has to go, for it lies at the core of our chaos. We must put an end to the notion of "ingroups" and "outgroups"; we are all part of the same ingroup: we are living, breathing, thinking, feeling organisms. Just two days ago, I had a friend from one circle meet two from another, neither knowing anything about the other initially, and all we needed were two hours to become friends. There were no nationalist or religious or racial barriers; there were four people sitting at a table, learning how connected they truly are.

I wish to invite you all to experience togetherness one day in its purest form (contact me at m1s1nf0rmat10n@hotmail.com to learn more). As I mentioned in a previous entry, very few of us know how to love because, quite honestly, we never learned such a thing, for we were so busy learning to distance ourselves from each other and not be happy with the people we are. Let us learn to love again! Let us learn to love the world and ourselves, for we are the world and the world is us, and so long as the world remains in chaos, so too will we, and so long as we remain in chaos, so will the world around us.

Perhaps Minister Malcolm X will rest in peace when we cease killing each other, when we are free from our own wretchedness, the very wretchedness that drove his brothers to end his life.

Shalom. Salaam. Mahalo.