Humanity and Racism

The views expressed in this op-ed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of SyriacPress.

By Suphi Aksoy

The human race, with its unique structure and characteristics, has spread over the face of the earth as a separate race distinctive from other living species and has developed by socializing in different groups. For this reason, man has become nature’s most conscious social being with his capabilities of thought and operational qualities.

Since human groups developed in different climates and in different parts of the world, each group has formed its own culture, language, beliefs, and means of life. As small communities united, larger entities of tribes, nations, and peoples emerged. The humanization adventure of the human race that began hundreds of thousands of years ago has reached our present day by going through extraordinarily complex processes and rugged roads. And it is moving into the future with extraordinary speed.

As our world is defined and shaped in different regions in terms of hot, cold, wetlands and drought, human communities also differ from one another in terms of color, physique, language, beliefs, and culture. The colors of people are black, white, red, yellow, hybrid, oblique, blue, green, black, brown, etc. even though race and origin of man is one.

If men and women belong to different nations, tribes, and clans, this does not mean that human communities belong to different races. Ruling powers, kings, and emperors, however, have always applied race discriminatory, divisive, and hostile politics to exploit people. They developed the concepts of the pure tribe, the pure ummah, and the pure sect in mythology and religious beliefs as tools. Definitions of holy human types versus unholy human types, and heavenly people versus infernal people were created to support these theories and concepts.

Each dominant or sovereign power has glorified the ideology on which it is based. Those who are devoted to it are sinless; the other is a community of sinful humans, criminals who must be punished. Since discrimination and separatism are the indispensable and most powerful basic weapons of the system of exploitation and the oppressors who own the system, different groups of people have started to regard themselves as the mother-, ancestor-, and father- of a separate race and humanity, breaking away from reality.

With fascism racism was glorified. And to support it, theories with pure racial and demagogic concepts were developed. With the creation of the fascist mentality, racism has become humanity’s biggest disease. Because racism is a source of discrimination between people who speak different languages and different beliefs, but live in the same, neighboring, or distant geographies, racists are constantly trying to survive by sowing the seeds of enmity between the peoples, by sowing wars and conflicts, causing genocide and massacres, plunder and rape.

It is a great contradiction that many of those who say that they believe in the oneness of God and that all beings were created by God, spit fire every day against those who are not of their own beliefs and interests. They say they believe in God and the greatness of the Creator, but they savagely attack all peoples who are not their own and adhere to different values. It is very clear, however, that the people brainwashed and turned into murderers by the racists with their racist fatwas, have nothing to do with religion, conscience, or humanity.

Those who deceive people and exploit their feelings with the nonsense of “superior race” and on the basis of politics of destruction, denial, and plunder, remain unpunished despite committing a major crime. This is because the masses are driven by chauvinistic sentiments and distanced from historical facts and human values. Racists primarily focus on killing their neighbors of different beliefs and cultures and looting their property. Why? Because they do not tolerate social pluralism, they don’t accept different cultural riches and splendid colors.

Today, in Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq and almost every country in the world, racism is the primary source of conflict. Dominant powers in Turkey want to see everyone Turkish; sovereign powers in Iran want to see all Iranian; their neighboring countries want to see only Arabs, Muslims, Sunnis, Shiites… For this reason, racists have tried and continue trying to exterminate many ethnic and religious identities by carrying out genocides and massacres. They banned songs, speech, and historical cultural symbols in different languages.

Humanity is a rich race in its diversity. Those who issue murder fatwas against Christians, Yazidis, Alevi etc. and other groups are those who are enemies of the human race. Race wars have been started by introducing discrimination among people for ideological, political, and economic reasons. This type of war is the worst self-hostile form possessed by the human race, and it only serves the interest of a handful of ruling fascists.

The time has come for the human race to demonstrate the virtue of a building democratic civilization with the consciousness of being human, i.e. by making earth a place of peace and coexistence. There should be no need for dictators to imprison life for the interests of fascists. There should be no need for regimes to restrict freedom of travel by dividing the earth with the boundaries of states. All peoples who speak different languages and have different beliefs have the right to live in their own homeland and in any part of the world without being subjected to pressure or persecution.

The greatest medicine for getting rid of racism is democratic cultural awareness.

Disclaimer: translated from the original Turkish here.