LIVING WITH HATE

“Hate crimes rend the fabric of our society and fragment communities because they target a whole group and not just the individual victim. Hate crimes are committed to cause fear to a whole community. A violent hate crime is intended to “send a message” that an individual and “their kind” will not be tolerated, many times leaving the victim and others in their group feeling isolated, vulnerable and unprotected”.

This statement contained in the introductory comment of the Human Rights Campaign document on Hate Crimes eloquently describes the true impact of hate on a society. With the increasing incidence of both the varieties and numbers of these episodes, the world is indeed in a state of great turmoil and uncertainty.

Hate is described as an emotion of intense revulsion, dislike, animosity, antagonism or antipathy for a person, a group, a belief or a phenomenon with the accompanying desire to avoid, restrict, remove or destroy it and its influence. At its worse, it is an all-consuming obsessive feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action at all cost, without regard to the loss or to the pain and suffering resulting to oneself or to the victim.

For as long as there has been recorded history, hate crimes have played a dominat role among people of the world. In fact it would be correct to state that hate has been the major force in shaping and defining world history, and continues to do so to this day. Major examples of this abound in the past, such as the Roman Persecution of the Christians, the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians, the Nazi holocaust of more than 6 million Jews, the Ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and the genocide of Rwandans. Equally important has been the wanton and senseless destruction of life and property on the basis of Religious, Political and Sectarian beliefs. Historians will have no difficulty to establish that all of the major conflicts throughtout history were started and were maintained as a result of one form or another of hate.

The world is consumed by mutual distrust and hatred. It is indeed a very sad commentary on humanity, that a few extreme members can succeed in engendering such intense hatred and distrust that the world is caught in a deadly turmoil with unacceptable destruction of life and property. It is easy to blame all the turmoil on the basis of religion amd religious beliefs. Some Christians talk about the “Antichrist” as the reason to justify hatred of the Moslem nations, while Moslems reply with “Satan” to explain their position. It is an abomination, but nevertheless true, that all of this results from a relative few extremists on either side influencing the thought and actions of the majority.

Psychologists generally agree that the emotion of Hate plays a dominant role in self-preservation, one that is exclusive to the human species and never ever seen in the rest of the animal kingdom. It is passed on from generation to generation and from parent to child. Hate is used as a cement to bind groups, whether family, religion or social, under a common umbrella and thus ensure its survival. In fact the stronger units have been able to grow in size and importance by successfully encouraging strong hatred toward others among its membership.
From the beginning of time, leaders have used Hate as a stong weapon to reinforce their status and popularity. Great leaders are not remembered for their success in encouraging love and respect among all people and in rejecting the concept of hate, but they are more often measured by how effective they are able to use hate to achieve power. History remembers Stalin and Hitler and Atilla solely because of their ability to motivate their people to conquer the world using hate as the sole weapon.

In the same way, the world forgets the message of peace and love to all people delivered by the great leaders of religion, including Jesus Christ, The Prophet Mohammed, The Dalai Lama, or Brahman. This constant message is contained in all the great books of Religion, including The Holy Bible, The Holy Koran, The Talmud, The Tripitaka or The Vedas. Instead however, the world remembers the words of those “prophets” who preached, and continue to preach, in every country and in every society, hatred and distrust among religions and even among subsections of the same religion. Is it any surprise that we find ourselves living in a world of wars and terror and suspicion and unnecessary death, destruction and suffering on people and families and nations without any apparent end.

And even among us as individuals, hate permeates our very existance. On any day or time somewhere around us, we witness some manifestation of hate, whether it be against another person’s personal opinion, sexual preference, color of skin, physical appearance or ethnic choice. Most of the time we grudgingly tolerate the action without expressing any comments, but very rarely do we admit it to being wrong, and certainly, even less, attempt to take steps to correct it.
What kind of society will;

…. tolerate death threats against a politician who votes in favor of
health care reform?
…or write threatening graffitti on the front door of a Synagogue?
…or bomb the home of a protester?
…or attack and almost kill a homeless person?
…or ridicule and embarrass a homosexual?
The answer to all of these questions, and many, many more, is simply, Our Society.

We should be ashamed of it!