Chidakasha

Gilad Atzmon posted the first image on his Facebook page. I responded with the second because of the similarity. A conversation ensued as AE wrote:

Asides from the impossibility of stripping people of their identities. It really disappoints me to see the abuse of diversity blind us from seeing the beauty of the deferences. I don’t want to travel to another country to find the same tradition, the same food, the same clothes, the same language, the same culture.

We are created (if you believe in creation)in deferent tribes and nations just like varieties of colours, fruits vegetables, animals, every one add and enhance part or body, our soles, our understanding of life.

Making the differences into a negative thing is the problem of those who are deprived from having the right lens on their eyes.

There is a verse in the Quran I loved so much and I’m not trying to preach religion it says “ People, We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that you might know one another. The noblest of you before Allah is the most righteous of you. Allah is the Knower, the Aware.”

I replied:

What strips people of their unique identities is the reduction of their human richness into a particular and dominating identification – some particular ethnicity, tradition, clothing, language or cultural way of being. If we are going to relate to each other as human beings we must understand each other beyond the symbols or markers of tick-boxes that we use to denote who we are. Of course you are Muslim, Hindu, Socialist or whatever .. you are also short or fat thin or tall, you play cricket or chess and so on. Why should I care about your religion or ethnicity more than I care about any other aspect of your appearance or behaviour?

Those who make the differences into a negative thing are the racists who divide humanity into classes and categories according to those categories.

The Prophet said “All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a White has no superiority over a Black nor a Black has any superiority over a White except by piety and good action..”

There are many that use differences to posit superiority. That’s simply a fact and their attachment to ethnicity is a form of idolatory. As a Muslim you should understand this.

The Prophet continued, “..Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly.”

But following from the first part it should be clear that the better interpretation of Muslim is one who is pious and does good. And the ‘one brotherhood’ is the brotherhood of those who are pious and do good.

IB wrote:

The meaning of chosen is wrong. In Judaism, to be chosen means to be expected to live by a higher standard of religious morality. Here, Gilad seems to be pointing to chosen as a superior being.

In my own opinion, Israel is not the Jewish state or even a Jewish state. It’s policies and practices regarding non-jews have nothing to do with the morality of Judaism.

Furthermore, zionists have at times acted in the worst possible interest of Jews who are not zionists for the purpose of expanding the settler Colonial project. For example see the Zionist Transfer Agreement with the Nazi regime in the early 30s or the false flag attacks conducted by the Israelis after the state’s formation, such as the Lavon affair.

I replied:

The concept of a ‘chosen people’ is intrinsically immoral and self-serving whether conceived of as a particular privilege or a particular responsibility. The fundamental premise of mortality is that of the intrinsic and equal worth and dignity of all human beings. I don’t know when or how the notion of choseness became attached to the Jewish people, perhaps it is a function of an ethnicity being so closely associated with a faith but it becomes a mythologising and deification of ethnicity. To associate one’s ethics with one’s ethnicity violates the principle of the universal applicability of moral law whether one is the most cruel or compassionate of people.

IB asked:

to expect a more moral life is immoral?

I responded:

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘expect a more moral life’ but I will read it as ‘intend or commit to a more moral life’. There is nothing wrong with this if the individual is intending a more moral life as an individual choice .. If I commit to serving the interests of humanity because I see that is the right thing to do then I have made a moral choice but if I commit to serving the interests of humanity because I am a Jew or Muslim or Christian then my commitment is not first and foremost a moral choice, it is a choice to follow the teachings of my religion and a follower is not a free moral agent.

The Abrahamic religions laud Abraham for his choice to follow Yahwe’s command to sacrifice his son and the thinking of people committed to the teaching of any religious, ethnic or political tribe is similar to Abraham’s commitment to Yahwe, the right thing for them is what is commanded, if they are commanded to kill they will kill, if they are commanded to be discriminatory they will be discriminatory. Their service to humanity is not an unconditional commitment to universal law but is conditional on their membership of their tribe and whatever beliefs their tribe holds.

Some suggest that I shouldn’t comment on other people’s religious beliefs. Maybe they’re right and maybe it will cause trouble for me. But conversation is my religion, I think it can save us, and I’m an evangelist for it even if it means being a martyr for it.

The story that I read on Facebook said:

Few people know that the German doing the Nazi salute on the podium behind black American athlete Jesse Owens, Lutz Long, would become close friends with Owens.

Long lived in Nazi Germany, where everyone was told each day of the supposed superiority of the Aryan race. But he, himself, didn’t feel that way at all.

Since the 1936 Olympics, until the days of WWII, Long and Owens exchanged letters. Even when Long was sent off to war, fighting in North Africa and Sicily, the two men still wrote to each other, checking in one one another, as they wrote of their wives, their families, hopes, fears and loves.

In North Africa in 1943, in the desert, Lutz Long wrote his final letter to Jesse Owens. A man he called his brother. His last ever known words, and they are haunting:

I am here, Jesse, where it seems there is only the dry sand and the wet blood. I do not fear so much for myself, my friend Jesse, I fear for my woman who is home, and my young son Karl, who has never really known his father.⁣

⁣My heart tells me, if I be honest with you, that this is the last letter I shall ever write. If it is so, I ask you something. It is a something so very important to me. It is you go to Germany when this war done, someday find my Karl, and tell him about his father. Tell him, Jesse, what times were like when we not separated by war. I am saying—tell him how things can be between men on this earth.⁣⁣

If you do this something for me, this thing that I need the most to know will be done, I do something for you, now. I tell you something I know you want to hear. And it is true.⁣ That hour in Berlin when I first spoke to you, when you had your knee upon the groud, I knew that you were in prayer.⁣⁣ Then I not know how I know. Now I do. I know it is never by chance that we come together. I come to you that hour in 1936 for purpose more than der Berliner Olympiade.⁣

And you, I believe, will read this letter, while it should not be possible to reach you ever, for purpose more even than our friendship.⁣ I believe this shall come about because I think now that God will make it come about. This is what I have to tell you, Jesse.⁣

I think I might believe in God.⁣

And I pray to him that, even while it should not be possible for this to reach you ever, these words I write will still be read by you.⁣

Your brother,⁣

Lutz

It seems however that the details of this story are disputed and the last letter never existed nor the lifelong friendship between Owens and Long. The linked article “Jesse and Luz” by Volger Kluge asks if their legend is stronger than truth. I would say not. Legend is the idealisation of truth and in idealisation simplification, but I think it is not stronger or more poignant . From Luge’s account the two men may not have had the storied relationship but they ‘had a moment’ that others chose to celebrate for their own reasons and that, because of our human need for transcendence, speaks to us powerfully, whether in the poetry of legend or the detailed and complex prose of history.

So I spent some more time exploring what I could do with the Scratch drawing tools .. I don’t know why I chose ‘Shirley’ as my spokesperson but the point she makes is an obvious and serious one. Whoever said ‘If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal’ was spot on. Vote if you want to .. George Galloway’s party is a potential disruptor. I don’t want to this year .. but I do think we should have a serious discussion about the whole structure of governance which elections do less and less to alter.

There is a story that the prophet Abraham had a dream that he believed commanded him to kill his son as a sacrifice to God. Muslims say this son was Ismail while Jews and Christians say that it was Isaac. We are told that as Abraham made to kill his son an angel told him to stop as this was a test of obedience which he had apparently passed. Abraham was permitted to sacrifice a lamb instead of his son.

To my mind this is an evil story and one that proves that the God of Abraham was not the Good God. That Good God commands only unconditional love. Love is the foundation of morality and any command or teaching that is not an expression of love and kindness cannot be of God.

“While Gaza health authorities do not have an official tally, doctors and aid workers say Unicef’s 1,000 figure is accurate for the first two months, but has likely been far surpassed since, making the Gaza amputation rates unusually high compared to other conflicts and disasters. “In Ukraine, where missiles have also struck residential towers during Russia’s invasion, there are 30 known cases of child amputees. “British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah said he performed six amputations in Gaza in one night.” Source (Jan 2025): https://www.dawn.com/news/1803343 “While Gaza health authorities do not have an official tally, doctors and aid workers say Unicef’s 1,000 figure is accurate for the first two months, but has likely been far surpassed since, making the Gaza amputation rates unusually high compared to other conflicts and disasters.

“In Ukraine, where missiles have also struck residential towers during Russia’s invasion, there are 30 known cases of child amputees.

“British-Palestinian surgeon Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah said he performed six amputations in Gaza in one night.”

https://www.dawn.com/news/1803343 (From January 2024)

It occured to me that there are several types of ignorance:

1. Not knowing something and not knowing that you don’t know it.

2. Not knowing something and deceiving your self that you know it.

3. Not knowing something and knowing that you don’t know it.

4. Knowing something and deceiving yourself that you don’t know it.

The last is surely the most vicious form of ignorance. It is the wilful ignorance that we hold to when we ‘stand with’ the perpetrators of genocide on any level, when we think that anything justifies the murder and maiming of children.

There are some who will think that I’m ‘virtue signalling’ again as they read this .. if anyone bothers. Well, I don’t consider myself virtuous and certainly don’t need anyone to consider me that way. If I were virtuous I would restructure my whole life in such a way that I became more aware of the enormity of viciousness that weighs upon it.

I am not saying that I am particularly vicious or that you are (we are just normally vicious) but we live in a deeply vicious society and the fact that we permit our politicians and institutions to make us complicit in the demonic rituals of child sacrifice and torture being perpetrated in Gaza gives irrefutable testimony to that.

There are some who say that Israel has lost ‘the right to exist’ if it ever had that right, I add that our entire political structure has lost ‘the right to exist’. What the hell are we doing voting on 4th July for parties that endorse the slaughter? Talking about that, being clear that both Sunak and Starmer are effectively supporters and enablers of child murder and mutilation should take priority over any election right now. How did we get to this point? Has it always been this way and is it the case that it is taking the enormity and visibility of this crime being shoved in our faces to wake us from our stupor?

The late George Carlin, political comedian par excellence, has something to say about election that is worth revisiting:

“Two reasons I don’t vote: first of all, it’s meaningless. This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago. The shit they shuffle around every four years doesn’t mean a fuckin’ thing. And secondly, I don’t vote ’cause I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around. I know, they say, they say: “well if you don’t vote you have no right to complain”. But where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent people, and they get into office and screw everything up, well you are responsible for what they have done, YOU caused the problem, you voted them in, you have no right to complain. I on the other hand, who did not vote, WHO DID NOT VOTE. Who in fact did not even leave the house on election-day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done, and have every RIGHT to complain as loud as I want, about the mess YOU created, that I had nothing to do with.”

I’m not going to tell anyone how to vote or whether to vote .. but I’m going to suggest that if you do vote you find out how your candidate feels about child murder and mutilation. Have they discussed this? If not why not? The late George Carlin, political comedian par excellence, has something to say about elections that is worth revisiting: “Two reasons I don’t vote: first of all, it’s meaningless. This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago. The shit they shuffle around every four years doesn’t mean a fuckin’ thing. And secondly, I don’t vote ’cause I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around. I know, they say, they say: “well if you don’t vote you have no right to complain”. But where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent people, and they get into office and screw everything up, well you are responsible for what they have done, YOU caused the problem, you voted them in, you have no right to complain. I on the other hand, who did not vote, WHO DID NOT VOTE. Who in fact did not even leave the house on election-day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done, and have every RIGHT to complain as loud as I want, about the mess YOU created, that I had nothing to do with.” I’m not going to tell anyone how to vote or whether to vote .. but I’m going to suggest that if you do vote you find out how your candidate feels about child murder and mutilation. Have they discussed this? If not why not?