The Politics Of Hate

It is easier to collect a crowd for a cause of hate than love. We might as well admit that human beings love a good fight. We gather steam when we are pitted against someone else. Then we put our heads together, form teams, and do everything in our capacity to accomplish dominance.

There are many reasons why hate groups are formed. I remember when I was a child, there was a new girl in the block. She was richer than others and had plenty of new clothes. I belonged to a play group which had a leader. Every time the girl wore a new dress, our leader would ask us to not speak to her. I would then hesitantly do what the leader asked me to do. Ours was a big group and I did not want to get out of it. That would mean I would not be included in the games any more. The only property that made our leader a leader was that she was a year older than all of us. But she had us all doing things our hearts did not agree to. Such games are not just childhood games. We face such situations in grown up lives too, when people gang up against someone else under a bully leader.

Sometimes, hate groups are formed because hating is profitable. For example, if there was no oil involved, Americans would have nothing against Islam. When I first went to America, the only way Americans discriminated was by the color of your skin. For them, an Ahmed or Gupta was just the same. Not any more. All the hating that happened in the name of oil has made regular Americans afraid of names. When on the topic of color discrimination, again it still thrives because at one time slave trade was profitable. To dehumanize someone justifies your hate. But one needs to be careful while hating. Hate does not go away too soon. It continues for generations making it impossible for many to live fuller lives. Hate takes extreme forms. During the holocaust, the Nazis made leather from the skins of Jewish people. During riots in India, people get killed, women get raped, and property gets destroyed. There is no profit in hate. There is only destruction of the haters and the hated. Germany got colonized because of holocaust. India is getting divided more and more each day.

History is filled with hate stories. As we breathe, hate happens all around us. The root cause of hate is bad leaders. Bad leaders exploit the darkest feelings of their people. They even generate feelings that never existed. Bad leaders care for nothing but power for themselves. We can escape this trap of hate if we become more aware. There are many beautiful speeches on this topic but the best one yet is the one by Charlie Chaplin in the movie “The Great Dictator”. Chaplin was an artist and not a politician and he speaks from his heart. I record his speech here because I think everyone must hear it.

“I am sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible, Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world, there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel. Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate. Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery. Fight for liberty.

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men. In you! You, the people have the power, the power to create machines. The power to create happiness. You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie. They do not fulfill that promise. They never will.

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite.”

In these hard times, where man is pitted against man, all the time, let us remember Chaplin’s speech. Tolstoy says “Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.” I think hate was invented to cover the empty place where love should be. Let God give us all strength to ignore the politics of hate and walk in the path of truth and love.