Othering

 

I belong to a couple of book discussion groups, and both have looked at the former Chief Rabbi’s brilliant tome entitled Not in God’s Name.  It’s a masterpiece in analysing conflict, both personal, national and international, especially with reference to religion.

The late Lord Sacks was keen to start from a position of empathy and treat that as our norm.  We don’t like to see another person hurt because we know what it feels like to be hurt ourselves.  We have a natural in-built empathy.  Yet, we have to discard that when we hurt people, either one to one or in a state of war.  And the way we often enable that violence to take place is to make our enemies something ‘other’ than ourselves.  If they are not really like us, but are ‘other’ from us because of their religion, history or location, then we accept that we can hurt them and we don’t feel their pain in the same way. And I find this a compelling analysis. 

Whether it’s those Europeans, Boat People or the people on the ‘other’ side of all the 30 wars currently being waged in our world, violence and rejection flourish most if we think of them as fundamentally different from us.

Yet, they are not.

The tragedy is that whilst technology enables us to live in a world that has never been more interconnected, we find ourselves in one which is so tragically divided. 

We long and pray for voices that will speak up for dialogue as the only way forward.  Hard, uncomfortable, exhausting dialogue instead of violence against our enemies that simply creates a whole new generation of hatred and militancy.

In this season of resurrection and new life we long for a glimpse that the pointless violence will stop, and the talking begin.