What kind of world do we want?

Any reasonably sensitive person who reads Karin Leukefeld’s interview with Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta (see page 3) about his work in the field of conflict medicine and his commitment to the children of Palestine cannot help but feel deeply moved: shaken by the fact that Abu Sitta’s work has become necessary, because without his efforts – and those of many other people committed to humanitarian causes – the world would be even more unbearable than it appears here.
    What we are witnessing in the Middle East – in the form of a genocidal strategy of extermination against the populations surrounding Israel, which violates international law – and, though receiving less media attention, in other parts of the world such as the Congo or Sudan – is the ugly face of humanity’s worst perversion, driven by unbridled, self-serving lust for power and violence: a mental and emotional aberration and the resulting sick human behaviour, devoid of any human reason.
    That is not to say that such sick behaviour does not follow a certain logic: the logic of power based on money, a logic that holds all those involved hostage – or binds them using Epstein-style methods – if they do not wish to lose their place within this power structure. And prevents the rest, through a constant barrage of media coverage and relentless manipulation, from giving their spontaneous human feelings enough space to allow them to be silenced. A lust for power and greed have – not for the first time in history – led to an outburst of violence that harms everyone: the victims, the perpetrators – and the “bystanders”.
    For wherever international law is trampled underfoot, wherever the UN Charter is reduced to absurdity, wherever human rights appear to be non-existent – in all such places, the very foundations of human coexistence are denied. Denied – but not abolished. For they cannot be abolished. They are part of the human condition, the conditions of our existence as human beings. One can deny them. One can violate them – but they cannot be eradicated. They exist alongside us – and we alongside them.
    However, failing to respect the demands of the human condition inevitably has consequences. The less we take note of them, the less we are aware of them, respect them and live by them, the less humane our social life becomes, on both a large and a small scale. Cutting a bird’s wings may not kill it, but it does prevent it from flying. In order to realise their full potential, people need to live together in peace, freedom and dignity. For everyone.
    These are not merely ideals. People throughout history and across all cultures have been and continue to be inspired by them. Wherever they have been and continue to be put into practice, they have fostered a flourishing of society – accompanied by greater opportunities for the development of individuality and enhanced social cohesion within communities. In terms of the potential inherent in their nature, human beings are “ultra-social” creatures. All their uniquely human abilities develop solely within social relationships: walking upright, language and thought, self-awareness, and the capacity for understanding – all these emerge only within and in relation to interpersonal relationships. It is only in and with them that we can develop the intellectual, emotional and technical skills whose combination in modern technology – for example, in medicine the art of healing – has enabled us to improve and safeguard life to such an extent.
    Our social nature also includes the capacity for empathy, mutual support and being there for one another. As numerous results from modern developmental research show, children are born with this social orientation. However, it can only flourish within a social context, in trusting relationships where we are free to pursue our own interests in a way that serves social cohesion, and thereby to realise our freedom as human beings and our human dignity. Insights drawn from numerous fields of knowledge – including the study of human history, anthropology, cultural anthropology, philosophy, the philosophy of law, psychology and many related disciplines – provide ample material on this subject. Certainly, more so than an analysis of the stock market profits of arms manufacturers.
    Anyone who wishes to dismiss this as idealism has to face the question whether they have really grappled with all the knowledge available today – and whether they are also aware of the considerable efforts that those in power throughout history have always made to prevent this knowledge from becoming common knowledge. Dismissing it serves the very same power interests. It is no coincidence that, for example, the psychology of Alfred Adler – who addressed the problem of power as a distortion of human emotional life and placed the social structure of human existence as a whole at the heart of psychological understanding – has been so little taken up to this day, and not just by the psychology department.
    Decades after the end of the World War, the sincere hopes of humanity and of all those humiliated and wronged by the genocides rested on the prohibition of wars of aggression, based on the 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” – the first of its kind in world history – and its subsequent covenants, which are binding on states, as well as on the UN Charter. These were the achievements of people from all over the world, whose moral and legal conscience compelled them to build a dam of law to prevent a repeat of the catastrophes they had experienced.
    Today we stand before the ruins of all that. The ruins of justice, humanity and human trust – without them, constructive living and rebuilding are impossible.
    When the sole aim is to use one’s own “narratives” and “stories” to persuade others to accept or endorse such atrocities, the very foundations of human life are indeed called into question. A way of living together based on “cleverly” outwitting one another, on deceit, treachery and dishonesty – for example, negotiations conducted for the sole purpose of stalling, – disregard for generally accepted norms of international law, and the denial of human rights to entire groups of people held in an open-air prison – such a structure brings us to the brink of self-destruction. Such mafia-like structures cannot form the basis for human life on this planet. Just as an upbringing steeped in hatred, fostering a sense of one’s own superiority coupled with contempt for others, leaves psychological scars that are diametrically opposed to the idea of a humanistic personality capable of truly realising its human potential. We are all dependent on one another. We need trusting human interaction, without which a child cannot develop into a fully-fledged human being, without which an adult would also perish, and without which no aspect of human life can truly function. We need to live together and cooperate with one another – no one can escape this logic of human coexistence. Politics must be founded on this.
    What is happening in the Middle East – and not only there – is a damning indictment. Mistakes in history are always terrible enough when they stem from ignorance. But how are we to describe today’s “mistakes”, which are made against our better judgement – obscured by insidious talk of democracy, of supposed values, of the fight against terrorism and of threats – such as nuclear ones – which in reality have existed on our own side for decades?
    In this country, it is still accepted that people who protest against being stripped of all their rights are subjected to genocide as alleged or “potential terrorists”. Meanwhile, the real terrorists – dressed in suits and ties – carry out the orders of their financiers from the invisible bridge of command of transatlantic geopolitics. And they pat each other on the back for it, spinning their “narratives” to justify actions that cannot be justified – actions that merely copy the logic of the absolute ruler who places himself above all law. Shielded by “ministries of truth” that persecute any dissenting opinion or reporting in transatlantic countries as a “threat”.
    Admittedly, we have not yet realised the full extent of the consequences here. Life is still relatively good. Although the signs of decline are certainly visible in all Western countries – the “orchestra” is still playing.
    What humanity achieved in the wake of the horrors of two world wars – the prohibition of the use of force enshrined in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Geneva Conventions and much more – we must reclaim these achievements. This will require a wide-ranging discussion and the development of a broad understanding of why these agreements are not mere “deals”, but rather principles established on the basis of mutual understanding that are not up for negotiation.
    However we look at it, the children in Gaza and the children in Lebanon are our children too. If we listen to our conscience and our capacity for compassion, they inevitably lead us to ask ourselves: what if I were in the other person’s shoes? One person alone cannot turn the world upside down. But there is one thing they can do, without which nothing else matters: they can ask themselves, “What if I were that child in Gaza, in Lebanon?” It is no merit to have been born elsewhere. We have the ability to empathise with other people – without this ability, we could not live, we could not grow up, and we could not find our way in the world. Unfortunately, this capacity is severely limited by numerous influences and misconceptions about human beings, above all by ideological prejudices and the divisive attitudes that go hand in hand with them. But it is a question that anyone can ask themselves. It is the inner voice of our social nature, the voice of conscience, that poses this question and thereby frees us from the shackles of the errors that hold us back – this is the first act, more than an “idea”, but the very first human act. Whatever each person then does, they know it and do it out of their own, newly reawakened human feeling.
    Driven by the sentiment expressed by Ghassan Abu Sitta: “This has to stop!” And the realisation that: “Gaza is not an isolated case. What is happening in Gaza will be repeated everywhere.” This is not the world we want. It must change.It must be a humane world for everyone. •