The New Zealand massacre: Climate of hate is the disease that needs to be cured

Thank God there are still people like New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the Western world: People who adhere to the lofty principles of human rights, human dignity and equality for all. Elsewhere, in most of the West, these principles seem to apply to the white race only.

It also seems that the West is in constant need to boost its ego and prove its superiority, and in a permanent state of self-doubt.

No other culture, Chinese, Japanese, African, Arab, Turkish or Iranian, seems to be so doubtful of its permanence, resiliency or security. Only last week, CNN flashed across the screen to its English-speaking viewers, the title of a recent book: “Are We Safe”. Safe from whom or what? Who on earth is threatening America or the West these days?

When the West was at the height of its power and glory after having defeated the axis powers following World War II, the eminent political scientist, Oswald Spengler published his famous book “The Decline of the West”. Not only did the West not decline, it is today more powerful and more prosperous than ever, and over the past five centuries, the bloodiest and most destructive wars in the history of man were fought between the children of the same Western civilisation, who were, at the same time, colonising most third world countries, plundering their resources and humiliating and dehumanising their people, like they continue to do in Palestine to this day.

Over the years, and as I become more aware of the dangers of right-wing, white-supremacist extremism, now known as “populism” that conceals itself behind the veneer of evangelical or Zionist pretensions, I wonder, has humanity hit rock bottom? How can Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who calls himself a Jew, welcome anti-Semite Hungarian Prime Pinister Viktor Orban in occupied Palestine? He pretends to speak for the Jews, who in his own lifetime, and ours, suffered from the brutality and lunacy of Hitler and Mussolini?

And so the question remains: When will the West mature enough to begin to enjoy the great and glorious culture it created, and be confident enough to start sharing it with the rest of humanity? When will it have enough, when will it be satiated to the point where it can redirect its vast energies and magnificent ideas to the benefit of all the children of Adam? It is time for the West to rehumanise itself and adhere to the very same principles it propagated. The danger to the world and the human race does not emanate from Asia, Africa, Latin America or the Middle East. On the contrary, these regions are merely demanding some justice and a little fairness.

I, like millions of other Arabs, Asians and Africans educated in the West, pride myself on being the product of two great civilisations; my own and that of the West, which I greatly admire and respect, and like many others, I am saddened by the senseless chasm widening and deepening between them.

Justice demands that leaders who now thrive on spreading ideologies of fear among their masses and create this ugly climate of hate, which encourages lunatic wolves, be replaced, and with them the terrible climate they create. Surely, the Hungarians, Italians, Swedes, Jews and others have among them great humanitarian leaders who truly represent their cultures.

The climate of hate is the disease that needs to be cured. It is not enough to punish those deranged fools, for the same hate-laden culture will continue to produce others like them.

The one-dimensional character of Western political culture, based on democracy for the one dominant white race in the nation states of Europe, America and Australia has to be reoriented towards multiculturalism and diversity. A long-term reeducation process, sponsored by the United Nations, that aims to introduce and incorporate the principles of humanity, not race or religion, into the curricula of elementary, secondary and college education should be initiated as soon as possible. The world is getting smaller, more densely populated and more dangerous, particularly considering the calibre of the present world leadership endowed as they are with the power to annihilate all mankind with the press of a button. Although it is said, “this too shall pass”, we need not leave this possibility to chance or to the interplay between the power of money and the media, and we can begin now.

For decades now, I have been calling for the convention of an international summit of world leaders to consider the questions of race, religion and relations between cultures in modern and future life in organised society. Such a summit should be preceded by thousands of gatherings, symposia, seminars and meetings, including all levels and groups of each society to advance the commonalities, not the differences, between cultures and civilisations.