Hatred destroys but love builds
By Nhial Tiitmamer de Nhial*
July 27, 2006 — Hatred is the greatest evil that destroys the world. It is the one that forces us to make weapons of all kinds from simple spears of Stone Age to the sophisticated WMDs (Weapons of Masses Destruction) of the 21st century. It was the hatred that threw down the tower of world trade center and destroyed thousands of innocent human beings. It was the hatred that killed 6 million Jews in the Jewish Holocaust. It was the hatred that killed 1, 0000000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. It was the hatred that killed more than 2 million Southern Sudanese during the 21 years of Afro-Arab war in Sudan. It was hatred that was responsible for most of the ethnic massacres in Southern Sudan during the war. It is the same hatred which is now committing atrocities in Darfur in Sudan.
Hatred neither lives in the land of its own nor the house of its own. It lives in our hearts and minds. It controls our minds and makes us to do evil things. It can neither be seen with our eyes nor can it be touched with our hands. It dwells in unforgiving human minds and hearts. It is both hereditary and acquired. One can either acquire it through teaching and preaching or can inherit it and then develop it. The acquired one is more dangerous. The inherited one is less dangerous unless it has been developed and trained.
Hold your breach. If you do not know how hatred is taught, preached, and developed, just continue with me. Hate preachers and teachers neither have the churches nor the mosques of their own to preach their ideology. They preach and teach in our own mosques and churches in which we are supposed to teach and preach love. Hatred is also taught and preached in our media, political parties, political rallies and political allies. Nobody is really born with the knowledge of how to hate, nor is one born knowing who to hate. But one is told about whom to hate and why you should hate him/her.
There are various types of hatred as there are various types of love. You know how to call the love between you and your parents. The same thing with how to call the love between you and your sweet heart. There is no question about that. Hatred has different names like love but with one goal – destruction. When you hate an individual for a reason known to you alone, call that an individual hatred. However, when you hate an ethnic group or tribal group, call that an ethnic or tribal hatred. In this piece, I am mainly concerned with the act of hating a whole group of people whether ethnic or religious group. This kind of hatred is dangerous and can make one group exterminate an other group.
Group hatred is preached, taught and developed. The hate preachers and teachers preach and teach you how to hate people and why you should hate them. They can be quick to justify their hate lesson if you question them. Hate preachers and teachers are heroes in the eyes of their fellow members from their ethnic and religious groups on whose behalf the hatred is being taught and preached. They isolate and brand an outcast a person who opposes their hate ideology. They play the tactic of join us in what we are doing or we isolate and alienate you from our society.
When you suffer from such social isolation and surrender to join the bandwagon, you hear that these people did this and this to us. They can create anything from the blue that can make you rage with fury. They can say anything that can compel an innocent mind to do an evil act. Some people make themselves suicide bombers for being taught the ideology of hatred. Others are made to make themselves warriors of senseless tribal wars for reason created and taught by enemies of mankind. What on earth can one get from such an evil act? There is nothing but only the destruction.
When hatred is taught and preached. It is then fed and raised on the blood of others. The more you use your hatred to kill, the more it grows and develops into a huge animal that can in turn kill you. One of the respected Sudanese elders engaged his audience in a metaphor one day that hatred is a small animal that its owner feeds by destroying other people and when it has destroyed everything around, it comes back to destroy its owner.
You teach and preach tribal hatred. You feed it on the blood of your fellow countrymen and women who you consider as enemies. In the process, it can not spare you either. As they say, in the war both the winners and the losers share the losses.
General stereotype against a group as well as blaming the whole group of people for an act committed by an individual or individuals from a particular group can be considered as hate preaching. That kind of general blame or stereotype can lead to conflict resulting in deadly large scale massacres or genocides. Individuals should be held accountable for their actions. Individual can neither be defended for preaching hatred against others nor killing others because of their ethnicity or religion.
Make Anti-Hate Laws
Hate preaching should be considered as a serious crime against humanity for it is this that leads to massacres or genocides. Individuals who engage in doing it should be made to pay for it. I humbly request that law making bodies in Sudan and in Southern Sudan in particular should make anti-hate laws to curb the future large scale killings as it happened in many incidents in the past. Individuals who do the act should be made accountable and if the third person gets involved in defending the culprit because of mere reason of being from the same background, he/she should face the law more than the real culprit. Law should be allowed to take its course.
Tribal, Ethnic, and Religious Political Parties
There should not be tribal, ethnic and religious political parties in the Sudan. This is because group hatred is promoted through such parties. These parties abandon nationwide popular platforms and programs but adopt hate platforms and programs that only appeal to members from their background. When they come to power they implement their hate platforms and programs by oppressing others who do not belong to them. These lead to large scale killings as it happened in many parts of Sudan and in Rwanda.
In Europe, some political parties composed of people from one race and religion committed act of genocide when they were in power. The National Socialist German Workers Party known as the Nazi killed 6 million Jews during the WWII. The Young Turks in Turkey also killed 1.5 millions Armenians in Turkey. For most of my readers, you may be aware of many incidents of tribal massacres in Sudan committed by a group belonging to one particular group calling themselves a party or anything of that nature.
The Rwanda genocide was committed by Hutu extremists against Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Hutus were mainly in power and took that advantage to massacre the Tutsis. They had developed hatred over a long time. This hatred developed into conflict and then into genocide. I give these examples to make us aware that it is dangerous to have tribal and religious parties. So an ethnic or a religious group should not be allowed to have a political party of their own with the intention of coming to power.
Tribal Militias
Almost all the large scale killings that have occurred in history are committed by militias used as proxy by the group in power. The Rwandan government led by mainly the Hutus used the Interahamwe militia to kill the Tutsis. The Sudan government is now using Janjaweed militia to kill the Africans in Darfur.There should be no tribal militias. Any armed group affiliated with a particular ethnic group or religious group should be considered illegal and should be disarmed. Such armed groups if allowed may develop their own extreme hate ideologies against other group. The Janjaweed militia is an example in Sudan and we have all seen its danger. The tribal militias still existing in Southern Sudan should be disarmed. On the international scene, we have seen the dangerous activities of the Al qaeda and the Hezbollah.
Political Parties Bill
In Sudan, political parties should not be formed on tribal and religious basis. The political parties� law should be made to ensure that political parties who want to govern the country should be composed of members coming from background reflecting the diversity of the country. They should have platforms and programs that aims at promoting the well being and betterment of all the people regardless of religion, race and ethnicity. If a political party does not reflect the diversity of the country, then it can not be registered as a political party. This should not only prevent future problems such as large scale killing against other group but it should also promote nationalism instead of tribalism and sectarianism. Nations that are strong, free, powerful and prosperous are founded on love but not on hatred. Hatred destroys but loves builds.
* Nhial Tittmamer de Nhial is a Sudanese residing in Canada.
He can be reached at either [email protected] or [email protected]